Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 11
is now available as a trade paperback and kindle eBook
Parallel Universe Publications, 292pp
ISBN 9781739367497
Is it time for a New Wave of Sword & Sorcery fiction?
Or is the appeal of the genre so grounded in its identifying themes that it would be foolish to tamper with its time-proven ingredients? Maybe Wizards and Dragons, magical amulets and dynastic struggles, mouldering skulls and barbarian necromancers are part of what defines the fantasy continuum? They tap into the subconscious roots and archetypes of myth, back through to the origins of storytelling itself, from where they draw their narrative strengths.
Yet there have been ripples, provided by innovative writers who tilt the genre off course. Texan Robert E Howard, obviously, who has spawned so many mighty-thewed ‘Conan’ incarnations and imitations. From his debut with ‘The Phoenix On The Sword’ in Weird Tales (December 1932), they keep renewing in an endless stream of reconfigured forms, that must draw in Marvel comicbook editions illuminated by London-born Barry Windsor-Smith’s artwork, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger shambling through the 1982 John Milius movie Conan The Barbarian, up to the mighty Sláine in the innovative 2000AD weekly comic.
Like Robert E Howard, Clark Ashton Smith’s highly stylised tales set in time-lost Hyperborea, or at time’s end in far-future Zothique, were also first featured in the pages of Weird Tales magazine. While HP Lovecraft introduced the legacy of the Dark Gods of antiquity, the Old Ones who wait, lurking just around the time-bend. Leigh Brackett and Edgar Rice Burroughs, took their swordsmen out into the fantastic worlds of the solar system, while Fritz Leiber added a crafty touch of character depth to his ‘Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser’ tales, beginning with ‘Two Sought Adventure’ (in Unknown magazine, August 1939).
With the spectacular movie-success of Peter Jackson’s trilogies, it’s often forgotten that the Middle Earth tales of JRR Tolkien were once considered cult books, enjoyed by little more than clique appreciation, and that they were considered to be unfilmable. In much the same way that Mervyn Peake’s rich and poetic Gormenghast has never been satisfactorily translated onto the screen. Before George RR Martin dragged the genre down to dragons and dynasties again.
Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné breathed new life into the genre, beginning as a linked series of stories in the British Science Fantasy magazine, beginning with ‘The Dreaming City’ (June 1961). Moorcock’s doomed albino sorcerer rejuvenated Swords & Sorcery by bringing narcotic dependency and his vast interconnected multiverse mythology into the fantasy realm. Through his New Worlds editorship, Moorcock was also a prime mover in what is termed the SF New Wave, the movement that shocked the complacent worlds of science fiction into a new awareness of possibilities, both in literary and thematic terms.
So, is the Swords & Sorcery tradition ripe for a similar renaissance, through an influx of new writers with different perspectives and oblique insights into this most traditional form of fiction? If so – it will be found in Swords & Sorceries: Tales Of Heroic Fantasy, the anthology series launched by Parallel Universe Publications, which has just issued volume 11, and has released advance details of its twelfth collection for later in the New Year. Short stories are the very heart of heroic fantasy. With suitably macabre Jim Pitts artwork, and editorially helmed by David A Riley – himself the impressive fantasist of the Welgar The Cursed novel (made up of six chronologically-linked stories), the anthology series has already proved itself a worthy successor to the earlier British Fantasy Tales magazine. It has established a solid body of readers, with a roster of writers who remain true to the fantasy tropes, yet innovate in subtle and knowing ways.
Opening volume eleven, Harry Elliott’s tales of Mann Silver, Hel Strumm & Gul Hakker in the Undervalley realm is a stand-alone exploit that also continues from previous volumes. In ‘Silence For Snakes’ the trio are faced by the impassable gateway constructed by the Red Men of the West across the Skathar Pass, besieged into stalemate by Kirhon’s Men of the Middel drawn from across the Heartscars, until the three break the impasse by scaling the flint-black precipice in order to circle the gate, encountering monstrous burrowing worms and winged cliff-haunting horrors on their way. The body-count is predictably high, with swordplay and hideous mutant Snake-men.
Although David A Sutton debuts in the Swords And Sorceries series with ‘Midwinter’, he’s been an activist within the field as fictioneer and editor for some considerable time. He’s the name responsible for New Writings In Horror & The Supernatural as well as the wonderful Fantasy Tales. From Harry Elliott’s action-adventure, he adopts a contrastingly reflective pacing, woven with pagan Caledonian earth-magic. The druid hermit Myrddin, filled with regret and self-recrimination, offers the sanctuary of his cave and hearth to vengeance-seeking widow Olwyn, who has vowed to kill him. The beauty of the nuanced prose shows that the genre of capable of other, more evolved moods.
Tennessee-resident Susan Murrie Macdonald’s ‘Tomb Robbers’ has picaresque pickpocket cousins Evon and Arun risking death-worms and demon-dogs in order to plunder the resting place of a dead monarch. Although she protests that ‘I tried to be as R.E. Howard-ish as possible in that one,’ I consider it way beyond such a narrow definition. And why does she use two male characters in the story? Wouldn’t it have worked with a strong female voice there instead? ‘Well, the dead queen was female’ she points out. And as for those haunting feeling of guilt when she’s not working… ‘well, my brain gets itchy if I don’t write every so often.’
While Marc Edward Star brings Gothic elements to ‘Blackshield Manor’, as traveling merchant of relics Ronan Morvayne and his young apprentice Jaryk tangle with religious cults and Warlock heresies in the ‘Good Shepherd Tavern’ of Soulum. Both tales are set in an undefined continuum outside of history, a realm in which supernatural elements are simply accepted, a hazard just as everyday as the wind or the rain. It’s a generic place of fantasy, a medievalism that needs no further explanation, built up palimpsest-fashion by generations of earlier writers. Swords that render invisibility, blades with a voraciously ravenous appetite for souls. Monstrous entities from the other side of eternity. Blended into what Star terms ‘a pageant of atrocity.’
Broadening the spectrum of the Swords & Sorceries definition, Tais Teng adds another in his ‘Tales Of The Inland Sea’ series, taking elements of Sinbad into Magical Realism with Shamir ‘The Eggshell Carver’ in his quest to find eggs of the legendary giant bird the Rukhs, on the vessel of the aged Khan Turgen the Seventh of Damascus. It’s an Arabian Nights fantasia of devious cunning with a surprise – and very pleasing, denouement.
It would be wrong for me to comment about my own ‘The Eternal Assassin: The Man Who Hunted Death’, but – to state a personal bias, I love the way that history and prehistory are constantly being revised in line with newly discovered evidence. Human understanding of past time is not as fixed as we like to assume, but is fluid, in constant flux. There have been recognisably human beings on Earth for around 300,000 years, while earlier hominids have existed for 2.5-million years. That’s a long time. What we think of as civilisation has existed for barely 10,000-years, emerging shortly after the end of the last Ice Age. But history and prehistory are open to informed revision. I don’t believe – because belief is too strong a word, but I’m quite prepared to accept the possibility that there were proto-civilisations, evidence of which have yet to be discovered. Cultures that existed as predecessors to what we consider the earliest evidence of the Mesopotamian or Indus valley cultures. Is this where Robert E Howard envisaged the Hyborian age?
There were abrupt climate changes during the last Ice Age, called the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles during which glaciation advanced and receded, with attendant rising and falling ocean levels and zones of desertification. The Dryas or Heinrich events throw greater uncertainty into the equation. The Sahara was once verdant, with lakes, rivers, wildlife… and human tribes. Fictioneers don’t need Atlantis or Lemuria. What about cities inundated by rising seas or lost beneath rising deserts? And peoples who escaped those adverse environmental changes by migrating into the Nile valley, or to Chalcolithic Sumer between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, bringing their ancient knowing with them? This is where I set my linked cycle of ‘Eternal Assassin’ tales. It’s not necessary to involve magical forces or supernatural deities, other than those invented by religions, it’s not necessary to ‘believe’… just to accept the theoretical possibility, the conjecture that human civilisation may extend back before recorded history admits. This is Speculative Fantasy.
But if this is one route towards a New Wave of Sword & Sorcery fiction, there are others, as this wonderful anthology amply proves, over and over again. ‘The Gwáilóu Ship’ has a female pirate captain in the person of Shi Yang. Not an innovation in itself, R.E. Howard had the spirited Red Sonya, C.L. Moore had fiery redheaded Jirel Of Joiry, but writer Geoffrey Hart invests his tale with a delicacy enhanced by Chinese phrases, as the pirates cruise in towards an unfamiliar prey that turns out to be the phantom-devil ship. It’s only through Shi Yang’s inventive leadership that they escape with their lives. While Kenya-based Mungai M’mbogori – who writes as ‘Ũũmbi’, brings an expletive-strewn African perspective to his ‘Good Fortune’. When old Morani is relentlessly pursued by a malevolent entity, in the ruins of an ancient temple, young Kach intervenes to help him.
Daniel Mahoney’s ‘The Wyrm’s Tongue’ flaunts a kind of Western swagger, albeit with a story titled after a sword, ‘a serpent’s whisper in steel’. Five desperados turn up at a remote homestead to terrorise the family as they hunt the Wyrm down, while youngest son Cole – knocked unconscious, wakes into a training session with the aged Wyrm himself, who turns out to be his grandfather! It leads to final bloody showdown, and to leak a plot-spoiler, Cole becomes the avenging Wyrm. Finally, Craig Herbertson follows his earlier appearances in the series with ‘Wardark And The Sands Of Serpanam’, dramatically over-written in the heroic reiver tradition. The monstrous Gauntgorgon’s hypnotic gaze permits space to flesh out the backstory, in a ripping-yarn heroic-adventure of betrayal, extreme physical hazards, warlockery, Slavers, desert nomads, visceral battles and two young kidnapped lovers. It’s a doomed quest that goes on…
So, if it’s time for a New Wave of Sword & Sorcery fiction, this is where it’s to be found! Across the full run of eleven volumes, there are stories by more high-profile writers such as Adrian Cole, Steve Lines, Mike Chinn and Steve Dilks, alongside newer names, and those making their debut on these pages, shaping new fictions within old traditions. But it’s also, simply, an amazing collection of magical new fiction.
NEW WAVE SWORDS & SORCERIES: NEW TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY:
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 1’ (October 2020)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘The Mirror of Torjan Súl’ by Steve Lines, reprinted from ‘Strange Sorcery no.13’
‘The Horror From The Stars’ by Steve Dilks, novelette in his ‘Bohun’ series
‘Trolls Are Different’ by Susan Murrie Macdonald
‘Chain Of Command’ by Geoff Hart
‘Disruption Of Destiny’ by Gerri Leen, reprinted from ‘Ares Magazine no.1’
‘The City Of Silence’ by Eric Ian Steele
‘Red’ by Chadwick Ginther
‘The Reconstructed God’ by Adrian Cole, featuring his ‘The Voidal’
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 2’ (June 2021)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘The Essence Of Dust’ by Mike Chinn
‘Highjacking The Lord Of Light’ by Tais Teng, from ‘Tales Of The Inland Sea’
‘Out Of The Wildlands’ by Martin Owton
‘Zale And Zedril’ by Susan Murrie Macdonald
‘The Amulet And The Shadow’ by Steve Dilks
‘Antediluvia: Seasons Of The World’ by Andrew Darlington
‘A Thousand Words For Death’ by Pedro Iniguez
‘Stone Snake’ by Dev Agarwal
‘Seven Thrones’ by Phil Emery
‘The Eater Of Gods’ by Adrian Cole, the Voidal
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 3’ (November 2021)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘Sorcerous Vengeance by Lorenzo D Lopez aka Gavin Chappell
‘Seal Snatchers Of Jorsaleem’ by Tais Teng, from ‘Tales Of The Inland Sea’
‘When The Gods Send You Rats’ by Chadwick Ginther
‘Mother’s Bones’ by Carson Ray, from ‘Knox’
‘In The Lair Of The Snake-Witch’ by Darin Hlavaz
‘The Rains Of Barofonn’ by Mike Chinn
‘Wardark’ by Craig Herbertson
‘The Foliage’ by Rab Foster
‘In The Lair Of The Moonmen’ by Jan Hansen
‘Sailing On The Thieves’ Tide’ by Adrian Cole, an ‘Elak’ novella
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 4’ (June 2022)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘In The Iron Woods’ by Dev Agarwal, novelette in the ‘Stone Snake series
‘My People Were Fair And Wore Stars In Their Hair’ by Andrew Darlington
‘At Sea’ by Geoff Hart
‘The Flesh Of Man’ by Frank Sawielijew
‘City At The Mouth Of Chaos’ by Adrian Cole, with ‘The Voidal’
‘In The Belly Of The Beast’ by Edward Ahern
‘The Tracks Of The Pi Nereske’ by Wendy Nikel
‘Slaves Of The Monolith’ by Paul D Batteiger
‘The Green Wood’ by David Dubrow
‘Demonic’ by Phil Emery, a ‘Zain’ story
‘The Whips Of Malmac’ by HR Laurence
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 5’ (November 2022)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘The Rotted Land’ by Charles Allen Gramlich, a ‘Krieg’ story
‘Skulls For Silver, by Harry Elliott, a ‘Mann, Hel & Hakker’ story
‘For The Light’ by Gustavo Bondoni, from ‘Swords & Sorcery no.63’ magazine
‘People Of The Lake’ by Gavin Chappell aka Lorenzo D Lopez
‘Free Diving For Leviathan Eggs’ by Tais Teng, from ‘Tales Of The Inland Sea’
‘The Black Well’ by Darin Hlavaz
‘Degg And The Undead’ by Susan Murrie Macdonald
‘The Mistress Of The Marsh’ by David Dubrow
‘Silver And Gold’ by Earl W Parrish
‘Bridge Of Sorrows’ by Dev Agarwal, a ‘Stone Snake’ story
‘Prisoners Of Devil Dog City’ by Adrian Cole, featuring ‘Artugol & Volnus’
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 6’ (May 2023)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘Land Of The Dead’ by Dev Agarwal, a ‘Stone Snake’ story
‘The House Of Bones’ by Carson Ray, a ‘Knox’ story
‘Threnody Of Ghosts’ by Phil Emery, a ‘Zain’ story
‘Wardark And The Siren Queen’ by Craig Herbertson, a ‘Wardark’ story
‘Otrim’ by Lyndon Perry
‘Gods, Men And Nephilim’ by David Dubrow
‘Golden Witch Of Adzelgar’ by Scott McCloskey
‘Raiding The Graveyard Of Lost Ships’ by Tais Teng fiction & art, a ‘Zothique’ story
‘A Place Of Ghosts’ by Andrew Darlington
‘Those Who Wear Their Hair Proudly’ by Lauren C Teffeau, reprinted from ‘Heroic Fantasy Short Stories’
‘Trials For Treasure’ by Harry Elliott, featuring ‘Mann, Hel & Hakker’
‘God Of The Dreaming Isles’ by Adrian Cole, featuring ‘Artugol & Volnus’
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 7’ (November 2023)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘Pitiless’ by Stephen Frame
‘Unhallowed Tombs’ by Paul Batteiger
‘Sorceries In Assabar’ by Andrew Graham
‘Schism Of Spectres, by Phil Emery, a ‘Zain’ story
‘The Crossroads In The Forest’ by Gavin Chappell
‘Wisps’ by Jason M Waltz
‘Dark The Sky, Radiant The Road’ by Jalyn Renae Fiske aka JN Powell
‘The Blood Of Khalid Al’Tahir’ by Craig Comer
‘The Dark Knight Of The Soul’ by Eric Ian Steele
‘Prohairesis’ by Jon Zaremba
‘Blades For A Bounty’ by Harry Elliott, a ‘Mann, Hel & Hakker story
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 8’ (April 2024)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘To Wake The Hunter’ by Tais Teng & Jaap Boekestein, novelette
‘Moonfinger And Gift’ by Andrew Darlington, an ‘Eternal Assassin’ story
‘The Quality Of Mercy’ by Geoff Hart
‘Employment For Magical People’ by Monica Goertzen Hertlein
‘The Hero’s Path’ by Jeffery A Sergent
‘Little Lives Rounded By Sleep’ by Matt McHugh
‘Wardark And The Pirate Kinh’ by Craig Herbertson, a ‘Wardark’ story
‘For The Heart Of A Spearslayer’ by RK Olson, novelette
‘The Stone Heads’ by Scott McCloskey
‘The Troupe’ by Andrew Graham
‘Lair Of The Mutant King’ by Adrian Cole, a ‘Crimson Warrior’ story
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 9’ (November 2024)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘The Cold Maiden’ by Eli Freysson
‘Assassin Eternal: The Memory Eaters’ by Andrew Darlington
‘To Raise The Shining Walls Of Irem Once More’ by Tais Teng
‘Fulgin the Grim: Retribution’ by Ken Lizzi
‘Snow In Kadhal’ by Jaap Boekestein
‘Voyage To Vancienne’ by Gavin Chappell
‘A Pathway Forward’ by Lyndon Perry & David Bakke
‘The Left Eye Of Phun Margat’ by Scott McCloskey
‘Sorcery in Nekharet’ by Steve Dilks
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 10’ (April 2025)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘Masks For The Madness’ by Harry Elliott
‘Safe As Banks’ by Geoffrey Hart
‘Death Abandoned’ by Virgo Kevonté
‘Cavern Of Stones’ by Phil Emery
‘Bad Moon Rising’ by Robert Mammone
‘The Salt Of Tilantokka’ by Gregory D. Mele
‘Shanglor: A Stranger Tale’ by Jay Litwicki
‘A Confusion Of Renegades’ by Adrian Cole
‘SWORDS & SORCERIES: TALES OF HEROIC FANTASY Volume 11’ (November 2025)
Introduction by David A Riley, with inner art by Jim Pitt
‘Silence For Snakes’ by Harry Elliott, a ‘Mann, Hel & Hakker’ story
‘Midwinter’ by David A Sutton, reprinted from Mike Ashley’s ‘The Merlin Chronicles’ (1995)
‘Tomb Robbers’ by Susan Murrie Macdonald
‘Blackshield Manor’ by Marc Edward Star
‘The Eggshell Carver’ by Tais Teng
‘The Eternal Assassin: The Man Who Hunted Death’ by Andrew Darlington
‘The Gwáilóu Ship’ by Geoffrey Hart
‘Good Fortune by Ũũmbi (Mungai M’mbogori)
‘The Wyrm’s Tongue’ by Daniel Mahoney
‘Wardark and the Sands’ of Serpanam by Craig Herbertson, a ‘Wardark’ story
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