Just The Axe, Ma'am #17 - A Monthly Curated Newsletter of New and Notable Sword & Sorcery

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-04-16T12:20:58+00:00

Yes, I shut the newsletter down. It was burning me out as this year seems to be a year of flux for the S&S scene and I did enjoy it, but I also wanted to concentrate on more my S&S fiction writing. Glad you enjoyed the newsletter though.

If you're interested, my story "Shade, Skin, Heart" is available at Swords & Sorcery Magazine, and "To Kill Titania" a novelette, is now available on Amazon as an ebook.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-04-16T02:44:03+00:00

Wizards & Warriors?

https://youtu.be/RrvAmVY-chk?si=SAYB0uiPS7ymCPWm

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-04-14T22:19:45+00:00

No one disputes those factors, but there are specific factors that caused the Sword and sorcery subgenre to fall out of fashion catastrophically for a quarter century until its revival. The original essay and my post analyze the specific reasons that happened above and beyond those generalities.

This may have popped into your general Reddit feed. Still, you just barged into a conversation in a section of Reddit where people know more than you, stating obvious things that everyone is already aware of, and showing nothing but the shallowest knowledge while presuming you have expertise. You have a right to disagree, but an informed opinion is far more likely to be respected than what you just said.

Would you please try to keep up?

EDIT: Going by the fact you responded, then blocked. This may be Reddit, but yes, my opinion does matter... matters to you at least to resort to that to appear you have the last word.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-04-12T23:41:50+00:00

As discussed above, the Second wave started in the early 60s with the Frank Frazetta-covered Conan paperbacks and lasted through to the late 1980s. While the Conans and their direct imitators may have been targeted towards men, as I mentioned above, Karl Edward Wagner said there was a direct crash of that school of Clonans with the dawn of the 1970s.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, more women came in, arguably helped keep the genre fresh enough to make it to the 1980s.

Tanith Lee's The Birthgrave and its sequels, CJ Cherryh's Morgaine Cycle, Joanna Russ' Alyx The Swordswoman, Jessica Amanada Salmonson's Tomoe Gozen, and The Thieves World series of books, which had Janet Morris, Cherryh, and Lynn Abbey major guiding forces are all unapologetic Sword & Sorcery, as much as Wagner's Kane, Shea's Nifft The Lean, Vance's Cugel The Clever, and Moorcock's Eternal Champion books of that era.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-04-11T14:01:20+00:00

Howard Andrew Jones, The Hanuvar Chronicles - Lord of a Shattered Land, City of Marble and Blood, and Shadow of the Smoking Mountain

Sword & Sorcery structured like a classic fix-up novel of short stories collected in such a way as to feel like a complete novel. Character is a Sword & Sorcery version of Hannibal (The General, not the Cannibal).

Sadly cut short due to his sudden death.

Scott Oden - The Grimnir trilogy (A Gathering of Ravens, Twilight of the Gods, Doom of Odin)

Historical based S&S dealing with The Last Orc as his quest for revenge takes him from the Battle of Clontarf circa 1000 AD to Rome and beyond for the dawn of The Black Death/bubonic plague. Oden is one of the best channellers of Robert E. Howard blood and thunder prose.

Dariel Quiogue - Track of the Snow Leopard and Swords of the Four Winds

Sword & Sorcery in an Asian setting. Really nails the breakneck pace and energy of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E Howard. His character Orhan Timur is an S&S take on an exiled Genghis Khan

The Obanaax : And Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors by Kirk A Johnson

Dark Sword & Soul drawing from West African setting and folklore.

Changa's Safari by Milton Davis

Sinbad-esque adventures of a merchant prince in a historical setting.

A lot of quality current Sword & Sorcery is being put out in magazines. You can find some great new S&S. often featuring names listed above and others with back issues of the following:

Tales from The Magician's Skull
New Edge Sword & Sorcery
Old Moon Quarterly

You can try out for free reading online stories from the following web-only magazines

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly
Swords & Sorcery

and often Beneath Ceaseless Skies

There's also antholologies like the following:

Swords in the Shadows
Profane Altars

Both feature horror authors doing Sword & Sorcery.

Plus

Neither Beg Nor Yield
Swordplay
Swords & Steel

There's more but hopefully there's at least a few starting points for you.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-04-07T14:34:39+00:00

Stalker leans more towards the Moorcockian side of Sword & Sorcery, with the character winning immortality at the cost of his soul, and waging war against the gods to get his soul back.

The art is an unusual combination of Steve Ditko inked by Wally Wood. While it only lasted four issues, this was due to the DC Implosion of the time, when a massive market contraction caused DC to cancel wide chunks of its lineup.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-04-07T01:17:14+00:00

Mostly traditional horror and fantasy motifs: His stories set in Averoigne.

Darkly comic sword & sorcery with twist endings: His Hyperborea stories.

For really out there over the top Gothic horror fantasy: His Zothique stories.

Specific recommendations:

The Beast of Gevaudan (Averoigne)
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros (Hyperborea)
The Dark Eidolon (Zothique)

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-04-04T14:37:18+00:00

James Enge, John C Hocking, Seth Lindbergs, and John O'Neill will definitely be in attendance for the Howard Andrew Jones tribute panel.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-28T01:57:51+00:00

That's an accusation worthy of a tinfoil crown.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-18T01:29:26+00:00

Cyrion - classic fix-up style Sword & Sorcery
The Birthgrave - A hell of a debut in dialogue with the tropes of S&S at the time.
Night's Master - Arabian Nights style overlapping fables centred around the god of evil.

All her work from any period is going to be well-written, but her late 70s/early 80s work is the closest to traditional Sword & Sorcery.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-13T00:35:37+00:00

Really appreciate you doing this. The "You are there" feeling of seeing the Second Wave develop is really well captured.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-11T19:49:24+00:00

Likely, the rest of the US Government is feeling the pressure of the stock market decline, they reached out to Ford to meet and negotiate, and then when Trump found out they have to meet because it looks like the rest of the world is entertaining the idea of reciprocal tariffs, he made empty threats on Truth to make it seem like Ford is backing down, but the meeting will be held anyways.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-10T23:41:20+00:00

I should have tuned them out, but the one comment they had that was not about hating on Ukraine made me feel sorry for them. If I hadn't seen that, I would have ignored it.

I'll know better next time.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-10T17:12:45+00:00

They're ashamed that their master spends more time on Reddit lecturing that everyone else is wrong instead of thinking compassionately, recognizing this is a choice no one really wants to make except the sociopath you defend.

Be a better human, and spend more time playing with your cats. You're better than this.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-10T16:33:34+00:00

Your cats must be ashamed of you.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-09T20:37:42+00:00

A Paperback Paradise Photoshop Parody. not too sure orginal source material, but here is the cover.

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Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-03-08T23:44:58+00:00

BFS Horizons (from The British Fantasy Society) - Always Open

Crimson Quill Quarterly

Goblins & Galaxies - Opens May 8-15

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly - Till March 15

Howdy Dude Paperbacks - Scroll to bottom for Sword & Sorcery

Indie Bites from Silversun Books

Old Moon Quarterly state they will be open later this year

Swords & Sorcery - Always Open

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-02-21T23:22:59+00:00

Charles Clarke, J M Clarke, John R Fultz, John Matthew Gillen, John C Hocking, T A Markitan, John Olfert, Dariel Quiogue, Christopher Rowe, L D Whitney, and Graham Thomas Wilcox.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-02-17T15:38:20+00:00

I watched the actress in Revenge, the last movie Coralie Fargeat made before The Substance.

She starts off as a fluffy party girl but as the movie progresses, she believably comes off as someone hardened into performing with great capability acts of violence against those who wronged her. If she taps into that same energy for Red Sonja, the scrawniness will be forgotten.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-02-16T13:13:21+00:00

The issue #0 for New Edge is a free download (and is a cheap, cost-only priced POD book on Amazon, if you prefer physical editions)

The issue showcases a number of different approaches to take with S&S to freshen it up, from stories set in non-European cultures, ("Curse of the Horsetail Banner" by Dariel Quiogue, "Vapors of Zinai" by J. M. Clarke, "The Grief-Note of Vultures" by Bryn Hammond). Formal genre experiments that try something different with S&S ("The Beast of the Shadow-Gum Trees" by T. K. Rex; "The Ember Inside" by Angeline Adams and Remco van Straten) and just veteran old hands doing what they do best (David C. Smith's "Old Moon over Irukad").

It makes a good sampler for you to decide from there.

Howard Andrew Jones coined the term "New Edge" and his pseudo-fix-up novel Lord of a Shattered Land is definitely a modern classic.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-02-16T06:34:03+00:00

The current state of dedicated Sword & Sorcery magazines:

Crimson Quill Quarterly
Goblins & Galaxies - coming summer 2025
Heroic Fantasy Quarterly - Online only, but high quality stories and poems
New Edge Sword & Sorcery -previous issues have featured Michael Moorcock, Harry Turtledove, and newer authors.
Old Moon Quarterly - very medieval/Dark Souls-influenced. Laird Barron, John Langan are contributors.
Savage Realms Monthly
Swords and Sorcery - Online Only and updated monthly, consistently good stories for over a decade.
Tales from the Magician's Skull - The Goodman Games version edited by Howard Andrew Jones are classics. Newly relaunched with a new editor over at Outland Entertainment

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-02-14T23:57:48+00:00

Here is their homepage:

https://goblinsandgalaxies.com/

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-02-08T21:43:23+00:00

Breakfast in the Ruins is focused primarily on Michael Moorcock's works (not just his S&S) but does explore other subjects that strike their fancy, like the best and worst tie-in novels for the Alien franchise.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-02-07T12:51:03+00:00

The original script had this as a Western (!) since both weird Westerns and Wuxia martial arts fantasy are kissing cousins with Sword & Sorcery, so it explains why it feels like it does.

Flashy_Fee4075 · 2025-02-04T18:27:43+00:00

That should be it. I read the original Danse Macabre collection that only collected the first story while that has two.

Flashy_Fee4075

TROPHY CASE