Old Moon Quarterly: Issue 6, Winter 2024: A Magazine of Dark Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery

by Old Moon Quarterly, Josh Reynolds, R.L. Summerling

Old Moon Quarterly is a magazine of dark fantasy and weird sword-and-sorcery. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the bloody dispute thereof by swordsmen and swordswomen both.

Issue 6 contains the following stories and

"The Orphan of Bones" by Josh Reynolds
"Corpse Wax" by R.L. Summerling
"What They Don't Tell You About Training to Slay" by Katherine Quevedo
"The Marchers in the Fog" by Dariel R.A. Quiogue
"The Festering Mantle" by J.M. Hayes
"Respite" by R.H. Berry
"Towards a Justice" by Matt Holder
and
"Diary of the Wolf" by Adam McPhee.

It also includes a review of Tales from the Magician's Skull, Issue 11 by Robin Marx.

Genres: Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery

134 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 16, 2024

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty mixed bag this time around, with three stories (and a couple poems) that I really enjoyed, but just as many entries that left me going “uh ok, was that it?” which isn’t a great place to be at the end of a story. Marchers In The Fog and Diary of the Wolf were both really great but Josh Reynolds’s The Orphan of Bones was the standout for me. A little creepy, a little weird, but also pretty funny. That’s a good mix to me. Also if you give me a couple of guys, like a dumb tough guy and a clever smooth talking guy as Reynolds does here then I’m gonna be pretty happy.

Not bad overall but as I said about half of the collection left me feeling cold, so it’s hard for me to recommend this one as enthusiastically as I have previous Old Moons.

[Jim Kuenzli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old Moon took a darker tun this time with a sense of the macabre in every story. This is definitely a quirky read, but some delightful writing styles are presented. Recommended for anyone who enjoys reading weird, dark fantasy.

[Bryn Hammond]

Fave parts:
-- The intro, as usual. I enjoy these old-style conversations with the reader on a given topic each issue. Please keep these up.
-- Adam McPhee's story 'Diary of the Wolf', in the style of the diary of Samuel Pepys. I enjoyed the perfectly executed seventeenth-century language and day-to-day affairs.
(There's a theme in my most-liked. Old Moon is seriously given to the old, in a way rare to find.)

[Luana · Rating 5 out of 5]

They're really amping up the bangers... could they sustain it up to #8?

Love getting to know Good Workin' Authors.

[William Emmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great sword and sorcery magazine with a gorgeous cover. All the stories are actually about something and have an interesting angle. I recommend this one to readers who like some substance in their dark fantasy. Looking forward to reading more from this publisher.

[Heiki Eesmaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not terrible, not great. I started reading because I was wondering how Josh Reynolds would be without the Warhammer lore. After reading I would say competent and average sword and sorcery.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Talk about an aesthetic. Probably my favorite of the issues yet.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay yeah, this is getting five stars because my story "Diary of the Wolf" is in here and I think it's the best thing I've written so far. It's about werewolfery and it's set in Samuel Pepys' 17th-century London and written in the style of his diary.

But that said, there's a lot of great stuff in here. One of the great things about submitting your short stories for publication is seeing who you get published alongside. Dariel Quiogue's "The Marchers in the Fog" and R.L. Summerling's "Corpse Wax" are both a lot of fun, but I think my story was Matt Holder's "Towards a Justice." What I like about Holder's writing--here and elsewhere--is that he's really able to evoke a medievalesque mind, and the in the course of the story force it to confront something totally alien to its experience.

Also I really liked the editors' intro. Normally when someone tries to do this sort of thing in character it comes off really cringe, like someone doing a bad Stan Lee. But this one was good and I actually ended up understanding my own story a little bit better.