Search Results for: New Edge Sword

New Treasures: Skallagrim – In the Vales of Pagarna by Stephen R. Babb

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Experience Skallagrim – In the Vales of Pagarna by Stephen R. Babb in all its forms. This post covers everything to get you hooked, from a summary, review, excerpts, and links to the complementing albums from Glass Hammer. Reading Skallagrim feels like you are a witness to the live version of Frazetta’s “Against the Gods” painting! You actually witness a hero grab a sword from the sky. The opening scene poses a set of mysteries as the titular protagonist is…

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New Treasures: World Breakers edited by Tony Daniel and Christopher Ruocchio

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World Breakers (Baen mass market reprint, July 26, 2022). Cover by Dominic Harman If you’re one of the (very few) folks who pay attention when I complain, you know that I frequently lament the decline of the mass market science fiction anthology. Book store shelves used to be full of ’em, and nowadays they’ve all but vanished. Folks don’t have an appetite for short fiction these days, at least not in the way they used to. And that’s a shame…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: More o’ Zorro

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Zorro, like the Batman, who borrowed more than a little from the adventures of the masked hero, is a perennial; Hollywood always has another reboot percolating in pre-production somewhere, and occasionally one of these makes it to the screen and the black-clad outlaw rides again. Disney’s Zorro was the definitive version from the late Fifties until the Seventies, when alternative takes on the evergreen character began to appear once more. The legend of Zorro is sturdy, iconic, and can stand…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Forgotten Fantasies

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Hercules in the Haunted World (Italy, 1961) During the late Fifties and early Sixties, if you were a fan of films of imagination and the fantastic, though there were plenty of monster movies playing at the drive-in, except for the films of Ray Harryhausen there were very few classical fantasies coming out of Hollywood — and Harryhausen’s movies were mostly British productions. In fact, heroic fantasy films were thin on the ground, being regarded in America as fodder for children….

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New Treasures: Rainbringer: Zora Neale Hurston Against The Lovecraftian Mythos by Edward M. Erdelac

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Rainbringer: The Symphonic Heavy Metal of Weird Fiction Edward M. Erdelac has been writing entertaining weird fiction for over a decade. He pushes boundaries. One of his first spotlights on Black Gate was in 2014 regarding his Merkabah Rider (concerning the 19th-century Hasidic Jewish mystic turned gunslinger).  Erdelac also wrote an entry in Tales of Cthulhu Invictus mentioned in my recent 2022 review of Richard L. Tierney’s Simon of Gitta tales (this connection resonates since both Tierney and Erdelac extended…

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New Treasures: DMR presents TERRA INCOGNITA: Lost Worlds of Fantasy and Adventure

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  Readers of Black Gate will be familiar with D.M. Ritzlin (champion of DMR books) and Doug Draa (editor of Weirdbook Magazine and Startling Stories). Releasing this week is their TERRA INCOGNITA: Lost Worlds of Fantasy and Adventure anthology (Trade Paperback, 222 pages, $14.99;  Digital: $4.99). Order via DMR Books or Amazon. For this they gathered seven authors, including many Black Gate veterans (contributors or featured in the articles): David C. Smith, Adrian Cole, S.E. Lindberg, J. Thomas Howard, Milton Davis, John C….

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Sink Me! Scarlet Pimpernels!

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The Scarlet Pimpernel (UK, 1934) The Baroness Orczy (1865-1947) – but really, we must give her her full name: Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orczi – no wonder they called her “Emmuska” for short – was a Hungarian noble by birth whose family left Hungary after her father’s farm was burned by rioting peasantry. Which may have had something to do with her later decision to write about the persecution of aristocrats during the French Revolution. One…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 4

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The Warrior and the Sorceress (Argentina/USA, 1984) Barbarians don’t get no respect. The fantasy films released in the wake of the unexpected worldwide success of Star Wars (1977) were all over the map, varying widely in approach and quality, but the barbarian lookalikes that followed the first Conan movie (1982) stuck to a formula, in quality plunging straight to the bottom of the barrel and mostly staying there as the barrel bumped along the cheapie exploitation circuit for the next…

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New Treasures: Frolic on the Amaranthyn by Chase A. Folmar

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Frolic on the Amaranthyn (Sable Star Press,4/6/2022). Cover art by Goran Gligović Frolic on the Amaranthyn will be published by Sable Star Press on April 6th, 2022. It is 130 pages, priced at$7.99 paperback and $2.99 in digital formats (available soon from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others).  Cover art by Goran Gligović. This post announces the release and previews excerpts. Chase A. Folmar has been demonstrating his command of Weird Fiction, Sword & Sorcery (S&S), and the English language in…

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So I’m Writing a Novel: A Sword & Sorcery Podcast

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There is a swell of community growing around Sword & Sorcery (S&S) fiction. At least on the amateur and semi-professional level, there are a wealth of markets to enjoy and submit to, including (a partial list in alphabetical order): DMR books, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Parallel Universe Publications, Pulp Hero Press,  Rogue Blades, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Weirdbook. and Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of S&S. As the ranks of authors, readers, and platforms grow, members are gathering across platforms such as…

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