Review: New Edge Sword & Sorcery, Nos. 0-2
There’s a huge variety of entertaining and illuminative content in New Edge Sword and Sorcery Magazine. Anyone who’s interested in the subject would be well advised to check the magazine out.
Book Reviews: Ill Met and Well Met
I have to give Leiber a pass on the fridging in Ill Met in Lankhmar. But I don’t have to enjoy it.
One of the many reasons I still love Saber & Shadow is that its women don’t get fridged, because they are the protagonists. Their lovers don’t get fridged, either, because these women are into each other. It’s a joyful romp, albeit with a lot of tense moments, and a few traumatic memories for one character.
Book Review: Swords and Scoundrels by Julia Knight
Vocho and Kasha are duelists, or were, once upon a time. In these less enlightened times, not only are they no longer in the Duellists Guild, the Guild itself isn’t quite the institution it once was, after the fall of a King and the rise of a new order. Vocho and Kasha take whatever jobs they can to survive, and those jobs often involve the liberation of goods and funds from the more well off. However, the problem of being highwaymen is that sometimes you wind up with a cargo far beyond what you bargained for, a cargo that several factions are looking to capture, or destroy, with the fate of cities and even a kingdom in the balance. Now, with such a hot potato, the pasts of Vocho and Kasha seems poised to catch up with their present. Swords and Scoundrels is the first in the Duellists Trilogy from Julia Knight. Julia Knight, under the name Francis Knight, is also known for writing the Fade to Black series.
Book Review: The Copper Promise by Jen Williams
Sebastian and Wydrin are mercenaries and adventurers, longtime friends and partners, doing jobs for coin in a way and manner familiar to a lot of sword and sorcery fiction. Sebastian is the big guy, a defrocked paladin of a mountain god. Wydrin is an infamous rogue of the port city of Crosshaven known as the Copper Cat, deadly with two blades. The opening of the book starts off straightforwardly enough, with the pair hired by a deposed noble to break into a magical vault. A magical vault that contains a long imprisoned scaly God and followers that the pair inadvertently free. Oops.
Mining the Genre Asteroid: Jirel of Joiry
Mining the Genre Asteroid is Paul Weimer’s look at the history of the science fiction and fantasy field, bringing to light important, interesting and entertaining books from science fiction and fantasy’s past to you. France during the dark ages. The ruler of a feudal holding stands to protect the people and realm against usurpers and rivals, wizards and witches, dark crossovers from eldritch dimensions and haunted castles. Possessed of indomitable will, a strong emotional core that erupts in violent love and hatred, and not inconsiderable skill with sword and the leading of men into battle, this feudal lord is the central character of six early sword and sorcery stories. Meet the lady Jirel of Joiry.
