Whetstone #4 is available (free sword-and-sorcery!), plus Viking Adventures

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.