David A. Riley's Blog, page 8

Illustration for The Demon from Another World

As a writer sometimes an illustration for a story you've written really stands out for you, and I must admit I do love the one provided for my sword and sorcery tale The Demon from Another World in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium from TreeShaker Books.

An Oddity published in Strange Aeon 2024

I was surprised to see such glowing praise from the editor of Strange Aeon: 2024, M. Keaton about my story An Oddity, which was reprinted in it recently. The tale was first printed in Shlock! Webzine earlier this year.

Dead Thieves in the Night - my latest Horbeck sword and sorcery tale

I have now finished Dead Thieves in the Night, my latest sword and sorcery story involving the mercenaries Horbeck, Brud and Asnar. This finished at 10,000 words, a novelette.

As soon as I completed this, though, I found myself embarking on yet another yarn of this trio, possibly titled The Sorcerer's Casket.

The list of Horbeck & Co stories so far are:

The Unhappy Inquisitor

The Demon from Another World (Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium)

Lies and Treachery

The Mummified Demi-God

Dead Thieves in the Night

Three New Sword & Sorcery Collections from Tule Fog Press

 

Introducing 3 New Collections from Tule Fog Press...

Check out the kickstarter Campaign here.

Be the first to grab these exciting adventures from the pens (or keyboards!) of David A. Riley, Andrew Darlington, and Tim Hanlon. Available individually or in a bundle.

The Stories...

David A. Riley's hero and mercenary is in trouble. Follow along as Welgar faces an Agryptian demon god and experience his subsequent quest to rid himself of the evil that has befallen him. Six tales of dark and sorcerous fantasy. 

Sample one for free. Read “The Forbidden City of Cyramon” by David A. Riley at Swords & Heroes eZine.

Andrew Darlingon's Eternal Assassin can never die. Well, the host he inhabits dies, but the Assassin lives on through the ages and faces monsters, foes, and eldritch powers. Read about his "lives & times" in this expanded chronicle of 15 gripping tales.

Sample one for free. Read “The Blood-Beast from Hellmouth” by Andrew Darlington at Swords & Heroes eZine.

Tim Hanlon's wayfaring Nordman, Harkan the Swordsman, is a far-roaming mercenary. When Tasmyra, the Sea Witch, is taken captive, Harkan sets out on a thrilling quest that will test him to the uttermost. Seven tales of high adventure.  

Sample one for free. Read “Queen of the Shifting City” by Tim Hanlon at Swords & Heroes eZine.

Another new sword and sorcery tale finished - Dead Thieves in the Night

I have managed to more or less put the final touches to a new 10,000 word sword and sorcery tale tentatively called Dead Thieves in the Night. It's another story in the ongoing saga of my mercenary heroes Horbeck, Brud and Asnar, who started life, for Horbeck at least, as a minor character in The Unhappy Inquisitor, before coming to their own in The Demon From Another World, Lies and Treachery, and The Mummified Demi-God, defying Fate by somehow or other staying alive, though how much longer this will last I do not know... 

So far only one of these tales has been published, The Demon From Another World in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium from Treeshaker Books.

My early sword and sorcery tale The God in the Keep to be reprinted in Schlock! Webzine in 2025

 

One of my earlier sword and sorcery stories, The God in the Keep, originally published online in Sword & Sorcery magazine, issue 118 in 2021, will be reprinted in Schlock! Webzine in August 2025.

Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 9 - update

 

Received my proof copy of Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 9 yesterday but I wasn't 100% happy with the spine. A strip of the white encroached into the front cover, so I have made corrections and ordered a second proof copy. I know, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, but I can't go ahead until I am at least 90% happy. I've also made a couple of other minor alterations. The second proof should reach me by Monday at the latest. By then it should be ready for publishing. Hopefully paperbacks and kindle copies will be available to order by Wednesday the 13th.In the meantime I have formatted the collection for kindle and that looks absolutely fine to me. This task seems to get easier the more often I do it. Hope everyone likes the book when it's out there!

Two stories published today: The Demon from Another World and An Oddity

I have two stories just published in the States.One is my sword and sorcery novelette The Demon from Another World in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium .The second is a reprint of my horror story An Oddity in the anthology Strange Aeon 2024 edited by M. Keaton. This was first published in the January 2024 issue of Schlock! Webzine .

The Demon from Another World is now out in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium

My sword and sorcery novelette The Demon from Another World is now out in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium as a paperback and kindle ebook from Treeshaker Books. 

This features a group of mercenaries, chief of whom is Horbeck, who has appeared in several other stories I've written. He first appears as a minor character in The Unhappy Inquisitor. Since then he has appeared as the main character in two sequels to The Demon from Another World: Lies and Treachery and The Mummified Demi-God, plus another I am still writing. 

Kickstarter for Welgar the Cursed, Path of the Swordsman, and The Eternal Assassin Chronicles is about to start

The kickstarter for Welgar the Cursed, Path of the Swordsman by Tim Hanlon and The Eternal Assassin Chronicles by Andrew Darlington is about to start. 

About my own collection, Welgar the Cursed, here are some details from my Introduction: The six stories in this collection chronicle the gradual descent into darkness of the northern barbarian mercenary hero Welgar.“Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus" was the first story I wrote involving Welgar, though he is very much a secondary character in this tale after the rather bizarre sorcerer-cum-apothecary Ossani the Healer. In this novelette Welgar is a young mercenary, already distrustful of sorcery, who becomes embroiled against his will in thwarting an attempt to take over the city he has been employed to protect as a member of the city watch. By sheer chance he and Ossani meet in a prison where they and others have been incarcerated by a puritanical religious movement that is threatening to tear the city apart. Though disliking anything that even hints of sorcery he is gradually persuaded to see Ossani in a better light than others of his ilk and together they collaborate to save the city from the sinister plot to bring it down."The Dark Priestdom" (published in Savage Realms Monthly) sees an older, more mature Welgar who has moved northwards to the “wealthy but licentious” city of Oriaska in a bid to improve his fortunes. There he pitches in to help Nadrain the Storyteller, who he notices is being set up to take the blame for the abduction of the king of Oriaska's daughter, though there is an element of self interest in this, as Welgar sees it as an opportunity to gain the king's gratitude for helping save the princess. In pursuit of her abductors Welgar and Nadrain sail southwards to the benighted city of Agrypt where Welgar is tricked into being possessed by the spirit of a dark, Agryptian demon god. Although this demon god endows him with increased strength, speed and stamina it is at the expense of his appearance, which is transformed into a wizened, bleached, deathlike travesty, looking more like a corpse than a living being."Welgar the Cursed" (published in Swords & Heroes) sees Welgar realising how truly cursed he is, not only in becoming the image of an unwrapped mummy, but in the extreme bouts of insane violence the demon god that has possessed him makes him perform. Insatiable in its appetite for slaughter, there is little Welgar can do to prevent it.An incident in "Mask of a Mad God" reveals to Welgar even more vividly how evil this curse truly is. The horrific events in this story are what lead Welgar to undertake the hazardous trek to the far north to "The Forbidden City of Cyramon" (published in Swords & Heroes). In the arctic wastes beyond the Jagged Mountains in which this demon-haunted city is situated he hopes either to be killed or to free himself from his curse, though what he encounters there is far from what he expects.The final story, "Emerging from Their Twilit Realms", reveals the full extent of Agrypt's insane ambitions to create a dark empire, which will cause ruin, mayhem and death around the Azure Sea. Despite his desire to lead a normal life once more, Welgar is forced to oppose the Agryptian forces that head north in a way that only he can manage, reuniting him once more with Ossani the Healer in an apocalyptic tale of terror, death and destruction.All of these stories chronologically detail Welgar's transformation from a carefree mercenary more interested in the quality of the local beer to an obsessed and cursed pawn in the kinds of sorcerous machinations he hates, distrusts and quite rightfully fears.