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Savage Realms Monthly: July 2025: A collection of dark fantasy sword and sorcery short adventure stories
Quench Your Thirst for Savage Sword and Sorcery Action Adventure!
The masters of sword and sorcery fiction might be dead but just because Robert E. Howard is no longer penning Conan tales doesn't mean you have to go without your fix of axe wielding barbarians, lusty wenches and evil wizards! Literary Rebel is proud to bring you a whole new crop of monthly fantasy fiction by talented new authors.
"The first issue does not disappoint!"
"Hack and slash goodness."
"Harkens back to the days of the pulp masters..."
Fans of Robert E. Howard, Lin Carter, Clark Ashton Smith, and Karl Edward Wagner will love this new fantasy fiction adventure magazine.
The masters of sword and sorcery fiction might be dead but just because Robert E. Howard is no longer penning Conan tales doesn't mean you have to go without your fix of axe wielding barbarians, lusty wenches and evil wizards! Literary Rebel is proud to bring you a whole new crop of monthly fantasy fiction by talented new authors.
"The first issue does not disappoint!"
"Hack and slash goodness."
"Harkens back to the days of the pulp masters..."
Fans of Robert E. Howard, Lin Carter, Clark Ashton Smith, and Karl Edward Wagner will love this new fantasy fiction adventure magazine.
79 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 7, 2025
4 people are currently reading
2 people want to read
About the author
Richard Rubin
26 books45 followersRichard Rubin is the author of the upcoming BACK OVER THERE from St. Martin's Press. He is also the author of The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War and Confederacy of Silence: A True Tale of the New Old South, as well as scores of pieces for The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Smithsonian, among others. A fifth-generation New Yorker, he now lives in small-town Maine, which baffles his neighbors. You can visit him at richardrubinonline.com.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 10, 2025
This issue was a mixed bag. The third story by Richard Rubin was excellent. The first two stories seemed out of place for Savage Realms. They seemed more like Whetstone stories. Hopefully we’ll get some more like Rubin’s work next time.
October 21, 2025
I wrote a long detailed review for this book. Granted it was on my phone, during brief moments of free time. This was bound to fail. I didn’t save the body and it was ultimately swiped into oblivion.
Two new authors to SRM and one who has published with them almost half a dozen times.
SE Lindberg is not a name you may be familiar with, but it should be. He has quietly written a rather large body of work over the years. Immolating Ember is the latest installment of his Dyscrasia stories. Ember is not your traditional protagonist. Dyscrasia is not the usual setting. Lindberg weaves the weird, alien, and macabre creating something wholly unique.
The next story, Recruitment Drive, is written by another newcomer to SRM. Exiss is looking to hire some adventurers. Or that is what he advertises, what he does is far more sinister. I enjoyed picking out the famous heroes he encounters in the barroom. This is a humorous tale and those can be a hard sale to hardened S&S fans.
The last story is another adventure of Richard Rubin’s sword for hire, Shreve. Shreve and a sorcerer’s apprentice seek a fabled dagger in a crypt. Later Shreve is hired by a woman to help free her brother from a sorceress. Unrelated adventures with a common thread.
Two new authors to SRM and one who has published with them almost half a dozen times.
SE Lindberg is not a name you may be familiar with, but it should be. He has quietly written a rather large body of work over the years. Immolating Ember is the latest installment of his Dyscrasia stories. Ember is not your traditional protagonist. Dyscrasia is not the usual setting. Lindberg weaves the weird, alien, and macabre creating something wholly unique.
The next story, Recruitment Drive, is written by another newcomer to SRM. Exiss is looking to hire some adventurers. Or that is what he advertises, what he does is far more sinister. I enjoyed picking out the famous heroes he encounters in the barroom. This is a humorous tale and those can be a hard sale to hardened S&S fans.
The last story is another adventure of Richard Rubin’s sword for hire, Shreve. Shreve and a sorcerer’s apprentice seek a fabled dagger in a crypt. Later Shreve is hired by a woman to help free her brother from a sorceress. Unrelated adventures with a common thread.
August 12, 2025
this is an issue toeing the edges of Sword & Sorcery. Lindberg's tale is by far the best, featuring an endearing and exciting 1st Person POV heroine and some terrific and horrific bloody danger and action. Definitely a dark fantasy thriller. Good interview too.
Tarassenko gives us a funny DnD epic fantasy tale that straddles the line of SnS storytelling. And Rubin gives us a beginner's take on SnS storytelling that also brings a bit of the epic. Both of these latter two authors show promise as potential SnS writers.
Tarassenko gives us a funny DnD epic fantasy tale that straddles the line of SnS storytelling. And Rubin gives us a beginner's take on SnS storytelling that also brings a bit of the epic. Both of these latter two authors show promise as potential SnS writers.
September 2, 2025
This was a really good issue.
“Immolating Ember” was weird, magnificent, and luxuriously written. It almost defies description. You really need to read it yourself!
“Recruitment Drive” is a fun, affectionate parody of S&S/heroic fantasy tropes, but it also packs its fair share of action, and it definitely wrung a chuckle out of me.
“The Blood Dagger of Dilgare” felt like the most typical story of the issue, given its company, but by no means was it bad. This one starts off a classic dungeon delve. At first glance, it looks like two unconnected stories in one, but the ties between them become clear in time.
“Immolating Ember” was weird, magnificent, and luxuriously written. It almost defies description. You really need to read it yourself!
“Recruitment Drive” is a fun, affectionate parody of S&S/heroic fantasy tropes, but it also packs its fair share of action, and it definitely wrung a chuckle out of me.
“The Blood Dagger of Dilgare” felt like the most typical story of the issue, given its company, but by no means was it bad. This one starts off a classic dungeon delve. At first glance, it looks like two unconnected stories in one, but the ties between them become clear in time.
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August 13, 2025I’m not going to leave a star rating for this magazine issue as I have a story in it but I will review it.
Three ‘dark fantasy sword and sorcery short adventure stories’:
‘Immolating Ember’ by Seth Lindberg is about an exiled golem-sorceress traveling to a prehistoric city where she is tasked with reigniting a furnace and . It was fun; the language is sophisticated and shows the influence of the author’s chemist profession and alchemical interests.
My story ‘Recruitment Drive’ is about an evil sorcerer setting out to recruit a roster of heroes for his own nefarious ends. Reading it again I’m struck by how humorous it is and for that reason am a bit surprised that I got it past two editors into this apparently serious magazine. However, writing it and reading it again sure entertained me, at the least.
‘The Blood Dagger of Dilgare’ by Richard L. Rubin is a twisty tale about a sellsword getting more than he bargains for on a fetch quest and having to tangle with a pair of as a result. In some ways it’s quite tonally similar to my piece, in that the flavour is a little more high fantasy and it could easily be a DnD one-shot (or two-shot, in this case). As such, I thought it was awesome.
Some people in other reviews have commented that the latter two stories are more ‘epic fantasy’ than ‘sword and sorcery’. I’d argue they are just a different kind of sword and sorcery, which is a roomy sub-genre. In any case, these classifications are fluid, and a good story is a good story. Not all ‘S&S’ has to be middle-aged male wish-fulfilment power fantasy.
Three ‘dark fantasy sword and sorcery short adventure stories’:
‘Immolating Ember’ by Seth Lindberg is about an exiled golem-sorceress traveling to a prehistoric city where she is tasked with reigniting a furnace and . It was fun; the language is sophisticated and shows the influence of the author’s chemist profession and alchemical interests.
My story ‘Recruitment Drive’ is about an evil sorcerer setting out to recruit a roster of heroes for his own nefarious ends. Reading it again I’m struck by how humorous it is and for that reason am a bit surprised that I got it past two editors into this apparently serious magazine. However, writing it and reading it again sure entertained me, at the least.
‘The Blood Dagger of Dilgare’ by Richard L. Rubin is a twisty tale about a sellsword getting more than he bargains for on a fetch quest and having to tangle with a pair of as a result. In some ways it’s quite tonally similar to my piece, in that the flavour is a little more high fantasy and it could easily be a DnD one-shot (or two-shot, in this case). As such, I thought it was awesome.
Some people in other reviews have commented that the latter two stories are more ‘epic fantasy’ than ‘sword and sorcery’. I’d argue they are just a different kind of sword and sorcery, which is a roomy sub-genre. In any case, these classifications are fluid, and a good story is a good story. Not all ‘S&S’ has to be middle-aged male wish-fulfilment power fantasy.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews