Heroic Fantasy Quarterly–Q23

From the depths of winter HFQ has arisen to get you through those last few months to spring with stories to both warm you and chill you!  Three full-sized stories and poems that will stick in your mind like stories.

Fiction Contents

Crazy Snake and the Cuguanaba, by Eric Atkisson
Crazy Snake joins the ranks of HFQ’s multi-story characters with this second tale—and he holds the only record to have back-to-back stories in two issues.  Far afield in Central America, Crazy Snake continues his search for his mother’s people, running afoul of the locals, Texas mercenaries, and foul goings-on.

With a Golden Risha, by P. Djeli Clark
A wandering minstrel runs afoul of pirates and unthreads ancient secrets in this exciting tale of flying ships, lost cities, and general rabble-rousing.  Clark may be familiar to long-time readers of HFQ as the author behind Shattering the Spear in HFQ issue 7.

Bronze Ard, the Ferret Master, and Auspicious Events at Swift Creek Farm, by Adrian Simmons
Late winter rains spur love and longing in this shadowy bronze-age tale.  You shouldn’t just be careful what you wish for, you should be careful what wishes you grant.

 

Poetry Contents

Witch and Paladin, by Reilly Blackwell
Because someday you have to close your eyes.

The Dancer, by Susan Carlson
We all know actions speak louder than words. Spoken words, that is. Read this now and you’ll testify. Seriously — read this now lest we post a spoiler alert!

 

Artwork

You know what mythic creature never gets enough play?  Chimeras!  Why have these beasts been relegated to the back-drawer of fantasy?  Heroic Fantasy Quarterly does our bit to turn the tide with Giovanna Guimarães’ excellent “Chimera”.

Gio was born in the interior of Brazil. She studed Psychology and Fine Arts, animation cinema, at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) and have the master’s degree in cinema, with a research about character design and puppets for stop-motion. She works since 1999, in ilustration and animation. Today living and working on a animation studio in Rio de Janeiro and in personal projects in animation, concept art and illustration.

More of her work can be seen at her blogspotfacebook page and  behance site.

 

Goings On

David Farney:  Continues a forced march to consolidate his recent territorial acquisitions.  Along the way some poetic verses have come to him, which may come to HFQ soon.

Adrian Simmons:  His short sci-fi story “Back-up to the B-team” will be coming out at the white-hot Plasma Frequency magazine, and in August his story “Refuge” will be coming out the Australian magazine Strange Constellations. Not content with that, he has deftly explored what Frodo Baggins knew and when he knew it over at the indefatigable Black Gate Magazine.  He’s also been plowing through his backlog of movies at the HFQ facebook page.

William Ledbetter:  In addition to helping run the show at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, William also has his hands in the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest.  He will have work coming out soon at Plasma Frequency and The Year’s Best Military SF and Space Opera.

James Rowe:  A steady stream of James’ poems have seen, or will see, publication exclusively in the pages of Songs of Eretz Poetry Review: “King over the Abyss”, “Gallows Song”, “Effed by the F”, “A Fountain in the Closet”, “Typhon, a Prophecy”, and “McPurgatory”. Further, both “For the Amusement of God” (initially published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine issue #49) and “Burning” were runners up in the inaugural Songs of Eretz Poetry Contest.

Alas, “The Bone Cutter’s Lament” did not place in the 2014 Rhsyling. There’s always 2015!

As mentioned in issue #23, James has recently been a contest on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and made it to the $100,000 round.  He didn’t win $100K, but he did win enough to soothe the blow of “the Bone Cutter’s Lament” not placing in the Rhysling!

 

New Ads!
As much as we loved having “Blood and Thunder” and “The Seat of Magic” up in our advertisement slots, the time has come to change ‘em out.  Let us direct your attention to a bit of the old and the new.

P.C. Hodgell may be one of the best fantasy writers you’ve never heard of.  She’s been in the game since the 50s!

James Enge is a powerhouse of the new generation of sword and sorcery novelists.  His name will adorn every obelisk within our lifetimes.

 

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-Of Volume 1

Almost since our founding, fans, writers and artists have been hounding us to anthologize the remarkable stories we’ve found through the years.  We have finally taken heed!   We are, even now, charging into the ebook world, and sending our Uruk Hai scouts to explore the possibility of hardcopy.  We have done the hard task of choosing among our children and contracts have begun going out.  The wheels turn!  We’ve are now triple distilling our awesome stories to present a draught of sublime reading pleasure for you!

When will we be pouring this up?  We give ourselves a soft deadline of having all the Hungarian Horntales in a row by issue 24.  Three scant months!

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