Heroic Fantasy Quarterly–Q65

Summer sizzles across the plains and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly sizzles across the internet like Smeagol after a double gainer into the Cracks of Doom.  We bring you four stories, three poems, artwork and triple, triple, TRIPLE! audio!

Dig in!

Fiction Contents

Bride-Price Paid Twice, by Gregory Mele.   Revenge simmers and boils over in this story from the Up-Country margins of the world of Azatlán,  A tale within tales, each more intense than the last.

The Golden Goat Caper, by Mark Finn.  Larsen and his criminal crew are back in our electronic pages!  The Port City of Byle is home to sailors and skullduggery, and somewhere amidst all the squalor is a temple’s most prized relics; and the game is afoot!   A great tale of sorcery and derring-do!  With a full audio version by the author.

Sea Henge, by Phil Emery.  The god-sensing adventurer Jack O’ Wraiths continues heads to sea to seek his fortune.  When Jack’s ship runs afoul of forces from both the depths of the sea and of time he faces a challenge as mighty as the waves!  With a full audio version by the author.

A Knowledge Sharper than Flint, Part 2, by Adrian Simmons.  The shaman Selu and his companions have found the man who is not a man but are no closer to solving the mystery of fist-of-none.  As Selu dives back into the dreamworld, his companions and find themselves, and all of humanity, at the spearpoint of the Great Race of Yith.

 

Poetry Contents

How to Save the Dynasty, by Mary Soon Lee.  The instructions are clear, but not at all easy to follow.

After the Battle, by  Devan Barlow. Passions and blood have run hot, and the surf can’t wash it all away.

The King’s Blade, by Aidan Redwing.  The classic ‘ego’ sword, but just whose ego is whose?

 

Artwork

Clutch your holy symbols and bring your magic weapons to bear:  Jereme Peabody brings us the glowing malevolent eyes of an “Undead Army”.

 

Goings On

Adrian Simmons:  Adrian continues to plunge ahead on his secret novel project.

His sorcerer-heist story “Five Beneath the Palace of Kalgranis” will be coming out in Baen’s “Swords and Larceny” anthology in September/October (but don’t let that stop you from pre-ordering it now!).

He and several other authors in the anthology will be in Austin at ArmadilloCon in September.  Find us roaming the halls!

Neil Baker has been watching cheap movies so you don’t have to!  Check out his views on Monster Mayhem, Parts One, Two, and Three, as well as Cosmic Horror/Mythos movies at Black Gate!

“Spear and Fang” and Gary McClusky update.  We’ve gotten quite a few compliments on the ongoing comic “Spear and Fang” by Gary McClusky; but we’ve gotten quite a few questions asking why it is so intermittent in being updated.  The truth is that Gary has been fighting against a case of throat cancer and associated complications.  He’s over the hump of chemo and went in for surgery mid-July.  Fingers crossed for him.

HFQ Alum Tim Hanlon has a collection of his stories out, Path of the Swordsman.

 

Charles Gramlich, HFQ alum and S&S pillar, says of the book:

Overall, we’ve got a lot of sword slinging action here and it is action with a purpose. Harkan is a fine hero, much less of an anti-hero than Conan or Kane, but that’s certainly OK. He’s someone the reader can root for. The secondary characters are well developed and memorable. I really enjoyed this collection and will be interested in reading more by Hanlon.

Tim Hanlon has been a History teacher since the dawn of time. When not writing or reading, he enjoys banging on about craft beer with mates, boxing, and long road trips. Tim also spends his time standing upside down in Australia, so if you are ever down that way drop in for a chat

 

The indefatigable Jason Waltz has been interviewing S&S writers for his 42 in 42 project.  Recent entries have included HFQ writers E.C. Ambrose, Keith West, and Chuck Clark.

Darrel Scwheitzer, the writer who came in from the cold, has recently publshed the mid-century set Cold War Cthulhu

Surely with all that spying and top secret research both the CIA and the KGB must have known something about the eldritch forces that haunt our planet and tried to make use of everything from dimensional gates to Deep Ones to shoggoths. But at the same time this is all secret history, not alternate history

 

A new S&S venture is on the horizone– check out Battleborn and kick in on their indiegogo campaign!

 

 

Lastly, former HFQ editor William Ledbetter’s third book of his science-fiction “Killday” trilogy is out in both hardcopy and in audio.  Get your sci-fi on!