This review originally appeared on Goodreads on March 31, 2017.

Thunder on the Battlefield: Sword

Edited by James R. Tuck – Seventh Star Press, LLC – August 20, 2013

Review by Robin Marx

This is the first in a pair of anthologies collecting recent sword & sorcery stories. It contains a dozen stories, all of them with an emphasis on battle and combat.

“The Horde” by G. Jerome Henson The anthology begins with a story about a tribe rising up against the empire that colonized them. The story suffers a bit from being mostly told in flashback form, which is something I tend to think works better in novels than short stories. Not bad, but a bit disjointed.

“Paper Demons” by Jay Requard This story reminded me pleasantly of The Black Company series by Glenn Cook. A squad of colorful mercenaries from various different lands (including an interesting protagonist from fantasy India) find themselves in a China-inspired setting with orders to capture a deceptively cooperative sorceress. The resolution of the story involves both brains and brawn, and the setting and characters appealed.

“The Wolf and the Crow” by D.T. Neal This was another winner, perhaps the best story in the entire book. A wandering swordsman arrives in town just as a witch is to be put to death. Seemingly on a lark, he declares himself the witch's champion, even though it means facing off against a savage, bestial warrior. Nearly the entire story is a blow-by-blow description of their duel, and there's a lot of subtle and effective world-building revealed a bit at a time. This story in particular left me wanting to find out what happened next.

“Forest of Shadows” by John F. Allen An amorous barbarian warrior fights a number of supernatural opponents and encounters some pliant women. Apart from the final one, the action scenes seemed a bit perfunctory and the sex scenes juvenile. As a whole it wasn't bad, per se, but a lesser work of swords & sorcery that doesn't do much to expand upon the usual tropes.

“Emissary” by Marcella Burnard Set in a fantasy Egypt, this story is about a bad-ass warrior priestess and her two lioness companions returning to the city of her birth to avenge the destruction of the temple of her patron goddess, Sekhmet. While I found the minimal amount of resistance she faced on the way to her target—a sorcerer king—a little odd, her climactic battle with a reluctant opponent was well rendered and tinged with a surprising and welcome little bit of romance. “Emissary” was yet another story with a protagonist I would like to see reappear in another story.

“The Dogs of War” by David J. West Set during the Fourth Crusade, this tale is about a Viking and a Belgian mercenary who encounter some surprising supernatural resistance during the invasion of Constantinople. The story felt a little brief, with the threat dispatched a little too handily, but I've really enjoyed how many of these stories are set in the real world. “Historical sword & sorcery” is a subgenre that I would love to see expanded further. This story pleasantly reminded me of Gentlemen of the Road, by Michael Chabon. (It's a minor gripe, but while the editing for this anthology has been largely high quality this story in particular suffered from a number of misplaced apostrophes.)

“The Red Hand” by Alexis A. Hunter In this story centaurs and the undead, led by a powerful necromancer, have been at war for decades. The protagonist is a centaur warrior raised by the dead in the hope of finally putting an end to the conflict. I enjoyed the premise and grim atmosphere, but given the ending I was left feeling strongly that this story should not have been written in the first person past tense. It just doesn't work.

“Where the Red Blossoms Weep” by James R. Tuck Taking place on an Assyrian battlefield, this history-flavored tale involves a struggle between the last two survivors of the conflict and some particularly unsavory scavengers. The story was brief and fairly straightforward, but muscularly written.

“Thief of Souls” by Loriane Parker This story focuses on a specter (in this case, an armored skeleton) who, with the help of a human accomplice, seeks revenge on the treacherous former friend who slew both him and his wife. While I'm not clear on the reason why it took twenty years for the specter to put his plan into motion (if it was covered in the text, my eyes skipped past it), the premise was interesting and the execution effective. A solid entry.

“The Gnawed Bone” by W.E. Wertenberger A group of mercenaries' trip to a tavern leads to a horrific hangover among unpleasant company. The story takes a while to get rolling, the monsters seem to have a poor grasp of tactics, and some holes can be poked in the narrative, but overall it ended up being a lot of fun.

“All the Lands, Nowhere a Home” by Steven Zimmer While the adventure in the second half of the story was enjoyable, the first half of the story spends too much time on the Valkyrie-like main character's dealing with boorish men. The story begins with her killing a number of brigands for raping a refugee, then she beats up multiple leering drunks in a tavern for mistreating barmaids and groping her. This would have been fine if the plot that followed had been some sort of meditation about women's plight in a male-dominated world, but the meat of the story has nothing more to say about gender, focusing on a wilderness encounter with a horrific ghoul-like creature. The second half of the story is exciting and well-rendered, but because of the disconnect between the adventure portion and the opening the heroine's characterization suffers. All the seemingly extraneous verbiage spent on her protecting women against the depredations of men ends up making her look like the cliche of a “strong independent woman who don't need no man” when a lighter hand would have made her more effective as a heroine. Her bravery, loyalty, and battle prowess in the second half do more to exhibit her strength and toughness than the wasted paragraphs punching alcoholics for making sexist remarks. The end was exciting, but this story could have been tightened up.

“The Witch of Rymal Pass” by J.S. Veter The contrast between the heroine in this story and the one from the preceding tale could not have been greater. Themis is presented as a vengeful force of nature throughout this bloody revenge tale, with no words wasted on describing her as a strong woman warrior, her every single action demonstrates it. Nasty and gory, this was one of the highlights of the anthology.

Overall this was a strong anthology that I would be happy to recommend to any fan of the sword & sorcery subgenre of fantasy. The stories by Requard, Neal, and Veter in particular stood out from the pack. I look forward to reading the Sorcery-focused sequel.

★★★★☆

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