Swords in the Shadows

by Cullen Bunn (Editor), Mike Oliveri, L.C. Mortimer

It was an age of adventure. An age of sorcery. An age of unrelenting horror. Sword and sorcery and pulp horror go hand-in-hand. Sinister enchanters working foul magic. Hideous beasts lurking in shadowy dungeons. Blasphemous elder gods uncoiling from forgotten and forbidden temples SWORDS IN THE SHADOWS features twenty-one stories with a bloody stake driven into the heart of both the horror and fantasy camps. Herein, you will find fantasy worlds, brave warriors, fabulous creatures, wondrous magic. But you will also uncover bloodcurdling chills, spine-tingling horror, and an examination of those things that truly terrify.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Anthologies, Short Stories

369 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2023

About the author

Cullen grew up in rural North Carolina, but now lives in the St. Louis area with his wife Cindy and his son Jackson. His noir/horror comic (and first collaboration with Brian Hurtt), The Damned, was published in 2007 by Oni Press. The follow-up, The Damned: Prodigal Sons, was released in 2008. In addition to The Sixth Gun, his current projects include Crooked Hills, a middle reader horror prose series from Evileye Books; The Tooth, an original graphic novel from Oni Press; and various work for Marvel and DC. Somewhere along the way, Cullen founded Undaunted Press and edited the critically acclaimed small press horror magazine, Whispers from the Shattered Forum.

All writers must pay their dues, and Cullen has worked various odd jobs, including Alien Autopsy Specialist, Rodeo Clown, Professional Wrestler Manager, and Sasquatch Wrangler.

And, yes, he has fought for his life against mountain lions and he did perform on stage as the World's Youngest Hypnotist. Buy him a drink sometime, and he'll tell you all about it.

Visit his website at www.cullenbunn.com.

Reviews

[Jason Waltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for trying and for mostly being filled with dark fantastical adventures. Sadly, less than half of the 22 stories are actually S&S. Much more an horrific Dark Fantasy anthology with a penchant for sharp things and vile magic than a Sword and Sorcery anthology with an emphasis on horror...which strong S&S already possesses, so this really was simply a showcase for horror writers to storytell in S&S-like settings. Mayberry and Moore deliver best on the premise, Rutledge and Shrewsbury give great S&S stories, Lansdale and Jones render the most memorable tales, the former the funniest badass in a futuristic story, the later the bravest little warrior in the most grotesque story.

[Gregory Mele · Rating 2 out of 5]

A swing and a miss. This anthology big: 22 stories, and correctly notes the relationship between sword & sorcery and horror, and then fails to deliver what it sets out to do. Blame must lie with editor Cullen Bunn, an accomplished Marvel, Dark Horse and indy comics writer, whose knowledge of the super hero, noir and horror genres clearly does not include sword & sorcery. While these stories certainly all include magic and most include swords, they're mostly horror; only the entries by Mayberry, Roberts, Keene, Jones, Shrewsbury, Rutledge, Landsdale and Moore --about 1/3 of the collection--can be called sword & sorcery by all but the most expansive definition, and those seven aren't all GOOD. Keene's is slow slight as to be a vignette, and Shrewsbury is always an idiosyncratic taste: here, the story has so many editorial issues it feels like a draft no one edited.

As for the other 15...if they were all just good dark fantasy I'd give this 3 starts for effort. But they aren't. While "The Atoll of Syrash" is a fun story of necromancer pirates (!!), The Seventh Queen reads like a piece you wrote as a teen and thought you were clever by the twist ("she's actually crazy! Get it?") with a female 1st person narrator who sounds nothing like a woman. "Wolfen Divine" was so inside its own head and boring I almost couldn't finish...at, what? 7000 words?

Others are decidedly better but none are "wow", and for such a collection of established, award-winning horror and comics writers, the most notable thing is that none of the stories made me stand up and take notice. Few worse things you can say about an anthology of adventure-horror fiction than, I was mostly bored and eager to finish.

[Tomasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wildly, astonishingly uneven, unfortunately with a sizable number of greatly disappointing entries. Writing sword and sorcery stories may be easy to learn, but it certainly is stunningly hard to master, and this anthology provides plenty of evidence for that. Some stories (like the ones from Hailey Piper or Master Joe) did alleviate the damage, but I can only wonder what went wrong in the selection process...

[Alex Budris · Rating 2 out of 5]

With a few notable exceptions, the stories in this collection seemed rather amateurish. Most were, at best, a shaky three stars - about half received a two star rating, which I usually try my best not to give, and a few I skimmed or skipped. But, with plot-lines like, "Man fights minotaur. The end," I was left with no choice. And everyone seems to assume that they can simply introduce an eldritch Elder God of darkness and then call it a weird tale. I think some of these people spend more time coming up with up exotic names for their deities of death than they do plotting the stories.

And a bunch of these aren't even swords & sorcery at all. The oft-nebulous term 'dark fantasy' would be the designation that I'd apply to the majority of these tales

There were a few good ones, though:

Jonathan Maberry's 'The Prince of Dust and Shadow' caught my attention with its terrifying goblin lore and bleak gallows humor.

Hailey Piper's gruesome and pessimistic 'Wolfen Divine' is set in the world of her upcoming novel, No Gods for Drowning - which I have on pre-order from Bad Hand Books - and owes a lot to Karl Edward Wagner's superlative 'Kane' tales.

'The Dog in the Corner' by Stephen Graham Jones was another good one. Peculiar and perverse, the reader encounters talking bears, mutilated infants, dogs with human hands in place of paws, and a "tumor from the stars."

The name of Joes Lansdale's protag in 'Wrench and Sorcery' is "Greasy Robert", which is hilarious.

These highlights aside, though, I found this to be overall lame and a total slog. It was difficult to get through. I was truly looking forward to this book, so probably the let-down factors into my rating, and this gives me no pleasure, but: Two stars.

[Jason Franks · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent theme and packed full of brilliant stories.
From Wile. E. Young's occult pirate quest opener, The Atoll of Syrash, I knew immediately I was going to enjoy this book. Other highlights were Mary SanGiovanni's nightmare odyssey The Suture Kings, Stephen Graham Jones' mutant black magic chiller The Dog In the Corner, Justin C. Key's political-psychedelic epic, The Spiritual Outcast of Osanbobua's Garden, and Prince of Dust and Shadows, a hallucinatory dungeon crawl by Jonathan Maberry. But there's plenty more brilliant work here by some of the best writers in horror, Brian Keene, Joe Lansdale, Rena Mason, James A. Moore... too many to list.
Cullen Bunn has done a fantastic job pulling together so many diverse stories by a top flight crew of writers.