New Edge Sword & Sorcery #1 (magazine review).

In his introduction, editor and publisher Oliver Brackenbury promises us sword and sorcery stories ‘made with love for the classics, and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling!’

New Edge Sword & Sorcery #1 certainly hits the ground running in that respect. I don’t want to make a point of mentioning every example of diversity and inclusivity I encountered in reading this magazine, as it would rather work against the point of making such things a natural part of modern fantasy fiction.

We open with ‘Carnivora’, a fascinating tale by Trinidadian author Kirk A. Johnson, in which Gonjur of the Taakanda learns that one should perhaps treat captured slave-women a bit better, albeit that may not have helped him all that much. The story appears to be set in Africa, in a prehistoric time when bronze has started to be used by some but most still have stone tips on their spears. A reference early on in the tale to ‘sister moons’ confuses matters slightly and offers the possibility that the events occur in an alternate universe.

‘Come Lay The Crone To Rest’ by Margaret Killjoy is set in a world where it’s apparently quite common for trios of fighters and magic-users to function as a team. I first assumed it was just the main protagonists, Desora, Molt and Harol, who worked together in this way, but we are given evidence of another such group during the story. We are introduced to an original concept of witches, in that their bodies have to be disposed of properly after death or they can weaken the barriers between dimensions. An unusual and very strong story.

‘Sister Chaos’ by Bryn Hammond took me two attempts to read. The style, which reminded me slightly of the classic prose poems and early fantasists such as Dunsany, is a little too odd to be easy read in the small hours of the morning when one is very tired. We’d met Angaj-Duzmut before in New Edge # 0. Here she’s teamed with her lover and companion, Qi Miao, king of the Scarlet Jacket bandits, aka Goose. What begins as a fairly ordinary attempt to bag some dinner leads to some very weird occurrences and leaves Qi Miao with a new and unexpected responsibility. This could easily develop into a highly interesting series.

I was very pleased to see that ‘New Edge’ had presented us with a translation by Gonzalo Baeza of a tale originally written in Spanish by Jesús Montalvo. ‘Chak Muuch’ is a warrior priest, short in stature but fierce, who investigates weird cases. This one is especially weird and leaves Chak changed forever. I liked it a lot and I fervently hope more of Montalvo’s work is translated into English.

‘Tears Of Eb’ is the second story in a row that could have just as easily fit into ‘Occult Detective Magazine’, which I co-edit and publish and I confess to being somewhat jealous that we didn’t get this one. Sarah A. Macklin weaves an excellent tale, set in a fantasy ancient Africa, which was definitely my favourite in the issue so far.

Lord Umakisue’s eldest daughter has been abducted and the evidence points to the involvement of spirits. He calls in his old friend, seeker Hogodai, who with the help of guardmaster Ibora vows to return the child to her mother’s embrace. Ibora, unusually for a guardmaster, is a woman and she blames herself for the abduction. I loved this story and hope to see more of Hogodai’s adventures, even if I don’t get to publish them myself.

This issue continues to live up to its promise of diversity with ‘Pillars Of Silence’ by Prashanth Srivatsa. She is a war-weary blade master somewhere and somewhen in the Indian subcontinent, received a strange summons to lend her services to the village of Savarna but, when she gets there, she is not made at all welcome and no one admits to having sent out the summons. It’s not at all bad and there’s certainly potential for follow-up stories, albeit that’s not obviously the author’s intention. We shall have to wait and see. I will certainly keep an eye out for Srivatsa’s forthcoming fantasy novel, ‘The Spice Gate’, from Harper Voyager in 2024.

Finally, in the fiction section of this issue, we get what we have to consider the main event…a brand new story by one of the great masters of sword and sorcery himself, Michael Moorcock. Not only that, its a story of his most famous and most popular creation, Elric of Melniboné! A coup of this magnitude is hopefully going to help get this magazine noticed.

Having said that, this adventure from Elric’s youth isn’t the best ‘Elric’ story ever published, but I doubt anyone really expected that. It is very good, though. It adds more to our knowledge of how Moorcock’s multiverse works and the inherent dangers of walking the silver path between worlds. It’s likely to be a welcome addition to anyone’s Moorcock collection. There’s an interesting irony in that Brackenbury has been so successful in gathering together such a fascinating array of characters, settings and authors in this issue that the classic mainstream is represented by an author whose work was pretty diverse and inclusive long before it became something to be strived for.

If New Edge Sword & Sorcery # 0 proved anything, it’s that Brackenbury is as adept at pulling together quality non-fiction as he is stories.

Brian Murphy, author of ‘Flame And Crimson: A History Of Sword-And-Sorcery’ (Pulp Hero Press, 2020) contributes an essay, ‘Why (New Edge) Sword & Sorcery’, in which he outlines a potted history of the three waves of popularity the genre has seen and explains how the times in which they occurred affected and strengthened that popularity.

When I reviewed New Edge Sword & Sorcery # 0, my greatest praise was actually given to Cora Buhlert’s non-fiction piece on the work of C.L. Moore. Well, she’s done it again. My favourite item in this issue is her non-fiction essay, ‘Cele Goldsmith Lalli — Midwife To The Second Sword & Sorcery Boom!’ I confess to having been previously unaware of the existence of the woman who took over and revived the fortunes of Ziff Davis’s ailing ‘Amazing Stories’, and ‘Fantastic’ at the end of 1958.

Making an advantage out of her total unfamiliarity with what was popular or a good seller in Science Fiction and fantasy, Lalli simply bought stories that she considered good and that kept her attention all the way through. Along the way, she introduced sword & sorcery to the magazine and revived Fritz Leiber’s ‘Fafhrd And The Gray Mouser’, a series which was all but dead on the vine by then. It’s an excellent piece, one that almost made me want to stand up and applaud Cele Goldsmith Lalli for her great contributions to fiction.

‘Fresh Blood & New Thunder! Bringing New Readers To Sword & Sorcery, With Sof Magliano’ is an interview, edited down from Oliver Brackenbury’s ‘So I’m Writing a Novel…’ podcast, in which he introduces a young reader and now author of fantasy, Sof Magliano, to sword & sorcery by sending her six stories to read (three from the classic era and three more modern tales) to see how a modern reader might react to them. It’s an interesting and informative discussion but I often found myself wishing I could add my own comments as it progressed.

One important element of this magazine that I have so far failed to mention is the artwork. While the cover by Caterina Gerbasi is certainly very good, I again found it eclipsed by some of the superb internal black & white illustrations. Every story has two illustrations, which is extremely generous. There’s a lovely frontispiece by Gilead. I had to confess to not really liking his cover to New Edge # 0 but this is as good as anything that ever graced ‘Savage Sword Of Conan’! As for the rest of the art by Daniel Vega, Gary McCluskey, Dan Rempel, Carlos Castilho, Trevor Ngwenya, Hardeep Aujla, Sapro, Sara Frazetta and Chuah Shih Shin, they’d make a great portfolio of art prints.

If I have any criticisms at all about this magazine, it would be that they only run one review in each issue. OK, it’s a pretty extensive review, but ‘New Edge Sword & Sorcery’ doesn’t come out often enough to have just one review per issue.

Oh and the fact that there’s currently no easy way to get paper copies at a sensible price if one happens to live outside the United States. Hopefully, the publishers are working on that.

Dave Brzeski

January 2023

(pub: BrackenBooks. 82 page magazine. Price: ebook: $ 5.00 (US), hardback: $27.50 (US). ISSN 2817-4968. Ebook: ISSN 2817-4976)

check out websites: https://newedgeswordandsorcery.com/ and https://newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product-category/new-edge-sword-sorcery/   and https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/brackenbooks/new-edge-sword-sorcery-2024