Search Results for: New Edge Sword

James E. Gunn, July 12, 1923 – December 23, 2020

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  Sad news for the science fiction and fantasy writing world.  James Edwin Gunn, writer, scholar, teacher and Science Fiction Grandmaster, died of congestive heart failure Wednesday December 23, 2020.  James Gunn founded the University of Kansas Center for Science Fiction Studies, and from their site Center Director Chris McKitterick wrote: The Center’s Associate Director, Kij Johnson, and I offer our deepest condolences to everyone who cared about Jim, whose lives he touched – and there were many – and whose…

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A Solstice Story

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There’s just something magical about snow at Christmas time. Image by zanna-76 from Pixabay It’s going to be a rough Christmas for many of us. Where I am, the government is considering an immediate, province-wide shutdown. Just a few days before Christmas. This means that I won’t be able to see my brother, who had been planning to come up and see us (he’s been very good about quarantining, so I feel safe hanging out with him). It is all for the best,…

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Imaro Series Tour Guide

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“Who am I? Who is my father? Where is my mother? Why do death and demons follow me wherever I go?” – Imaro in The Quest for Cush Charles R. Saunders, the originator of Sword & Soul, passed away May this year (2020, Greg Mele covered a tribute for Black Gate). Saunders is most known for his Imaro tales chronicling an African-inspired “Conan the Barbarian” on the fictional continent of Nyumbani. Saunders also wrote of a heroine named Dossouye (separate series), amongst…

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Weird Tales Deep Read: July 1936

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Margaret Brundage for Red Nails We return to the golden age of Weird Tales to consider the eleven stories in the July 1936 issue. This time around we’re dealing with many familiar authors, led by the triumvirate of C. L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard, one H. P. Lovecraft short of perfection. The big three present classic tales from their popular fantasy series (Northwest Smith, Zothique, Conan). The other familiar names deliver more of a mixed bag,…

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Rogue Blades presents: “Deep in the Land of Ice and Snow”

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My short story “Deep in the Land of Ice and Snow” originally appeared in the collection The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure by Rogue Blades Entertainment. Enjoy. The wolves were too many. Belgad knew that as he soon as he spotted the beasts. There were nearly a score of them, and if that were not bad enough, the creatures were huge, each nearly the size of a riding pony. What was worse, the wolves were quiet and…

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Zig Zag Claybourne’s Exclusive Interview with A Sinister Quartet Authors

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Ah, Horror in the time of Covid! It seems almost superfluous, like a feather boa on an ostrich. However, we the authors of A Sinister Quartet (Mythic Delirium 2020), have pranced fancily forward on that ostrich! Ostriches piled on ostriches! Feather boas galore! Which feather boas, I might add, sport an unnerving number of teeth and eyeballs. (Editor and author Mike Allen likes to say of our book: “It’s the fun horror, the kind you consume for imaginative shocks and chills, not the kind that…

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Doors Open, Doors Closed: Alan Garner’s Elidor

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Elidor (Del Rey, July 1981). Cover by Laurence Schwinger One of the best things about starting a book is that you can never be sure exactly how you’re going to respond to it, and those responses can range all the way from hurl the damned thing across the room hatred to toe-curling bliss, with all of a million subtle shadings in between. Every once in a while, though, a book breaks through even the upper ranges of enjoyment and appreciation and…

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Fantasia 2020, Part XIII: Crazy Samurai Musashi

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Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) was one of the greatest samurai and greatest swordfighters ever to live. By his own account, he fought over sixty duels and won all of them. Stories about Musashi have been told and retold over the centuries, notably including the great novel Musashi (1935-39) by Eiji Yoshikawa. Films about him have proliferated, the most famous likely being Hirohi Inagaki’s Samurai trilogy (1954-55) starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi. One of Musashi’s greatest recorded battles was a conflict with…

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Rogue Blades Author: 1975: The Year of the Cormac

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The following is an excerpt from Keith J. Taylor’s essay for Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, an upcoming book from the Rogue Blades Foundation. It has often been said that Robert E. Howard’s main heroes were largely cut to the same pattern — tall, powerful Gaels or proto-Gaels, black-haired, blue-eyed, mighty in combat, scowling and somber. Conan himself fits that description, as does Kull of Atlantis, Turlogh Dubh O’Brien, the less-than-idealistic Norman-Irish crusader Cormac FitzGeoffrey — and Cormac Mac Art, though the latter has “narrow…

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Weird Tales Deep Read: November 1934

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Weird Tales, November 1934. Cover by Margaret Brundage (for “Queen of the Lillin”) We’re back on more familiar ground with this issue of Weird Tales from its classic period. More familiar authors are represented, and although not every story is a classic the editors at least avoided any real stumbles this. The issue grades out to a 2.1, which all in all is pretty decent. Both Howard and Lovecraft appear, although the Lovecraft tale is a reprint and the Howard is…

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