Search Results for: New Edge Sword

OLD MOON QUARTERLY Issue V Review plus a Kickstarter for VII and VIII

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Old Moon Quarterly magazine, Issue #5 (138p). Cover art by Derek Moore Old Moon Quarterly is a magazine of dark fantasy and weird sword-and-sorcery. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the bloody dispute thereof by both swordsmen and swordswomen. Old Moon Quarterly emerged in 2022 led by Editor-in-Chief Julian Barona, flanked by Assistant Editors Caitlyn Emily Wilcox and Graham Thomas Wilcox. This May 2023,…

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I Was A Teenage Abomination from Another Dimension: The Inhabitant of the Lake & Other Unwelcome Tenants by Ramsey Campbell

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Dear Mr. Campbell, I have received your stories, but I have had time to read only one or two of them. I don’t want to comment on them in extended fashion until I’ve read all, but I do think them competent. However, there is one alteration I think you should definitely make; Mr. Wandrei would insist on it, and that is to remove your stories from the Lovecraft milieu. I mean, keep the Gods, the Books, etc., but establish your…

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Vintage Treasures: Lin Carter’s Weird Tales, Part II

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Table of Contents for Weird Tales 1, edited by Lin Carter (Zebra Books, December 1980) For yesterday’s Vintage Treasures post, I finally had the chance to discuss Lin Carter’s early-80s attempt to resuscitate the Magazine that Never Dies, the long-running weird fiction pulp Weird Tales. Since I examined all four paperbacks, there wasn’t room in that article to look back at some of the fascinating discussions they’ve triggered over the last four decades, including lengthy commentary from Carter himself —…

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A World of Sand and Sorrow: The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi

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They say there is no water in the City of Lies. They say there are no heroes in the City of Lies. They say there are no friends beyond the City of Lies. But would you believe what they say in the City of Lies? In the City of Lies, they cut out your tongue when you turn thirteen, to appease the terrifying Ajungo Empire and make sure it continues sending water. Tutu will be thirteen in three days, but…

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THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, PT2 by T.H. WHITE

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“Thomas, my idea of those knights was a sort of candle, like these ones here. I have carried it for many years with a hand to shield it from the wind. It has flickered often. I am giving you the candle now — you won’t let it out?” “It will burn.” King Arthur to Tom of Warwick, p. 647 The Once and Future King Read the first part of this review, Might For Right: The Once And Future King, Part…

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This is Hanuvar’s Moment: Howard Andrew Jones’ Lord of a Shattered Land

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Lord of a Shattered Land (Baen Books, August 1, 2023). Cover Art by Dave Seeley From the beginning, Sword and Sorcery has been an existentialist literature of the outsider. The rogue, the mercenary, the outcast, the criminal: from Conan to Elric, Fafhrd to Corwin of Amber, Jirel of Joiry to Grimnir the Corpse-maker, the S&S protagonist finds themselves at odds with their society, confronted with aggressive meaninglessness and called upon to carve out their own meaning in a chaotic, ever-changing,…

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Only the Beginning: The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

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IN A DISTANT AND SECONDHAND SET OF DIMENSIONS, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part… See… Great A’Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters. Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and asteroid dust He stares fixedly at the Destination. In a brain bigger than a city, with geological slowness, He thinks…

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Talking Tolkien: The Lay of the Nauglamir

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Today in Talking Tolkien, it’s a long-term project I work on every so often. The story of the Nauglamir (The Necklace of the Dwarves) may well be my favorite story in all of The Legendarium. It was the subject of my very first Tolkien essay. Last year, I read The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. I really liked that book. I also read part of The Story of Kullervo, though the layout and non-Tolkien commentary didn’t work nearly as well…

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Talking Tolkien: Philosophical Themes in the Silmarillion – by Joe Bonadonna

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We kicked off Talking Tolkien with Joe Bonadonna, and he’s back! After looking at religious themes in The Lord of the Rings the first time around, it’s philosophical ones in The Silmarillion. Joe does the heavy lifting – I’m just a pretty face. As with his first essay, he wades into pretty deep waters. Joe has guested for my ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ Pulp series, and I’m thrilled he wanted to Talk Tolkien. He even recruited two of…

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Vintage Treasures: War in Heaven by David Zindell

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War in Heaven (Bantam Spectra, January 1998). Cover by Dean Williams David Zindell came out of the gate strong as a young science fiction writer in the 80s and 90s. He was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986, and his debut novel Neverness won instant and wide acclaim. Edward Bryant said it “Propels him instantly into the big leagues with the likes of Frank Herbert and Ursula K. Le Guin,” and Kirkus Reviews…

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