S.E.’s Comments (group member since Nov 01, 2012)

S.E.’s comments from the Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" group.

Jason M wrote: "spectacular banner again, Seth! we are definitely benefiting under your administration ⚔️ thank you for including the RBE cover girl. reminder to anyone willing to post a review, I'll send an e-cop..."

Thanks Jason! This banner worked out pretty well.

Banner Credits: L-->R
Swords Against Darkness -cover art by Cold Whisper 2013 Rodrigo Ramos
Skelos I cover art by Gustave Doré; The Gnarled Monster from Thomas Hood the Younger's Croquemitaine
Challenge! Discovery cover art by "Deep Forest" V Shane



Previous Annual Anthology Groupread links:
2017 discussion
2016 discussion
2015 discussion
2014 discussion
2013 discussion

Since Sword & Sorcery was largely born through the short-story format, collections are an appropriate way to learn the genre and discover authors. Don’t know where to start? Ask the group for a recommendation, or check out the sampling of Anthologies, old and new, as shown in this group’s bookshelf. You are challenged (invited?) to track any one down and share your journey with the group. Feel welcome to add to the bookshelf if you know how, or ask for help to expand the list.

Poll will be left open" recall, that list is not a competition to select a choice for all...it is a means to publicize the book you suggest OR the book you plan to read
Click to see poll


Web Anthologies Count too!:
Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly

Me? I'll be digging into Challenge! Discovery

I haven't played proper D&D for decades....but have got sucked into Kickstarter. There are a ton of 5Eproducts there to feed addictions!

Personally, I have been buying the boutique-like miniature board games (Zombicide, Deep Madness).

Evgeny, lol. Many of us on Goodreads know you are a leading Black Co aficionado! Your review will carry a lot of weight

http://thewertzone.blogspot.co.za/201...

Years into a campaign against the rebels who have rallied behind the White Rose have left the Company jaded and the fact that the Lady seems to have taken particular interest in Croaker since his stay in the Tower hasn't exactly made his life easier.

Now it looks like The Limper is up to his old tricks and is doing what he can to separate Croaker and the Black Company from The Lady's favor. Now Croaker finds his fate tied to a brand new taken. One claiming to be something impossible but feels uncomfortably familiar. It's going to take all of Croaker's cunning to insure that the mechantions of The Lady and her "loyal" taken, The Limper, don't destroy the company once and for all.

There are worse vices than book hoarding (says a fellow book hoarder). Nice haul. Quite a mix of new, classic, narrative, epic.

Is that all?

Fletcher on Black Gate reviews Helen's Daimones (Link) . Feeling honored.

Review copies available of Helen's Daimones to anyone here in the Sword & Sorcery group. Just PM me,

Some quotes from review:

"Too much of what’s called grimdark is little more than sex and gore splashed over a standard epic fantasy story. True horror — and at its heart, Helen’s Daimones is a horror story — unsettles, disorients, and makes you feel like the world will fall out from under your feet at any moment. Lindberg’s novel does all those things."

"There are strange territories in the wilds of swords & sorcery that have been visited successfully by only a handful of writers. They are places where, aside from some actual swords and sorcery, few of the common trappings of the genre are found. Magic may be phatasmagorical, the world — both physically and culturally — has no echoes of our own, and the hero is more likely to be a golem, a resurrected nobleman, or a little girl than an axe-swinging warrior.

Some of C.L. Moore’s Jirel stories and most of Clark Ashton Smith’s oeuvre mapped portions of these realms. In Throne of Bones, Brian McNaughton (reviewed by me here) brought back a detailed study of one nation. Michael Shea and Darrell Schweitzer mapped whole continents. They’re dangerous places, permeated by darkness and decay, and the scent of death is rarely absent from the thick, curdled air.

S.E. Lindberg’s short novel, Helen’s Daimones (2017), is one such tale of this diseased stretch of the world of swords & sorcery. I can’t say this book quite attains the same heights as Shea’s Nifft the Lean or Schweitzer’s The Mask of the Sorcerer (reviewed here), but much of the time it comes tantalizingly close."

Al wrote: "No worries. I can look them up. I'll have a goo and see what I'm reading in the new year (looks at TBR pile, groans)."

Hope you get lured in. I am sure you have one anthology or magazine in you to-read pile needing attention!

Al wrote: "None of the links work..."

Thanks!... and weird...that is just copy/pasted code/widgets. I'll work on diagnosing.

Please go to:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/8...

Kyrik and the Lost Queen Book #4: Revised (Sword & Sorcery 9)

https://www.amazon.com/Kyrik-Lost-Que...

Joseph... you are a reading machine! Somehow you crank out meaningful reviews too. You read rock

Oops, thanks for the Kyrick/Kothar clarification :)

There exists a lot more Kyrik works than I knew!

https://www.amazon.com/Kyrik-Warlock-...

Actually,Joseph, your recent reviews of the Dragonlance chronicles—Twin Series had me stoked too. I always wanted to learn Raistlin’s evolution/past. You are killing my to-read pile

Joseph wrote: "Am now starting The Dragon in the Sword: Book 3 of Erekosë Trilogy, the third & final Eternal Champion/Erekosë novel. After this, something by a William will probably be in order."

I've had the first Erkose book on my shelf for many years; your reviews are encouraging me to relook at that one and the only Elric book I have not completed: The Revenge of the Rose

Nice share!

Kothar and the Wizard Slayer Book #5

A trend! #5 is available free now

https://www.amazon.com/Kothar-Wizard-...


Thanks again to Kurt Brugel in one of Facebook Sword & Sorcery groups for the share