March 2022 Reviews

 Savage Realms Monthly published their 10^th issue in March (Amazon paperback • Amazon Kindle • Kindle Unlimited), featuring three stories, all firmly in the sword and sorcery camp. The best of the trio, in my opinion, was “Black Sunset in the Valley of Death” by Steve Dilks. This has a very classic feel to it, with an outsider hero introduce in media res, barely escaping being sacrificed on ziggurat-topping altar to then tumble from incident to incident at breakneck speed, a journey culminating in his aiding a fey jungle people defeat an ancient evil. I’ll be looking for more stories by Dilks, who here actually reminds me more of Burroughs than any of the classic pure sword and sorcery authors. Michael Wexler’s “The Wizard of Kon” is an odd one. The heroics of the hero are mostly ineffective, and the piece reads more like a beefed-up novel outline than a standalone tale. Finally, Joe Bonadonna’s “The Vampire Tree” makes effective use of some figures from Greek mythology in a secondary world setting (and provides a good rationalization for doing so) in a story about a traveling adventurer, “The Skulker,” taking a contract to save a village from the depredations of a necromancer. This doesn’t quite reach the same pitch of excitement that the Dilks piece achieves but is a solid effort. An interesting feature of Savage Realms Monthly is the author interviews and other apparatus. A magazine worth checking out.

 

Swords and Sorceries Magazine seems to publish like clockwork and their new issue features three stories. While raising some interesting questions about desire and the meaning of happiness (or perhaps the illusory promise of happiness), “A Coin Has Two Sides” doesn’t manage to rise above the feeling of a transcribed Dungeons & Dragonssession. This feeling is especially reinforced by the ever-shifting “character class” names used to differentiate the characters when they aren’t speaking. Better is “Unexpected Defense” by Alcuin Fromm. I almost wonder if Fromm is a pseudonym for an established author, such is the professionalism, clarity, and effectiveness of the prose in this story. The piece also benefits from the author’s deft hand at deploying worldbuilding and quickly establishing setting. The downsides here are that the story depends a bit too much on coincidence, and, even more, that it reads like a first chapter instead of a complete story. A physically and mentally effective disabled hero is, of course, always welcome in adventure fantasy. Finally, the editors of Swords and Sorceries are to be commended for their boldness in offering the challenging and potent “Isabeau’s New Name,” by Michael Meyerhofer, which announces its intentions with its very first line: “It made a lot of people angry when my sister became my brother.” This piece will certainly challenge a lot of readers who need to be challenged. It’s set in an alternate France during the Crusades and is told from the point of view of a village butcher who witnesses, sometimes at a distance, the transformation of his tomboy sister as a child into his adult brother claiming his true identity as a magically powerful knight who learns more in the Crusader States than the Church wants him to. Meyerhofer makes some risky moves here, especially with the title and the knight’s ultimate fate. In all honesty, I don’t feel entirely qualified to review this story. It’s very well written, asks more questions—more hardquestions—than it answers, and I’m very surprised that it’s passed pretty much without notice. It’s certainly the story from this month I will remember most vividly.

 

My picks for stories of the month: “Black Sunset in the Valley of Death” by Steve Dilks and “Isabeau’s New Name” by Michael Meyerhofer.

 

I’ll be looking at Spring issues next. Cirsova’s vol. 2, #10 has four stories and part one of a serial on the table of contents, and I very much look forward to reading the twenty stories in my first issue, #5, of Whetstone.