This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on August 31, 2023.

Lord of a Shattered Land

By Howard Andrew Jones – Baen Books – August 1, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

Lord of a Shattered Land opens immediately after the decisive conclusion of a brutal, genocidal war. After two previous conflicts were fought to stalemate, the expansionist Dervan Empire has finally succeeded in crushing Volanus. Not just content to dominate the rival city-state militarily, the Dervans exterminated nearly all the populace, razed Volanus’ iconic silver towers, and salted its fields. The handful of survivors were shipped back to the Empire in chains. Leading troops in the field, Hanuvar—Volanus’ greatest general—was absent for the obliteration of his homeland. Having witnessed him plummet into the ocean from a great height, the Dervan legions rejoiced at the death of their hated foe. But reports of Hanuvar’s demise have proved premature. After washing up on an island, Hanuvar immediately pits his formidable military mind against the Dervans anew. He vows not to rest until every Volani survivor has been freed from slavery.

First volume in a planned five-book saga entitled The Chronicles of Hanuvar, Lord of a Shattered Land has an unusual structure. Rather than a conventional novel, it’s a cycle of 14 linked short stories. Each chapter is a self-contained story but taken together they tell a greater narrative. Unlike the fix-up novels of classic science fiction and fantasy, where disparate short stories are tied together post facto, the individual component stories that make up The Chronicles of Hanuvar were intended from conception to contribute to a planned, overarching plot. This structure feels a bit like a market-driven compromise between the typical short story format of Sword & Sorcery fiction (Jones is a vocal proponent of Sword & Sorcery and also serves as editor of the subgenre’s premiere magazine, Tales From The Magician’s Skull) and major publishers’ preference for multi-volume epic fare, but in the end it works surprisingly well. Each chapter satisfies as a bite-sized piece of entertainment while still providing a sense of overall progression and forward momentum.

While many of the stories collected in Lord of a Shattered Land involve Hanuvar traveling to a new locale, encountering Volani survivors, and attempting to free them from the yoke of Dervan slavery, there is significant variation in tone throughout the book. Straightforward man vs. monster Sword & Sorcery tales are included alongside heist and espionage stories. There’s even a fairytale: “Shroud of Feathers.” While Hanuvar himself displays too much integrity to be considered a grimdark hero, his mission and the setting are decidedly grim, with the oppressive cruelty of the Dervan Empire on constant display. Depictions of violence are generally brief—Hanuvar tends to eliminate threats with cold efficiency—but graphic, and chapters like “The Eyes of the Reaper,” “The Missing Man,” and “The Light of the Lovely Ones” emphasize horrific elements, venturing deep into dark territory.

Given the nature of the book, whether Lord of a Shattered Land will be successful for a given reader or not depends greatly on how they react to Hanuvar as a character. Jones makes no secret that his hero is inspired by the great general Hannibal of Carthage, known for his strategic genius in the Punic Wars against Rome. While historically the destruction of Carthage took place decades after Hannibal’s death, Jones has Hanuvar survive the razing of his Carthage analogue, rising again as a sort of avenging angel for his people. Fiftyish and hindered by chronic war injuries, Hanuvar relies on clever tactics, decades of hard-earned experience, and steely determination. Despite all the historical flavoring, however, Hanuvar’s preternatural competence and tendency to be several steps ahead of the opposition reminded me of cinematic spy heroes like James Bond, or Ethan Hunt from the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series. Some of the quieter moments in the book reveal that Hanuvar carries a great deal of survivor’s guilt for not being present at the destruction of Volanus, but he never allows himself to wallow in self-pity or indulge himself in “extracurricular” revenge. The mission to free his enslaved countrymen is always first and foremost in his mind, and deep within enemy territory he frequently finds himself left with no choice but to work alongside citizens of the very Empire that destroyed his homeland.

While readers who prefer significantly flawed or morally ambiguous protagonists may be left cold by Hanuvar’s righteous certitude, Lord of a Shattered Land is ideal for fans of intensely driven, hyper-competent heroes. The episodic nature of the storytelling makes it an ideal book for brief reading sessions, and the individual chapters span a wide range of story types. The pseudo-Mediterranean setting and Roman trappings are also a nice change of pace from Northern European-inspired fantasy.

Readers who enjoy Lord of a Shattered Land will not have long to wait for a sequel. The City of Marble and Blood is set to arrive this October, with two further volumes in The Chronicles of Hanuvar scheduled for release in 2024.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on August 12, 2023.

Conan the Barbarian #1

By Jim Zub (Writer) and Roberto De La Torre (Artist) – Titan Comics – August 2, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

This first installment of Titan Comics’ Conan the Barbarian is set eight years after the debut Free Comic Book Day issue. Still just 24 years old, Conan is already a veteran of numerous battles and brushes with supernatural horrors. Since putting his homeland of Cimmeria behind him, he’s ranged from Asgard to Nemedia, Corinthia to Zamora. As a teenager he left the burned-out outpost of Venarium curious about the outside world, only to discover dishonorable men at every turn. Tired and embittered, he has come full circle, to the northern Aquilonian frontier town of Hauler’s Roam, not far from both Venarium and Cimmeria. After a violent altercation with the incompetent and cowardly leader of his most recent employer, a mercenary band, Conan pauses to consider his next move. His respite is short-lived, however, as an enigmatic Pictish horsewoman gallops into town warning of the Army of the Lost: a horde of undead raiders. As the sky is plunged into an eerie darkness, Conan must once more take up his sword against a preternatural threat.

In this first full-length issue, Robert De La Torre’s artwork continues to display a strong (and pleasing!) John Buscema influence without slavishly aping the fan-favorite Marvel artist. The artwork is dynamic and gory, with a surprising number of decapitations for a single issue. There’s also a single panel with bare breasts on display, perhaps signaling that this series will hew closer to the more adult-oriented Savage Sword of Conan magazine of the 1970s than the all-ages Marvel Conan the Barbarian comic that ran in parallel. My only complaint with the artwork thus far is that sometimes the “camera” feels a little too distant from the action, making faces indistinct.

Jim Zub’s writing is punchy but restrained. Quite frequently comic authors seeking to emulate Conan creator Robert E. Howard’s “blood and thunder” prose end up cramming too much text into the panels, paradoxically slowing the reader down with wordy, breathless narration. Zub wisely lets the artwork do the heavy lifting, highlighting and emphasizing the action with his text rather than unnecessarily repeating it.

As with the Free Comic Book Day issue, Conan the Barbarian #1 closes with another brief article by Conan scholar Jeffrey Shanks, this time entitled “Robert E. Howard and His Ages Undreamed Of.” As the Pictish people feature heavily in this issue, Shanks discusses how Picts, Atlanteans, Lemurians, and other antediluvian races reappear across Howard’s non-Conan work, resulting in a sort of greater shared universe. Shanks’ essays provide useful context for the original stories that inspired the comic and are kept brief enough that they’re unlikely to intimidate newcomers. Intriguingly, both this and the previous essay seem to hint that Titan Comics and Howard Estate rights-holders Heroic Signatures are planning to gradually expand their collaboration to non-Conan characters. Perhaps King Kull of Atlantis and the vengeful Puritan Solomon Kane are due for a comeback.

Titan’s Conan the Barbarian #1 starts off with a bang, very clearly setting expectations for the series to come. We’re introduced to Conan, given a quick demonstration of the rough honor code this barbarian lives by, and then see him pitted against a rapidly escalating otherworldly menace. The stage has been set for a compelling original Conan adventure and I look forward to seeing the creative team ramp up the excitement in subsequent issues.

#ReviewArchive #ComicReview #SwordAndSorcery #JimZub #RobertoDeLaTorre #TitanComics #ConanTheBarbarian #GrimdarkMagazine #GdM

This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on July 21, 2023.

Conan the Barbarian – Free Comic Book Day 2023

By Jim Zub (Writer) and Roberto De La Torre (Artist) – Titan Comics – May 6, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

The 2023 Free Comic Book Day issue of Conan the Barbarian is set deep within the grim, hilled land of Cimmeria, Conan’s homeland. After crushing three Cimmerian villages in the process, the expansionist Aquilonian empire has established the frontier outpost of Venarium. The Cimmerian barbarian tribes’ internecine feuds have left their lands ripe for colonization, or so the arrogant Aquilonians believed. Now the barbarians—temporarily united by their hatred for the foreign interlopers—scale Venarium’s palisades. Among their number is Conan, just fifteen years of age and already more impressively built than most fully grown men. It is at Venarium where Conan first bloodies his blade. Picking through the outpost’s loot he also, unexpectedly, finds himself afflicted with an intense curiosity about the outside world.

This Free Comic Book Day issue marks the first installment of Conan the Barbarian from UK publisher Titan Comics. It may sound strange to say this about a comic starring a bloody-handed barbarian, but it feels like this introduction to the new Conan the Barbarian series is about reassuring fans. While Conan is one of the most venerable fantasy characters in comics, his publication history has been rocky in recent years. The fledgling Titan Comics line appears to be an attempt to provide some welcome stability.

Excitement surrounded the return of the Conan the Barbarian comic book to Marvel in 2019. Conan’s 15 year stretch at Dark Horse was largely successful, but to long-time comic fans the original Marvel run beginning in 1970 is still the first incarnation of the character to come to mind. The one penned by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith and later John Buscema, with all of them operating at the height of their formidable powers. To many, the relaunch of the Conan the Barbarian and companion Savage Sword of Conan series felt like a homecoming.

It didn’t take long for cracks to appear, however. The flagship Conan the Barbarian series was well-received, but Marvel’s editorial decision-makers also wasted no time incorporating the venerable character into the greater Marvel universe. The Avengers: No Road Home (2019) story line saw him join forces with Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch. Conan also took on a primary role in the subsequent Savage Avengers series, alongside Wolverine, The Punisher, Venom, etc. While crossovers such as these were not unknown during the classic Marvel era, they were largely confined to the non-canon What If…? title. Many readers—not limited to purist fans of Robert E. Howard’s original literary Conan, but also including fans from the crossover-light Dark Horse Comics era—opposed this sort of crossing of the streams.

Far more damaging, however, were the production and publication days that accompanied the pandemic. After the conclusion of Jason Aaron’s “The Life and Death of Conan” arc, writing duties on the core Conan the Barbarian title passed to fantasy comic veteran Jim Zub. Just two issues into Zub’s “Into the Crucible” story line, production was halted, with supply chain issues cited as the cause. There was a seven-month gap between issues, stunting the momentum the plot had accumulated. The mainline Conan the Barbarian series lasted ten more issues, and a six-issue King Conan miniseries followed, but by mid-2022 Marvel announced they had declined to renew the Conan character license.

With the Marvel experience still fresh in public memory, Titan Comic’s Free Comic Book Day issue of Conan the Barbarian seems like an attempt to satisfy and reassure three segments of the audience: neophytes, existing Conan comic fans, and fans of the original pulp fiction character.

Newcomers to the character are given an easily digestible origin story; they’re introduced to Conan during his very first battle and learn the motivation for his wandering life of adventure. There’s no exposition info-dump or dense setting lore, we meet the hero when he’s just starting out, see him in an action-packed situation, and receive some tantalizing hints about future adventures.

Readers already familiar with earlier comic book incarnations are given an immediately familiar-looking depiction of the character: Roberto De La Torre’s lines are strongly reminiscent of John Buscema’s classic Marvel portrayal of Conan. Jim Zub has been given another chance to write the character, and even the colorist and letterer (Jose Villarrubia and Richard Starkings, respectively) are veterans of the Dark Horse Conan series. When Conan’s future love interest Belit is glimpsed in a brief foreshadowing sequence, she appears in her classic Marvel furs. When Conan leaves Venarium behind in search of adventure, he even picks up and dons a horned helmet vaguely similar to the one given him by original Marvel artist Barry Windsor-Smith. The message seems to be that this is the comics Conan you know and love, delivered by people you can trust.

Finally, while they might not be the largest audience or the most impactful on comics sales, fans of Conan creator Robert E. Howard’s original pulp stories are also given some attention. The sack of Venarium depicted in this issue is adapted from a few lines in “Beyond the Black River,” a short story that appeared in a 1935 issue of Weird Tales magazine. When the reader is given a glimpse of Conan’s future exploits, situations from Conan’s other pulp appearances (“The God in the Bowl,” “The Tower of the Elephant,” “Rogues in the House,” “The Queen of the Black Coast”) are shown. The issue even concludes with a brief essay by Howard scholar Jeffrey Shanks that highlights the character’s long literary history and explores why Conan’s stories still resonate today.

While the Free Comic Book Day issue of Conan the Barbarian is only a brief taste, this fan has been duly reassured. De La Torre’s artwork is gorgeous and dynamic, and it hearkens back to some of the most beloved depictions of the character. Jim Zub has been vocal about his enthusiasm for Conan for many years, and there’s no other active comic writer I trust more to do the barbarian justice. Conan the Barbarian Issue #1 can’t come soon enough.

#ReviewArchive #ComicReview #SwordAndSorcery #JimZub #RobertoDeLaTorre #TitanComics #ConanTheBarbarian #GrimdarkMagazine #GdM

This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on May 26, 2023.

Die By the Sword

Edited by D.M. Ritzlin – DMR Books – April 28, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

DMR Books has quickly established itself as one of the premiere sources for new and reprinted fiction written in the pulp sword & sorcery and science fantasy traditions. They’ve released a number of anthologies in recent years, including the Swords of Steel series of dark fantasy stories written by heavy metal musicians and the horror-themed Samhain Sorceries. Rather than reprints or specially solicited authors, Die By the Sword is intended to be the first in a series of anthologies featuring all-new sword & sorcery tales gathered via open calls for submissions. This initial volume includes eleven stories by both previous DMR contributors (Howie K. Bentley, Matthew Knight, etc.) and newcomers. The gorgeous cover artwork is provided by underground comix and paperback veteran John Pound, who may be most well known among readers of a certain age for his work on Topps’ Garbage Pail Kids line of trading cards. Alas, the cover is a reissue of a painting from 1980 and no lion-headed warriors appear in this book.

Die By the Sword starts off strong with “Ardax in Antillia” by Dariel R.A. Quiogue. Hailing from the Philippines, the prolific Quiogue has been popping up frequently in fantasy and adventure-fiction venues, including the first installment of Rakehell magazine and issue zero of New Edge Sword and Sorcery Magazine. As with those outings, Quiogue blends historically-inspired settings with swordplay and monsters, creating stories that bring to mind the classic Ray Harryhausen fantasy adventure movies. “Ardax in Antillia” involves a pair of gladiators who, after their escape from a Roman arena in Iberia, encounter a beautiful maiden condemned to be sacrificed to the cruel Atlantean gods. The fast-paced tale that follows is packed with visceral combat and fun aquatic monsters.

“Rites of the Black Goddess” by Paul D. Batteiger is another outstanding story. Fresh from the Crusades and Jerusalem, war-weary lord Morcar returns home to find his domain usurped by an arrogant Norman count. Through the aid of steel and decidedly unchristian magic, Morcar immediately sets about regaining his birthright. While most of the stories in Die By the Sword pair gritty combat with a dark outlook, this violent and moody piece is especially likely to appeal to grimdark fans.

Sharing a setting with the author’s 2022 novel Frolic on the Amaranthyn, Chase A. Folmar’s “The Sorcerer’s Scion” is another tale that emphasizes shadowy atmospherics. The bulk of this short chronicles the final hours of sell-sword Kulvrak—found killed under mysterious circumstances at the story’s outset—hired to rescue the daughter of a deranged herbalist from a nightmarish garden in squalid Old Iskalruun. Folmar cites classic Weird Tales scribe Clark Ashton Smith as an influence, and this story similarly delivers both lush prose and tense strangeness.

Inevitably with anthologies, some stories are less successful than others. Neither Howie K. Bentley’s “Secrets Only Dragons Know” nor “The Key to the Blood Pyramid” by Matthew Knight quite worked for me. The former involves Eldol, a warrior Briton who joins forces with a tribal witch in a quest for revenge against treacherous Saxons. The witch is demonstrated to have an agenda of her own, but muddy storytelling and an overly cryptic ending ensured that the titular dragons kept their secrets to themselves. “The Key to the Blood Pyramid” holds together better as a narrative, but the over-the-top vampyre-slaying magical armor-clad dimension-crossing protagonist (previously seen in 2019’s Karnov: Phantom-Clad Rider of the Cosmic Ice, by Knight, Bentley, and Byron A. Roberts) reminded this reviewer of a well-meaning but over-exuberant guy at a game store telling everyone within earshot all about his “cool” high-level Dungeons & Dragons character.

Among many strong stories, the highlight of Die By the Sword for me was Gregory D. Mele’s “The Heart of Vengeance.” Like Mele’s previous contributions to Tales From the Magician’s Skull No. 6 and Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword and Sorcery issue 5, “The Heart of Vengeance” takes place in the Aztec-inspired setting of Azatlan. After warrior lord Helomon Twelve-Vulture loses his kingdom to a treacherous cousin, he embarks on an epic quest of retribution. He gains the mystical assistance of the skull-faced priesthood of Xokolatl, Lord Death, but is left with a troubling prophecy: all other victories will be Helomon’s, but should he seek the life of his usurper cousin he will not live to see the completion of his revenge. This central tension—is revenge worth one’s own death?—plus the intriguing setting combine for a very compelling dark fantasy tale.

Also worthy of note is the final story in Die By the Sword, “The Sacrifice” by Elias Varsity. Deceived by an alluring woman of the night, arrogant Greek wanderer Cleofas finds himself pinioned by a marble statue in an isolated ruin. His arm trapped in an unyielding stone fist, the harsh Mediterranean sun threatens to drive him delirious before an ignominious death of thirst. His only possible salvation lies with a cloaked, misshapen lurker that speaks in riddles. The shrouded figure offers him escape, but at a terrible price. A nasty little grimdark fable that deals quite directly with hubris and the punishment thereof, “The Sacrifice” lingers in the brain.

Die By the Sword is a strong collection of stories from fascinating newer voices. While not every story hit the mark with me, it is important to emphasize that NONE of the stories in Die By the Sword are boring. Violent action and fast-paced storytelling are ubiquitous, there is a generous serving of horror, and the stories are peppered with crowd-pleasing operatic themes like self-destructive revenge, desperate rescue missions, and rulers in exile. In addition to its reprints, DMR Books has devoted a great deal of effort to showcasing newer pulp sword & sorcery and dark fantasy authors. It’s exciting to see DMR casting its net even wider with open calls for submissions, and it is this reviewer’s hope that the proposed series continues.

#ReviewArchive #BookReview #SwordAndSorcery #DMRitzlin #DMRBooks #DieByTheSword #GrimdarkMagazine #GdM

This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on May 10, 2023.

Tales From The Magician’s Skull – No. 10

By Goodman Publications – April 12, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

First debuting in 2018, Goodman Publications’ Tales From The Magician’s Skull has reached its landmark tenth issue. While the arrival of new magazines dedicated to short fantasy fiction is not uncommon, Tales From The Magician’s Skull distinguishes itself from its fellows via its specific editorial focus and high production values. Directed by editor Howard Andrew Jones, the magazine is dedicated to never-before-published stories written in the classic pulp Sword & Sorcery tradition.

In addition to digital formats, the magazine is available in high-quality physical volumes manufactured via traditional offset printing (rather than print-on-demand). This tenth issue boasts a vibrant cover painting by veteran paperback cover and comic book artist Sanjulian, and each of the nine stories contained within have been given their own accompanying black and white illustration. Interior artists include Jennell Jaquays, Brad McDevitt, and Stefan Poag.

In an essay titled “Defining Sword-and-Sorcery” (collected in special issue No. 0 of Tales From The Magician’s Skull), Jones describes his vision of the S&S sub-genre and what distinguishes it from other varieties of fantasy. He highlights the outsider hero as one of the hallmarks of S&S: the protagonists often exist on the margins of society as wandering barbarians or thieves, rather than comfortably ensconced nobles and townsfolk. S&S heroes tend to live by their wits and martial ability, with magic either unreliable as a tool or outright malignant. And rather than lofty ideals or nation-level politics, these heroes tend to be motivated by earthier, more immediate concerns: the acquisition of wealth, romantic desire or lust, or the simple will to survive another day. Jones also emphasizes the breakneck pacing of S&S stories and their focus on violent action. All of the stories contained in this tenth issue demonstrate these qualities, making Tales From The Magician’s Skull an easy recommendation to readers who enjoy an abundance of action and peril in their fantasy.

The magazine’s cover art is dedicated to “The Demon Rats,” by C. L. Werner, a prolific author of licensed fiction set in the various WARHAMMER settings. The story involves Shintaro Oba, a disgraced samurai who finds himself tasked with exterminating a suspiciously coordinated horde of iron-fanged rodents intent on destroying a temple’s library of scriptures. He receives some assistance from an alluring shape-shifter with her own agenda. While Shintaro Oba has appeared in previous stories, no prior knowledge of the character is required to enjoy this adventure. Both the premise and characters are colorful, but some of the names feel awkwardly constructed in Japanese.

Perhaps the simplest story in the issue is also one of the most effective. “Green Face, Purple Haze” by Marc DeSantis is about an American soldier in the Vietnam War who finds himself magically transported to a fantasy realm with its own battles raging. Gunpowder fails to work, robbing him of the technological advantage of his assault rifle, but his modern military training and indomitable fighting spirit serve him well in the conflict between humans and the bestial urks. Although the specific words of the modern US Marine mantra “Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.” do not appear in the text, this story entertainingly celebrates that ethos. With its focus on the unchanging nature of war and visceral combat descriptions, this story in particular has a lot to love for grimdark enthusiasts.

Many of the stories collected in this issue are grounded and gritty, but others venture into much stranger territory. “The Sorcerer’s Mask” by Jason Ray Carney, managing editor of Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword and Sorcery, involves an unnamed thief unjustly cast into a vast dungeon by a paranoid immortal wizard. The Rogue must rely on his wits and the aid of an enigmatic soothsayer to effect his escape, and there is a sense of grim inevitability leading up to the final confrontation. The story moves quickly despite its vivid detail, covering a surprising amount of ground in a mere six pages. “A Simple Errand” by Grimdark Magazine contributor Matthew John also involves a prison break, but one where a sorcerer (or “meddler” in the story’s parlance) frees a barbarian warrior awaiting execution in order to put him to work on a dark mission: killing an alien god on another world. This adventure is packed with hallucinatory imagery worthy of Roger Dean’s cosmic prog rock album artwork.

A surprise highlight of the issue was “The Black Pearl of the Sunken Lands,” by Cynthia Ward. In this story, a headstrong youth named Bruko vows to reclaim a legendary lost treasure to prove himself worthy of the affections of a beautiful maiden. This familiar premise is freshened by the fact that the protagonist is a nereus (aquatic humanoid) and his sidekick in the endeavor is an intelligent dolphin with blades strapped to his fins. It’s a simple thing, but the underwater setting makes a significant difference in the feel of the story. Ward’s sly humor further enhances the piece; the object of Bruko’s affections makes it pretty obvious to the reader that she’s not especially interested in marrying Bruko, and the dolphin companion proves to be more intelligent than the hero he’s accompanying.

The stories in this issue all share brisk pacing and an emphasis on swordplay, but their heroes are diverse in nature. In addition to Werner’s samurai hero, African-inspired and Native American warriors (in “Nzara” by D. J. Tyrer and “The Silent Mound” by Charles D. Shell, respectively) also have opportunities to shine. One of the toughest and most physically imposing characters herein is a woman: Dakagna, heroine of the grimdark-inflected “Dakagna and the Blood Scourge” by W. J. Lewis. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Jade, the heroine of Jeffery Sergent’s “The Eye of Kaleet,” who uses guile to survive situations where she is clearly outmatched martially.

The issue concludes with a brief appendix entitled “The Monster Pit,” giving various monsters appearing in the fiction game statistics for use with the publisher’s Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. This is a fun addendum for players of DCC RPG or other games with systems largely compatible with early editions of Dungeons & Dragons, but the page count it occupies is minimal, meaning that non-gamer readers are unlikely to feel alienated or slighted by the non-prose content.

Ten issues and nearly five years in, Tales From The Magician’s Skull continues to deliver fantastic action-adventure tales in an appealing and polished package. Previous issues included a number of established names familiar to fans of contemporary Sword & Sorcery—Adrian Cole, James Enge, John C. Hocking, Violette Malan—but the most recent installments have also begun incorporating exciting newer voices as well. The magazine enjoys near universal acclaim among Sword & Sorcery readers and has become a sort of Holy Grail venue for S&S writers looking to showcase their work, but—like the sub-genre itself—one still gets the feeling that Tales From The Magician’s Skull isn’t quite getting the sort of wider recognition its quality deserves. Whether this is due to difficulties in promoting short fantasy fiction in today’s increasingly entertainment-saturated market is unclear. Perhaps the magazine’s association with a role-playing game publisher and each issue’s appendix of game statistics lead some fantasy readers to assume that Tales From The Magician’s Skull is an RPG magazine, rather than an original fiction magazine with some bonus RPG content. Sword & Sorcery tales are full of scrappy underdogs doing whatever it takes to survive, but like those heroes it’s nice to see the underdogs rewarded in the end with glory and gold. Other Grimdark Magazine contributors (cf. Matthew John’s Robert E. Howard: Godfather of Grimdark? and John R. Fultz’s The Mud, The Blood, and the Years: Why “Grimdark” is the New “Sword and Sorcery”) have remarked upon the considerable amount of shared DNA between Sword & Sorcery and grimdark fantasy fiction. Grimdark readers are encouraged to give Tales From The Magician’s Skull a look, perhaps it will become a new favorite discovery.

#ReviewArchive #BookReview #SwordAndSorcery #HowardAndrewJones #TalesFromTheMagiciansSkull #GrimdarkMagazine #GdM

This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on March 30, 2023.

Old Moon Quarterly: Issue 3, Winter 2023

By Old Moon Publishing – March 13, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

An intriguing newcomer to the small press dark fantasy fiction scene, Old Moon Quarterly has recently released its third volume. The magazine bills itself as a showcase for weird fantasy fiction and sword & sorcery, citing the works of Clark Ashton Smith, Karl Edward Wagner, and Tanith Lee as touchstones. The first volume debuted in July 2022, followed up by the second in November of the same year. While each issue to date has featured four stories, the page count has grown slightly with each installment. Volume 3 of Old Moon Quarterly boasts striking sepia-toned cover artwork by Daniel Vega, showing an (Elric of Melnibone-inspired?) armored warrior confronted by a twisted, multi-headed monster. There are no interior illustrations or advertisements, and the text is presented in a single column layout.

After a brief Introduction comparing Arthurian romances to modern day fantasy adventures, the fiction section of Old Moon Quarterly Volume 3 opens strongly with “Evil Honey” by James Enge. Nominated for the World Fantasy Award in 2010 for his debut novel Blood of Ambrose, James Enge is likely the most widely recognizable author printed in Old Moon Quarterly to date. Like Blood of Ambrose and several short stories from the pages of Black Gate Magazine, Tales From The Magician’s Skull, and elsewhere, “Evil Honey” features Enge’s wandering wizard Morlock Ambrosius, also known as Morlock the Maker. In “Evil Honey” Morlock finds himself magically compelled by the god of bees to come up with a non-lethal way of dealing with an aggressive hive tainted through the consumption of toxic pollen. Shrunk down to bee size by the god, Morlock infiltrates the hive. While the premise seems like something out of a children’s story, Enge plays it mostly straight. Touches of whimsy are overshadowed by the viciousness of the warped bee society, consumed by fear and the desperate need for a common enemy. While “Evil Honey” works fine as a piece of fantasy fiction, one could also view it through a more allegorical lens as a critique of modern nations and their self-destructive, eternal War on Terror. One hopes that there’s a happier solution for the issues dominating post-9/11 America than what Morlock comes up with for the corrupted hive. Setting potential symbolism aside, “Evil Honey” is a fascinating adventure tale and Enge’s moody, sardonic Morlock is always a treat.

The second story is by German writer T. R. Siebert and entitled “Knife, Lace, Prayer.” Where “Evil Honey” was intensely local—even miniature—in scope, this tale is epic to the extreme. It involves a “girl who used to be a beast” journeying across the devastated landscapes of the Ashlands on a mission to slay god. Her world is literally coming apart at the seams, with the god in the process of remaking it into something new. Enraged by the destruction of all she knew and loved, the nameless beast/girl vows revenge. But to find her divine target she must first enlist a guide: a disillusioned paladin named Edmund. While initially I was put off by the vagueness of some of the prose and frequent flashbacks to the girl’s former life as a holy guardian beast, by the end of the story I found myself completely won over. Not only is the story ambitious despite its brief page count, its conclusion is immensely satisfying.

“Singing the Long Retreat,” by R. K. Duncan, is told through the eyes of Fatima, a warrior woman of the Prepared, a cavalry unit tasked with holding off an invading army while the rest of Fatima’s people make their escape. The odds are overwhelming and, as the name suggests, the Prepared are resigned to their own deaths. Songs and poems are evidently important to Fatima’s people, and she sings throughout the battle that ensues, improvising lyrics to raise the morale of her comrades and intimidate their foes. Nearly the entire story is one extended battle scene. The general ebb and flow of combat is narrated as well as individual acts of self-sacrificing heroism, all punctuated by Fatima’s verses. While it reminded this reviewer of Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” the lack of any conclusive resolution robs the story of much of its inspirational power. “Singing the Long Retreat” seems more an exercise in creating a mood than relating a plot. While I did not enjoy it as much as the other contributions in this Old Moon Quarterly volume, the overall quality of the prose remained high.

The final story is “The Feast of Saint Ottmer,” by Graham Thomas Wilcox, an assistant editor of Old Moon Quarterly. The Arthurian romance touched upon in this volume’s Introduction returns here, in this tale of knighthood and honor. Told in the first person, this novella centers on the youthful knight Hieronymous and his role in the siege of a keep at Kienhorst. The graf of Kienhorst was responsible for the death of Hieronymous’s father, and honor demands retribution. The situation is complicated by the participation in the siege of a contingent of knights called the Order of the Dragon. Fearsome in aspect and more battle-tested by far than Hieronymous, he finds himself longing to be counted among their number. But the darkly alluring nun that commands the Order demands Hieronymous murder the enemy graf, rather than ransom him alive as chivalric convention requires. Throughout the bloody conflict to follow Hieronymous finds himself torn between the obligations of familial duty and the pursuit of martial prowess, the opposing teachings of his father and his grandfather. Drenched in gory, gothic, grimdark flavor, “The Feast of Saint Ottmer” is operatic, even bombastic. One could fairly describe this story as overwritten (some dialogue is in Latin, with accompanying footnotes!), but the ornate prose effectively conjures a darkly vibrant atmosphere. It overshoots Arthurian romance, ending up closer to the opening scenes of Vlad Dracula as armored warrior in the Francis Ford Coppola film Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). Over-the-top fun, “The Feast of Saint Ottmer” even edged out James Enge’s “Evil Honey” as the highlight of the issue for me.

Finally, Old Moon Quarterly volume 3 concludes with a book review for Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, a movie-themed horror anthology edited by Ellen Datlow. Assistant editor Graham Thomas Wilcox returns to examine stories by Gemma Files, Laird Barron, and John Langan in detail. The cinematic horror of the anthology under review contrasts with the fantasy fiction included in this volume, but given the dark tenor of most of the stories here it’s easy to imagine a considerable overlap in readership.

Old Moon Quarterly may be new to the marketplace, but the high quality fiction and affordable cover price make it well worth checking out. Many ambitious fiction magazines struggle with the demands of monthly or bimonthly schedules, but the measured release pace and competitive author rates of Old Moon Quarterly will hopefully allow a steady stream of polished dark fantasy tales for years to come.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on February 17, 2023.

Conan – Blood of the Serpent

By S. M. Stirling – Titan Books – December 13, 2022

Review by Robin Marx

Conan – Blood of the Serpent marks the long-awaited return of the fantasy genre’s most famous barbarian hero to long-form prose. First introduced to the world by Robert E. Howard in a 1932 issue of Weird Tales magazine, the Conan stories have had a tumultuous publication history. After Howard’s 1936 suicide, hardback releases by Gnome Press in the 1950s and enduring support in the pages of fanzines like Amra kept the barbarian from disappearing into obscurity. Editors L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter further popularized Conan in the 1960s with a series of paperback novels that blended Howard’s original material, “posthumous collaborations” based in part on unpublished fragments and outlines, and stories created whole cloth by de Camp and Carter. While the publishers and contributors involved shifted multiple times in the decades to follow, paperbacks featuring Conan the Cimmerian were a ubiquitous presence on bookstore shelves until the late 90s, when releases slowed to a trickle. Harry Turtledove’s Conan of Venarium was released as late as 2003, but the recent trend has been to reject pastiche and return to Howard’s original texts, excised of the occasionally controversial embellishments and expansions of later authors. Some fans argue that the original Howard work is all we need, but others still yearn to see Conan set out on new adventures. The past few years have shown a tentative few steps back in that direction with the 2019 publication of two novellas—one by John C. Hocking and one by Scott Oden—serialized as part of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian and The Savage Sword of Conan comic book series. Oden was also commissioned to write a short story for inclusion with the Conan Unconquered (2019) video game. Perhaps signaling the start of a greater revival, Conan – Blood of the Serpent is the first original full-length novel to feature Conan in nearly twenty years.

Positioned as a prequel to the 1936 Howard novella Red Nails, Conan – Blood of the Serpent opens with the titular barbarian languishing in Sukhmet, a backwater village in Stygia, the Hyborian Age’s antediluvian precursor to ancient Egypt. Employed as a scout in Zarallo’s Free Companions, a multi-ethnic mercenary band hired by the Stygians to guard against Darfari raiders, Conan seems to spend as much time riding herd on drunk and idle sell-swords as dealing with foreign threats. The monotony of garrison life is shaken up, however, when he encounters a new addition to the band: Valeria. Formerly of the Red Brotherhood, the blonde and blue-eyed pirate’s beauty is matched only by her lethality. Conan is instantly smitten. Fiercely independent and all too accustomed to advances from her compatriots, Valeria is unimpressed. Conan isn’t the only one pursuing Valeria; while Conan is content to bide his time and prove his merits, an arrogant Stygian commander named Khafset proves himself less willing to take no for an answer. His fixation turns to murderous hatred, forcing Valeria and Conan to embark on a desperate journey across untamed lands, contending with threats both terrestrial and supernatural. Together and apart, Conan and Valeria carve a bloody swath across deserts and jungles, their footsteps dogged by the evil magic of the serpent-worshiping Stygian priesthood.

As a new Conan adventure, Conan – Blood of the Serpent is largely successful. Numerous authors have shown that Conan can be a deceptively tricky character to portray with any accuracy. Decades of inconsistency and, for lack of a better term, “flanderization” across various forms of media have led to a multitude of Conans that sometimes wildly diverge from his depiction in the original tales. Too often the result is a brutish, monosyllabic, meat-headed jock rather than the cunning, pantherish figure created by Howard. In Conan – Blood of the Serpent S. M. Stirling demonstrates a nuanced grasp of the character. His Conan is appropriately deadly in combat and takes the direct approach when need be, but he’s also just as likely to use clever strategy or stealth to deal with obstacles. In The Phoenix on the Sword, the very first Conan short story, Howard described the character as possessing “gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth.” While so many depictions of Conan give us the former, grim-faced and dour, Stirling goes out on a limb a little and shows us some of that mirth, in a way we don’t often get to see. His Conan is downright jovial at times. Throughout the novel, Stirling displays a reassuring understanding of Conan’s character.

While Stirling delivers an entertaining Conan story, what he does NOT do is emulate Robert E. Howard’s style. I suspect this will be the most controversial aspect of the book for longtime Conan fans, as the most celebrated pastiche novels (i.e., the ones still talked about today, as opposed to lesser efforts) sought to pair an authentic-feeling Conan with prose that feels like something Howard would have written. And Stirling doesn’t do that, he simply declines. The book is written in a thoroughly modern style, and Stirling doesn’t go out of his way to pepper the text with Howard’s favorite expressions. Where Howard’s Conan tends to express his reflections and feelings through his actions and remarks, Stirling gives him the degree of interiority that contemporary readers are accustomed to, complete with italicized thoughts.

Not only is Conan – Blood of the Serpent a prequel to Howard’s Red Nails as advertised, I was surprised to discover that the final pages of the novel lead directly into the novella in question, with zero gap in the narrative. Titan Books wisely included Red Nails in this volume, and frankly the book would have felt incomplete otherwise. It’s a laudable move, as it allows newcomers to read a modern fantasy novel paired with one of the very best of the original Conan stories, but it also makes the contrasts between each writer’s style particularly stark. Both authors give the reader numerous scenes of intense combat against both man and beast (Stirling’s Conan slaughters a veritable zoo’s worth of African wildlife), but I was surprised to find it was Howard that went further in graphic detail when describing bloody swordplay. Also, perhaps inevitably due to the long-form novel format, Stirling struggles to maintain the propulsive, breakneck pacing seen in Howard’s short stories and novellas. Parts of Conan – Blood of the Serpent feel padded by comparison. The novel begins with not one but TWO tavern brawl scenes, whereas Howard would have cut to the literal chase and started his tale at the point in the narrative Stirling only reaches after a hundred pages. On the other hand, the extra space gives Stirling more breathing room for characterization. He has the space to directly show us aspects of Conan’s character (his mastery of wilderness survival, for example) that are generally mentioned in passing in Howard’s own work. Non-white characters are also given more dimension, while Howard tended to rely on the stock archetypes his pulp audience would have been familiar with.

Conan – Blood of the Serpent is blatantly a Conan novel written by S. M. Stirling, and not something that could be mistaken as a lost Howard tale. This is all die-hard Conan fans need to know. If Howard’s distinctive blood and thunder authorial style is a requirement for a prospective reader to enjoy a Conan story, this book may be skipped. But newcomers to Conan and existing fans who love the character and are open to other voices are encouraged to take a look. This volume delivers an engaging and approachable new adventure along with one of the very best of the classic stories. Regardless of whether or not future novel plots are directly connected to the events of the original stories, I would love to see Titan Books continue to package new stories with the classics.

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on January 27, 2023.

Frolic on the Amaranthyn

By Chase A. Folmar – Sable Star Press – April 6, 2022

Review by Robin Marx

After an act of brigandry goes awry, the seductive thief Emrasarie and the hulking swordsman Uralant the Untamable find themselves at the mercy of the masked sorcerer Zelaeus. Their lives at his disposal, he compels the pair to board Numynaris’s Ark in search of forbidden arcane secrets. An enigmatic relic left by an ancient and cruel race, the colossal vessel drifts along the mist-shrouded Amaranthyn river, playing host to a hallucinatory bacchanal: the titular Frolic on the Amaranthyn. Emrasarie and Uralant soon learn that the ethereal beauty of the Ark and its Frolic conceals a deeper rot.

A briskly-paced 101-page novella, Frolic on the Amaranthyn blends swashbuckling action with nightmarish horror elements in the tradition of Weird Tales magazine. While the ornate diction and cynical approach to sorcery and its practitioners immediately bring to mind Clark Ashton Smith and Jack Vance, the diametrically opposed protagonists and their heist mission recall Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The lush, phantasmagorical prose reminds the reader of Tanith Lee, late queen of dark fantasy.

Chase A. Folmar takes a broad strokes approach to both characterization and world building. The reader is not told much about the heroes or the world in which they live, just enough to serve the requirements of the story. We learn that Emrasarie is an orphan with a history of exploitation at the hands of men. She has light fingers and has learned to use her striking beauty to her advantage. Her partner Uralant, on the other hand, has a hot temper and the brawn to back it up. The setting of Frolic on the Amaranthyn has a vaguely ancient Greek feel, reinforced by Folmar’s choice in diction: this is a world in which autochthons are beholden to eupatrids, rather than one where commoners are ruled by nobles.

While character backgrounds and setting details are kept brief, Folmar revels in describing the present scene. Like Smith and Vance, he spices the text with obscure and evocative terminology. Colubrine, autolatry, myriapod, incarnadine, erubescent, inuculent, rufescent, amaurotic, etc. Nearly every page of Frolic on the Amaranthyn includes a term that would be at home in a Word-a-Day calendar. This style of prose unashamedly places flavor above accessibility, but during my first read-through of the book I resisted the temptation to reach for the dictionary. As with Smith and Vance, I elected instead to just relax and let the rhythm and musicality of the unfamiliar words wash over me. Later reviewing the book with dictionary at hand provided some additional nuance and specificity, but this extra research was not in any way required to comprehend or enjoy the book.

A world of dark beauty is presented through the poetic prose and exposition. We are reminded repeatedly that, though surface elements may be beautiful—such as the architecture and luxurious finery on display—like Zelaeus’ exquisite mask it often serves to hide a deeper corruption. For all the superficial aesthetic beauty, brutality is never far away. The upper classes subsist heavily on their inferiors, and are willing to use violence to maintain this status quo. Over the course of Frolic on the Amaranthyn, Emrasarie and Uralant learn that humanity is threatened by an even more malicious and insidious parasite.

Numerous dark fantasy and classic Sword & Sorcery elements are present in Frolic on the Amaranthyn, but the choice to have the protagonists be a romantic couple is an uncommon choice for the genre. They don’t fall in love over the course of the adventure, they’re not friends (with or without benefits), they are already dedicated to each other. This intense commitment comes into play during the course of the story, with both of them drawing strength from their bond and using it to overcome both physical trauma and mind-affecting enchantments. This aspect of the characters felt fresh and ripe for further exploration.

Frolic on the Amaranthyn delivers an exciting and fast-paced dark fantasy adventure with appealing protagonists in a distinctive setting. This reader was left hoping that Folmar will return to the duo and their intriguing world in the future.

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My first published book review, this originally appeared in New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine Issue #0, released on October 1, 2022. The digital edition of the complete issue is a free download.

The Obanaax: And Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors

By Kirk A. Johnson – Far Afield Press LLC – April 28, 2022

Review by Robin Marx

When Kirk A. Johnson encountered fantasy, it was love at first sight. The introduction to The Obanaax: And Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors, Johnson’s self-published debut collection, describes how as a child he was instantly transfixed by the Rankin/Bass animated adaptation of The Hobbit. Subsequent exposure to the 1950s Hercules movies and the stop-motion classics by Ray Harryhausen deepened his enthusiasm for the genre. He devoured comics like Conan the Barbarian and Warlord before moving on to more foundational works of fantasy, such as those by Robert E. Howard and the Dreamlands tales of H. P. Lovecraft.

The love affair soured as Johnson matured, however. The author reveals how, during his university years, he became increasingly disenchanted with fantasy and a great deal of entertainment media in general. Black characters tended to be stereotypical and treated unfairly if they were included at all. “The Vale of the Lost Women” (a notorious Conan story that remained unpublished during Howard’s lifetime) and the African adventures of Solomon Kane are cited as being particularly troubling.

Despite a sense of exclusion from fantasy, his interest lingered. Casual online research into Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser eventually led him to discover the late Charles R. Saunders’ groundbreaking Maasai-themed hero Imaro, marketed as a “Black Tarzan.”

This introduction to the sub-genre Saunders labeled Sword & Soul enthralled Johnson, inspiring him to create his own characters and world informed by the Africa of yore. Interactions with other active Sword & Soul creators like Milton Davis and P. Djeli Clark further challenged Johnson and influenced his work. His first published short story, “In the Wake of Mist,” appeared in 2011’s Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology, edited by Davis. Published by Johnson’s own freshly-established Far Afield Press in April of 2022, The Obanaax collects four further energetic Sword & Soul adventures.

While the protagonists differ for each story, the tales all share a common setting: the continents of Mbor and Gaabar, in the remains of the fallen island empire of Xanjarnou. Given the coastal focus of the included map and the author’s own Trinidadian heritage, one might expect the stories to draw upon the culture of the Black diaspora in the Caribbean. Instead, Johnson sticks with a West African-inspired milieu. Whereas Johnson’s contemporary Davis adopts a mythologized version of Earth for his Changa tales, Johnson’s is a secondary world in which two moons rule the night sky and the spirits of the ancestral dead remain close to their descendants.

While the tribes of the savannahs are derided as unsophisticated yokels by pampered cityfolk, it is these so-called barbarians and similarly rugged mercenaries who act as the prime movers in the stories collected here.

The novella-length title story “The Obanaax” has as its heroine Wurri, a hardened nomad of the Asuah. She deals with treacherous grave robbers, a cursed bond-slave, and otherworldly threats in her quest to reclaim her people’s sacred artifact.

“The Oculus of Kii” focuses on barbarian warrior Sangara (who interestingly shares a name with the protagonist of “In the Wake of Mist,” from Griots). When a wrestling bout gone awry leaves him deeply indebted to his master, he’s dispatched on a deadly treasure hunt. Sangara is forced to contend with the spirits of the dead, masked cultists trespassing on their burial grounds, and the cult’s unholy patron.

“Cock and Bull,” the pinnacle of the book for this reviewer, features tribesman N’Gara, nicknamed “Clean” for his good looks. New to city life, N’Gara finds work as an enforcer for an avaricious merchant. He soon discovers that allegiances can be fluid in the “civilized” world. N’Gara is less of a bumpkin than he appears, however, and possesses an agenda of his own.

The book concludes with “For Wine and Roast,” a rousing tale of disparate mercenaries tasked with retrieving their merchant employer’s stolen pendant, a trinket of considerable magical might.

The evocative presentation of the setting was the highlight of this book. Johnson conjures a world in which nguimb-clad sell-swords rub shoulders with rich merchants in silken mbubb gowns, drinking sorghum beer from calabash bowls in daakaa drinking houses lit by gourd lanterns. Like Michael Moorcock, Johnson is able to give the reader just enough scaffolding to set a scene without overburdening them with excess exposition. The text is also generously spiced with terms from a variety of West African languages like Wolof, Malinke, and Songhay. A glossary is tucked away in the back matter, but usually context clues make the non-English terms’ meanings obvious.

The author also excels when his heroes are thrown into armed conflict, particularly with supernatural opponents. The action scenes are frenetic and viscerally described, and Johnson’s monsters run the gamut from oozing, tentacled horrors to all-too-solid masses of bulging muscle.

In the introduction Johnson acknowledges that he is still polishing his craft, and he runs into trouble when his plots become less straightforward. Some of the stories introduce twists late in the game; a seemingly implacable enemy may have a change of heart, or an ally might prove less steadfast than originally thought. At times these sudden developments are not as handled as elegantly as they could have been, and some additional foreshadowing or telegraphing could have helped these moments land with more dramatic impact.

For a self-published volume, the prose is largely typo-free, but it would have benefited from another editing pass. Commas occasionally appear in mystifying locations, or are conspicuous by their absence.

While this book is a promising debut, one gets the sense that Johnson’s best tales lie ahead, as his raw talent is honed by experience. That being said, Sword & Sorcery fans are fortunate that representation in the form of Saunders’ Imaro managed to coax this fresh talent back into the fantasy fold. Johnson is an author to watch.

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