Lord of a Shattered Land: A review

Hanuvar has lost it all—his land, his people, and his family—following a disastrous military defeat. Narrowly escaping his own death and presumed dead by his enemies, the exiled former General vows to find the scattered remnants of his surviving people and set them free. 

And kick some ass along the way.

This is the premise of Howard Andrew Jones’ new sword-and-sorcery novel Lord of a Shattered Land (2023, Baen Books). A novel which is almost a short story collection. In it we follow Hanuvar on a sprawling series of episodic adventures that can be read and enjoyed as standalone tales (several were published as short stories appearing in Tales from the Magician’s Skull and elsewhere), or as a cohesive novel, the disparate adventures following sequentially in service of an overarching plot.

As with any collection I enjoyed some entries better than others. There are 3-4 terrific “stories” in here that easily stand among the best of the recent explosion of S&S fiction. My favorites included “The Warrior’s Way,” “The Second Death of Hanuvar,” “The Crypt of Stars,” and “An Accident of Blood.” 

Lord of a Shattered Land serves as a promising template for how sword-and-sorcery can work in a longer form. Although its sweet spot is the short story and novella, S&S can and has proven adaptable to longer treatments—see the likes of Fritz Leiber’s The Swords of Lankhmar, or Karl Edward Wagner’s Bloodstone. Can it be done in a form familiar to fans of epic fantasy—3 or 5 thick volumes? We’ll see. But Lord of a Shattered Land is a promising start.

Jones wears some obvious influences on his sleeve. The setting is sword and sandal, as Hanuvar was inspired by the historical general Hannibal and the cultural and technological milieu shares many similarities with ancient Rome. The style evokes Harold Lamb: Briskly paced storytelling, and emphasis on plot over character. The final chapter is an interesting/ambitious look into Hanuvar’s mind, as told through a fever-dream sequence.

Other influences may be less apparent. Hanuvar’s wistful remembrances of Volanus and its fallen cities of white towers reminded me of Tolkien and the lost cities of the First Age of Middle-Earth.

Hanuvar is a truly heroic hero, and in this sense strays outside some of the stricter sword and sorcery definitions. He's a patriot, quite willing to sacrifice his own life to rescue the lives of his people. Jones has billed Hanuvar as some combination of Captain America and James Bond. I find him much more Bond; extremely competent but quite ruthless, a thinking man's fighter, aging but still deadly in hand-to-hand combat and very willing to take lives. Not a “hero” in the mold of an unhinged Mad Max, but very much in control, not after bloodthirsty vengeance but liberation. Not fueled by wine, women, and coin, but the hope he may one day find his daughter alive.

Does this somehow exclude Lord of a Shattered Land from the ranks of sword-and-sorcery? Of course not, unless you’re a pedant. Merely because many historical S&S protagonists were mercenary or self-serving does not mean all were, or that current authors should feel obligated to cleave to someone else’s definition of S&S. Embrace your influences and work unburdened by the past, as Jones does here.

Back to the review.

Some will find Lord of a Shattered Land not to their tastes, depending on the flavor of S&S they enjoy reading. For example, it lacks the primal barbaric spirit of Conan, or the otherworldly weirdness of CAS’ slice of S&S. Hanuvar is very much a civilized man and the world of Lord of a Shattered Land feels civilized, albeit with weird incursions and some cool monsters. But always the baseline is familiar, inspired as it is by history. So if you’re after the red-handed barbarism of Conan or Kull, or the weirdness of "The Isle of the Torturers" or the dreamlike underworld of C.L. Moore’s "Black God’s Kiss," you won’t get these here, precisely.

And in that regard Lord of a Shattered Land did not check all my S&S boxes. Some of the stories don’t match the heightened urgency of others, leading to some unevenness, as you’d expect in any collection. 

But I nevertheless greatly enjoyed it, overall. And what you do get is a well-realized, quasi historical world that feels real, and lived in. Lord of a Shattered Land is very well written, moving in places, even elevated. I have not read widely of HAJ, though I have read some, including The Desert of Souls, and in this volume it feels like he’s come into his own as a writer. I was impressed by Jones’ authorial range. One chapter is outright humor, brushing up to slapstick (“The Autumn Horse”), while others are dark and violent. Still others are contemplative, and sad. 

This is a journey we’re on, after all, and the figure we’re following has seen a lot, and lost much. But remains unbroken.

Minor spoiler: Lord of a Shattered Land offers no resolution; Jones has already announced the series will to run to (five!) books, so we can’t and shouldn’t expect Hanuvar to find his people and set them free in his volume. At the end the land is still very much shattered, and the people of Volanus still scattered. It will be interesting to see if Jones can pull off something this ambitious. But he’s well on his way with his most ambitious and successful work to date.

If you’re a fan of sword-and-sorcery, pick this up. For the sake of supporting the subgenre, but also for supporting tales well-told.

Assessing the sword-and-sorcery "glut"

Jason Ray Carney recently weighed in on an issue that’s been on my mind, too: The glut of new sword-and-sorcery fiction. Asks Jason:

Because of the glut of new sword and sorcery, I find myself buying new books with a wistful sense of "One day I'll find time to read this." Am I alone?

No, you’re not alone Jason.

I’m feeling a little bloated myself. 

I’ve recently read A Book of Blades, New Edge #0, Worlds Beyond Worlds, a handful of issues of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, and Sometime Lofty Towers. Not all brand new, but new enough.

But I haven’t made a dent, and the titles just keep coming. 

Sitting unread in my office are:

Die by the Sword

Multiple additional copies of Tales from the Magician’s Skull

Lord of a Shattered Land

War on Rome

Not to mention my Howard Days haul, which includes Kagen the Damned

More are on the way. I participated in the recent kickstarter for Swords from the Shadows, so I expect that anthology in the mail soon. I also backed New Edge and issue no. 1 is well under way. I know I’ll be backing Neither Beg Nor Yield next. Baen is ramping up its act, as is Titan.

I feel guilty that I haven’t bought A Book of Blades vol. 2 (yet). I’d like to get more volumes of Swords and Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy, as I greatly enjoyed vol. 1, but I have to pump the brakes somehow. I’ve got two daughters in college.

And on top of everything else I’m way behind on Whetstone. 

It does feel rather like a glut.

Is this a bad thing? Again I agree with Jason; while “glut” is not a particularly positive descriptor, it does also mean we have a plethora of choices. 

Just a few short years ago it was hard to find any new sword-and-sorcery, save for the likes of online stories from Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Swords and Sorcery magazine, and the occasional title from DMR Books. It was a dark time, with glints of light in the stygian gloom. Parched S&S fans were starved for a cool drink.

But now the drink feels if not like a firehose, then a 40 oz. big gulp. It seems like new kickstarters are popping up every fortnight, announcing new anthologies and projects.

In comparison with trad fantasy, or YA, the number of new titles we’re seeing in S&S would probably not qualify as a blip. But those markets are not S&S. They’re far, far larger, and can bear the output. When you’re playing in a small pool this flood of titles is a lot.

Again, I stress that this is so far from a crisis that it’s ridiculous to even think that way. It might not even be a problem. If you have plenty of 1) expendable cash and 2) time, and love to read, it’s great. If you lack either cash, or sufficient time, less so.

If you’re a publisher trying to make a living the glut is a problem, unless the market keeps expanding. Because right now we’re short on readers. And that is the real issue.

Unless you grow the pool of readers by 20x (or preferably, 200x) no writer or publisher is going to be able to make enough to sustain a full-time living writing S&S. Here is an interesting article from 2016 on self-publishing and the kinds of numbers you need to make a middle-class income. I doubt any new anthology is moving these kinds of numbers. 

The issue is definitely not the passionate community of creators, including writers but also artists and editors. Everyone who wants to write or create, should. But they also should know they are publishing in a very small community.

Perhaps I’m using the wrong barometer for health, and that readership and revenue aren’t the real indicators, but quantity and quality of output, and passion of the community. But again quantity is a problem: when there are this many new titles in such a small community some will go unread. Assessing quality is also difficult: Conversations will be shorter, and shallower, as we quickly switch focus to the next new title. And I’m not sure that’s great for discussion and thoughtful reviews. There isn’t much talk over what makes for good writing in this space.

Back to optimism and possibility: One way I can see this evolving is editors raising the bar for the stories they’ll accept, and getting more specific about what types of stories they want, thematically or stylistically. New Edge is doing this with its lean into diversity and inclusiveness; Neither Beg Nor Yield with a never surrender attitude.

Maybe one day we’ll see a “Year’s Best” anthology that we can hand to a new reader and say, “start here.”

All this is coming at a time where I’m feeling a bit burned out on sword-and-sorcery, and reading horror and memoir at the moment. Make no mistake, I’m a lifelong reader and nothing will extinguish that flame. I’ll be back. But I need a pause to get caught up.

Long story short, I’ll eventually get to Lord of a Shattered Land. Soon, I promise.

Remembering Manilla Road's Mark Shelton, heavy metal bard of sword-and-sorcery

Ben Davidson of Conan the Barbarian fame? Nope, Mark Shelton.

Yesterday marked the 5 year anniversary of the death of Mark Shelton, founder and lead vocalist/guitarist for Manilla Road. The most sword-and-sorcery musician the world has known. 

Check out my tribute and top 5 most S&S Manilla Road hits on the blog of DMR Books.

Part II of S&S interview video up on YouTube

Part II of a video interview I did with Jan, The Brilliance of S&S, is now up on YouTube. Check it out here.

Part I is available here. 

I enjoyed chatting with Jan and love what he did with the interview and accompanying visuals. Good stuff.

1979 Ken Kelly heroic fantasy calendar, month-by-month

Let's look inside, shall we? And return to an age undreamed of ....1979.

Among my prized finds at 2023 Howard Days was this bad boy. A 1979 Ken Kelly Robert E. Howard Heroic Fantasy Calendar. 

Although it came sealed I’ve been dying to open it. But only very lightly sealed, as I recently discovered, and definitely a reseal job. Which made opening it easy. I used a fine knife and cracked through some weak adhesive, leaving the envelope undamaged.

And the glory was revealed. Check out the pics below.

I’m not a collector. I like owning cool shit to display and read, and put my hands on. Life is about enjoying things. We can’t take it with us. The work of the late Kelly (1946-2022) was not meant to be kept under wraps and passed along from investor to investor.

This calendar is in fantastic shape, unmarked and unused and crisp. I’ll keep it that way and handle with the utmost care, but have no desire to keep it hermetically sealed and resell at profit. It’s now going to be displayed on my wall, as it should be.

And its practical applications are not over. In addition to full-color images of Howardian heroes of heroic proportions and the glorious contrasts of light and dark that highlight the best of Kelly’s work, the website www.whencanireusethiscalendar.com tells me that this calendar will be accurate again in 2029, so there’s that, too. I’ll plan to leave it up for at least the next six years until I can use it to plan my summer vacations.

And of course, a centerfold. 

Talking sword-and-sorcery on YouTube and my current reading

Prior to my vacation to the Outer Banks I was invited to speak with Jan, a cool dude from the UK with a YouTube channel that covers pulp fiction and other related topics. We had a lengthy recorded session about sword-and-sorcery (of course!) on which he did a lot of cool post-editing, including adding tons of interesting visuals and cool transitions. It makes for nice viewing rather than staring at my unattractive face.

We cover what sword-and-sorcery is, its defining characteristics, the Lovecraft-Howard exchange of letters in A Means to Freedom, and the need for re-enchantment. Stuff you probably already know about if you’re a fan of S&S or have read Flame and Crimson, but otherwise might find interesting.

The final video is here. Enjoy!

***

Despite the above video I’m on an S&S break at the moment. I enjoy reading outside of the subgenre and needed a palate cleanser, so recently read The Silence of the Lambs (Thomas Harris, love the film but had never read the novel until now), Gov’t Cheese (non-fiction/memoir by Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire and The War of Art) and am midway through a re-read of Watership Down. The first two were wonderful reads, and as for the third I’m reminded why it’s an acknowledged classic. It probably would fall in my top 10 books of all-time, should such a list exist.

A very metal 50th birthday

50.

I celebrated a milestone birthday this past week at the Outer Banks, Corolla NC. This was not conceived as a "Murph's 50th"; we and three other families had been planning a summer trip as a “farewell to all that” sendoff for four daughters headed off to college in the fall. Four families about to become empty-nesters, and we wanted to give us and the kids something to remember. After many planning meetings and hard scheduling sessions we finally landed on the week of June 24, which happens to coincide with the day I turned 50 (b. June 26, 1973).

Which worked out beautifully. Geddy Lee fruitlessly prayed for time to stand still, recognizing that children inevitably grow up, and old friends have a tendency to grow older. Still, there was no better way to celebrate getting old than together.

16 people. One enormous (10K square feet, 3 floors, 8 bedrooms) rented house just a short walk to the beach. Imagine a seven-day party among great friends with whom you’ve watched your children grow. Folks with whom I’ve spent many memorable weekends, but never something like this. 

We saw wild horses, ascended a lighthouse, jet skied, played mini-golf with buckets of beer, went bar-hopping to the Sunset Grill in Duck, and beyond. Walked the beach, saw sunrises and sunsets. 

And I was treated to a surprise birthday party for the ages.

On Monday us six dudes (Steve, Rob, Brian, buddies all about my age, plus two sons) hit a local taproom, a pay by the ounce joint (amazing concept BTW). Which was awesome in its own right, but proved to be a ruse to get me out of the house. While we were out, the 10 gals back home went to town decorating and getting dressed up for a metal party.

As we pulled into the driveway I noticed odd decor on the front door. Skulls, devil horns, you know the rest. My metal senses were tingling. The door opened and I could hear KISS’ “Rock and Roll All Nite” blasting on the third floor. 

And walked up to this.

It was bedlam. Metal karaoke. We sang Whitesnake, Judas Priest, KISS, Poison, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Twisted Sister, you name it, we queued it up. I was treated to a 10-minute pre-recorded video with wonderful tributes from friends, my wife, and, apropos to the occasion, KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer. Since my daughter uploaded it to YouTube I’m including it here; feel free to watch even though its personal (mother, brother, sister, wife, daughters, others, referencing stuff from my childhood and you will miss many of the references). I may or may not have dabbed a tear. Must have been the hairspray.

My wife Susanne, master planner and organizer, knocked this out of the park.  

The party continued on the outside decks. At this point our neighbors couldn’t help but take notice and they crowded their decks to watch the nonsense. A couple party goers jumped up on a picnic table and we had everyone singing “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and “Cum on Feel the Noize.”

As dark descended we walked to the beach rolling the karaoke speaker with us, blasting “Turbo Lover” and illuminating the boardwalk with strobe lights. Sang Whitesnake and Bon Jovi with the waves crashing behind us. Then came back home. 

Later that night I started a conga line that ended up in the swimming pool. One of the ladies forgot her phone in her back pocket. We stuffed a hot tub and kept the tunes and booze flowing. It ended with the cops coming out (noise complaint, justified) that finally ended things just short of midnight. Probably for the best since the celebrations started at 9 a.m.

We might be getting older but we still rock.

I’m officially an old fart, but also officially the luckiest man on the planet.

The wife and I... married 26 years, still metal.