SwordPlay

by James Moore, Allison Pang, Dan Brereton

Thirteen Tales of Sword & Sorcery!Thirteen Tales of Sword & Sorcery!

Mixing classic with unconventional approaches, SWORDPLAY collects into a single volume a group of tales like you've never experienced, while retaining a familiar feel all fans of the genre will recognize.

Lending their considerable talents toward tales of blades, battles, necromancers, sorceresses and lethal creatures, thirteen writers celebrate the genre while enhancing and expanding the range and scope of Sword & Sorcery.

Featuring original tales

CLIFF BIGGERS- DAN BRERETON- CULLEN BUNN- MICHAEL BURKE- RICHARD DANSKY- CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN- STEVEN GRANT- TONIA LAIRD- BRACKEN MACLEOD- JAMES A. MOORE- ALLISON PANG- LINDA ROBERTSON REINHARDT- CHARLES R. RUTLEDGE

Genres: Sword and Sorcery, Fantasy

287 pages, Paperback

Published July 14, 2023

About the author

Librarian's note: There is more than one author on Goodreads with this name.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of fantasy and sword and sorcery type stories. There was a nice mixture of writing styles. A lot of stories are open ended ready for sequels. I’d like to see a follow up anthology. Recommend!

[Richard]

I feel like this is an under appreciated gem that many might have passed over or forgotten about.

Numerous stories firmly gripped my imagination and kept me returning eager to see what the next author brought to the table.

The books lack of an introduction is my only criticism at this time.

[Jefferson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag of stories, a few of which seemed a little far from the theme, but most were pretty good.

[James T · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a decent collection of Sword and Sorcery tales. I think it would have garnered more attention had it been released 5 or so years earlier but at the time in 2023 there was a lot of small press Sword and Sorcery out there. Part of what took me to long to get to reading it.

A couple stories really stood out for me.

Barbarian Gothic which was an interesting exploration of a forgotten literary style with an S&S twist. Justified which was very original and different than your typical S&S yarn. Finally, Michael Burke’s The Vision of the Crimson Eye which was pound for pound the best traditional Sword and Sorcery story in the collection. I’m always up for more Ahanu Foxcloud tales.

All in all it’s a decent package but definitely a deep cut for genre diehards.