Serious Swords, Silly Sorcery

I couldn't resist the title, folks.

Some new old-fashioned hack-and-slash fantasy fiction is out there and it's CHEEEEEEEEEEEAP!!!!!!

All I mean by "serious swords, silly sorcery" is that some of it takes a straightforward approach, like the first two installments of Tales of the Honor Triad (The Bloodstained Defile and The Gryphon of Tirshal); and others poke fun at the genre in a respectful way (like Chris J. Randolph's Vengar and Jack Badelaire's NANOK).

Vengar the Barbarian is a not-so-subtle parody of another savage sword-wielding bronze giant from a forgotten age.

NANOK is, to quote the author:

"...a pastiche fantasy adventure short story written as a humorous, light-hearted homage to many of the Sword & Sorcery creations from the 60's and 70's: The Kyrik and Kothar novels of Gardner F. Fox, the Thongor stories of Lin Carter, John Jake's Brak the Barbarian, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane adventures, and much more.

Blend in a healthy mix of cheesy barbarian movies from the 80's, Dungeons & Dragons-esque fantasy tropes, inspiration from heavy metal album covers, Frank Frazetta paintings, comic books, wargames, gratuitously violent adult cartoons, and a pigpile of other influences. What you get is a story that'll have you laughing out loud one minute and fist-pumping the air in victory the next"

I don't know about you, but I sure could use some fist-pumping.

Hmm...I'm almost positive that last statement could be interpreted in some rather embarrassing ways.

Oh, well. Moving on...

Tales of the Honor Triad are heroic fantasy more than sword & sorcery. There's plenty of sword, but only a little sorcery in the two titles published so far.

The author says:

"Tolkien and his legion of imitators have not influenced me much. You can lay the blame squarely on the heads of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Poul Anderson."

Ain't this a great tagline?

A great storm, an epic battle, and three dangerous warriors...all on a collision course for a narrow mountain pass that is already a bloodstained defile.

And here's a teaser about Gryphon, now with a snazzy new cover:

The Honor Triad have journeyed to Javo's native country shortly after its transition from a free republic to a monarchy. The first king of Cemar has hired the three mercenaries to rid the land of the legendary supernatural beast that lives high on Mount Tirshal, outside the city. Neither the bowlegged little horse-archer Turgar, nor the furry giant Krag the Wrecker feel comfortable with the mystical forces surrounding Tirshal, but their lust for gold outweighs their fear. Still, the horrifying truth awaiting they and Javo at the gryphon's perch is more chilling than the legion of reptilian predators they'll have to fight through to reach it.

Use your battleaxe to chop open a keg of mead, ale or Red Bull, throw a few logs on the fire and download some of this gratuitous violence onto your e-reader for some good, clean fun.

An Indie Amazon?

Many years ago, Amazon was a guy with a website and a garage full of books. As huge as Amazon is now, it's difficult to imagine it had such a humble beginning.

Somebody perceived a need in the market that nobody knew was there until advancing technology revealed it. Sure, you could buy books mail-order from book clubs and such, but coupling that idea with the internet made it convenient for the ballooning home-computing population to browse through a virtual bookshelf and order a book with a couple mouse clicks. Depending on where you live and how much time you have, it beats the crud out of physically driving to the bookstore to find a good read.

As much as Amazon has revolutionized the book industry, and will continue to with e-books and the like, there are more disasters coming for the stodgy old dinosaur that is the New York Publishing Cartel. One person who may help take the revolution a step further is Sharon Kay Roberts.

Sharon has started an online bookstore called the CIA. No, it's not a pseudo-secret spy network doing infrared scans on your home via  satellite. It's the Coalition of Independent Authors. It's a timely concept that takes some of the marketing burden off of indie authors while giving readers ample opportunity to sample books outside the bottleneck that the New York Publishing Cartel has decided comprises what reading material should be available for consumers.

As both a reader and a writer, I'm sick of the NYPC's monopoly on the publishing industry. There's a whole lot of fiction (and non-fiction) out there that is good, but never gets past the corporate beancounters in Manhattan.

Unfortunately, the good indie stuff is outnumbered probably 10-to-1 by books so abysmal that they seem to validate the NYPC's stranglehold. And that brings up another edge to the sword of revolution: once the Manhattan gatekeepers are bypassed, the readers themselves (and whatever reviewers/bloggers they trust) become the gatekeepers, filtering through enormous mountains of slush to find the good stuff.

Personally, I don't see that as such a huge negative. I haven't been happy with the NYPC gatekeepers' work for the last couple decades, anyway. They've quashed plenty of books for not following approved formulas, for political reasons, or simply because the beancounters' crystal balls told them X would sell and Y would not, but that I would have enjoyed reading. And yet they've still failed to filter out some real literary sludge, too. I trust my own judgment more than theirs, when it comes to what I want to read. I've found plenty of worthless books out there, and will certainly weed through much more, but it will be worth it to find the good stuff that the suits in New York don't believe should be available for me to read.

Anyway, you can visit the Coalition of Independent Authors' Bookstore here, and happy shopping to you.