Heroic Fantasy Quarterly–Q28

Spring is well underway, which in our part of the world means torrential rains, hail and the occasional tornado. Lively times, indeed! Also lively? HFQ # 28! We’ve got the final installments of “Crazy Snake and the Tribute for Pachacamac”, and “The Siege, the Gums, and the Blue”, as well as two new stories and two outstanding poems, AND bonus artwork.

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Fiction Contents

Crazy Snake and the Tribute for Pachacamac- Part Two, by Eric Atkisson. The climactic conclusion to Comanche adventurer Crazy Snake’s adventure in the remote islands off South America. Part one can be found in issue #27. This completes Crazy Snake’s third tale at HFQ (catch up on the first and second).

Curse of Beauty, by Marlena Frank. Young Catherine lives by her wits with a gift and curse, until a stranger intrudes upon her solitude. “Curse of Beauty” has bonus artwork by Kat Scarber.

Brotherhood of the Book, by M.R. Timson. A novice scribe arrives at a temple where the writing is definitely not on the wall. An intriguing tale of scriveners and secrets.

Bonus story! The Siege, The Gums, and the Blue- Part Two. HFQ editor Adrian Simmons finishes off this tale of a boy rescued by chance and drafted into the defense of a city besieged. Part one can be found here.

 

Poetry Contents

Inheritance, by Mary Soon Lee. Dragons, and bantering, and an Agreemnt..

The Allfather’s Ravens, by David Sklar. Huginn and Muninn in the early days!

 

Artwork

Some readers may remember the awesome work “Burn” by Jereme Peabody from Issue #22. He’s back with “Giant”. This one could be good, he could be bad, but his definitely big.

Jereme is a software engineer in the DC area and is also a freelance concept artist working mostly on video games and books.  He started his artistic career dabbling with sculpting, pencils, and even still-life oil painting.  As tablets became available, he crossed over from traditional art to digital by first digitally painting still-lifes, then through experimentation and practice, transitioned to landscapes and fantasy.

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Goings On

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly’s Best-Of Volume One has exceeded expectations! Online sales have been brisk, and we took a box of them to Con DFW in February and it went over well. Haven’t picked up your copy yet? Click on the cover at the right to get started!

 

David Farney: David’s still out, dealing with dayjob nonsense. He promises to be back soon!

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Adrian Simmons: His story “Dilution Solution” is included in the Post-Old-Ones-Awakening anthology Apotheosis. He has fiction out now at Plamsa Frequency, and the April issue of Outposts of Beyond. A fantasy piece of his will be coming out soon at Lackington’s and a short sci-fi story accepted at the No Sh!t There I Was anthology.

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William Ledbetter: Bill has been tearing it up, with his novelette “The Long Fall Up” finally available in the May/June issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His story “Moonlet Sonata” is available to read for free at Baen.com, and he’s got a flash story “The Piper’s Due ” out at Daily Science Fiction.  If that wasn’t enough, he also has a story accepted to the No Sh!t There I Was anthology, “Steal from the Sun”

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James Rowe:

Not much has changed for James these last few months. You can still catch regular genre and literary poetry contributions as part of his stint as a Frequent Contributor over at Songs of Eretz, which sees about two poems from him on a monthly basis. Recent poems featured in the review include “We are Still Alone”, “The Strange Materialist”, “Epicurus in Spring”.

Aside from his gig at Eretz, you can also find two of his poems published in David Pring-Mill’s “Tiny Moments” anthology, featuring James’ “Rumble, O! Conqueror” and “Ikea”. Pick up your copy here.

Even more excitingly, you can now buy up to issue 7 of “Rise of the Antichrist”, a comic James was editor on. All 7 of these issues can be found on comixology:

For those of you into comics and crazy-ass mental patients who are convinced they’re Jesus Christ (with some shocking powers to back up the claim) you may want to check these out. The price can’t be beat: only 99 cents a pop! Several more issues are slated for release as we wrap up “Volume 1”.

Otherwise, his life continues apace at Baruch College, teaching philosophy for at least another year.

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Barbara Barrett: Just got back from attending the Windy City Pulp show. Her three-part essay “Hester Jane Ervin Howard and Tuberculosis”, published in 2015, was nominated for the REH Foundation award for Outstanding Achievement.

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Speaking of Robert Howard and all things heroic fantasy, we’ve got Mark Finn’s “Year of the Hare” advertised at right—a tale of a rough-and-tumble sorcerer out to break the mysterious curse that plagues his family. HFQ doesn’t really do urban fantasy, but that is because not much of it is this good. Sam Bowen’s adventures in the city of San Cibola will keep you turning pages!