Free sword-and-sorcery, you say?
Whetstone, a new amateur digital magazine devoted to short works (2,500 words maximum) of sword-and-sorcery, yesterday published issue no. 4. You can download it here, free of charge.
Managing editor Jason Ray Carney asked me pen a short introduction, and I was happy to do so. While I'm behind on my reading of issues 1-3, I wholeheartedly support this effort, and I've derived hours of enjoyment on the Whetstone Discord group. I was glad to kick off the issue and the TOC looks great.
Time to do some reading.
While I'm on the subject of new(ish) sword-and-sorcery(ish), I recently finished Viking Adventures by DMR Books. While it got off to a bit of a slow start, this volume gained serious steam, and I positively could not put down the closing tale, "Vengeance" by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur. This is easily one of the darkest (near black), most intense tales of revenge I've ever read. I was floored to learn it was published nearly a century ago in 1925. It is as dark as the darkest Grimdark fiction, and while the prose is not modern it's highly readable, and beautiful in places.
Henry Kuttner's "Ragnarok" was a magnificent closing note, a fine poem about the twilight of the Northern gods. There are some other great entries in the volume too.
In short, I recommend Viking Adventures. Then again I'll read about anything with a Viking on the cover.
2 comments:
I've been doing more and more reading in the old pulps Adventure and Argosy, and I have to agree, Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur is pretty awesome--there are some similarities with Howard's writing. I first read some of his works with Farnham Bishop, which I did not like, and then I read some by Bishop solo and did not like those either. Then I read Brodeur solo and have been enjoying him immensely ever since.
For those who either can't wait for Viking Adventures to arrive or want to read it in the original, they can link to "Vengeance" here: https://archive.org/details/AdventureV053N0319250630/page/n141/mode/2up
And, since you read that great story, I would recommend either The Adventures of Faidit and Cercamon (Altus Press, 2014) or the recently released He Rules Who Can (Steeger Books 2021), which was originally published in Argosy.
Oh, and the latter has a Viking on the cover!
Enjoy,
Will
Thanks for the links Will (and your mutual love of Brodeur). I'm still an amateur there but based on "Vengeance" alone would be willing to go in on He Rules Who Can.
Some great stuff in those old pulps.
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