REVIEW: Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery by Brackenbury Books
Sword and sorcery lives on, and it cuts a bloody swath through two Mongol-inspired novellas, masterfully collected in Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery by Brackenbury Books. If your only brushes with sword and sorcery (hereafter called S&S) are Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja tales and you want something a little bit different, Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery might be the excellent shakeup you need. Contained within is Waste Flowers by Bryn Hammond: a story about Goatskin the Nomad, a warrior leading a caravan of merchants through the dangerous Gobi desert, as well as Walls of Shira Yulun by Dariel R.A. Quiogue, where the warrior Orhan Timur tries to survive a deadly siege in a city seeking his death. Both narratives offer different flavors of S&S, but both are packaged in one neat little book.
Waste Flowers is a contemplative story with mystery and adventure at the heart of the narrative. Goatskin is an interesting character to follow. She’s a highly competent warrior who can survive even in the harshest conditions, but her thoughtful, philosophical moments make her stand out. Conan she is not, but Goatskin is a different sort of S&S hero, one that breathes new life into the genre.
Alternatively, in Walls of Shira Yulun by Dariel R.A. Quioque, the action picks up heavily. Orhan Timur seeks an old teacher of his as he is chased by an old enemy, a rival khan he used to grow up with. Orhan gets himself involved in a classic city siege, offering up loads of moments of sword slashing and blood splattering goodness. Orhan’s story is a whirlwind, and, much like the warrior himself, Walls certainly delivers on that promise of classic S&S while also elevating the genre to new and interesting heights.
Both are collected in an impressive volume that makes some strange formatting decisions. A copy of Double-Edge Sword & Sorcery has each story printed on opposite sides, allowing the reader to flip (sometimes physically) to whichever story strikes their fancy first. The artwork on both covers is gorgeous (and, as an unrelated aside, it reminds me of collecting both Pokémon Red and Blue games as a youth). Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery is a fascinating product, one that brings to mind classic S&S mass market paperbacks. Each novella is exciting and whip-quick, offering up two different perspectives on heroic Mongol-inspired fantasy, ones with deep ideological ponderings and rushes of action that left me wanting more. Fans of fast and bloody battles will love both tales.
Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery publisher Brackenbury Books is also the home of its magazine New Edge Sword & Sorcery, which publishes more S&S stories (some starring Goatskin and Orhan Timur) and hopes to bring new life, new voices, and a positive fan community into an exciting genre that has woefully taken a back seat in some corners of the fantasy landscape.
As of this writing, Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery is up for pre-order on BackerKit and will launch in April.
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