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The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #1
The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 1, 2009-2011
Tales gathered from frozen pre-history, sweltering jungles, and smoky mead halls, legends of this world and whispers of other worlds briefly glimpsed — here then are gathered works of adventure and danger, love and fury, seventeen of the best from the early days of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.
Fiction by Richard Marsden, James Lecky, William Gerke, R. Michael Burns, Christopher Wood, Robert Rhodes, Dariel R. A. Quiogue, Jesse Bangs, P. Djeli Clark, and David Pilling.
Poetry by Danny Adams, Joshua Hampton, W. E. Couvillier, John Keller, Megan Arkenberg, Joshua Hampton, and David Sklar.
Introduction by John O’Neill of Black Gate Magazine.
Fiction by Richard Marsden, James Lecky, William Gerke, R. Michael Burns, Christopher Wood, Robert Rhodes, Dariel R. A. Quiogue, Jesse Bangs, P. Djeli Clark, and David Pilling.
Poetry by Danny Adams, Joshua Hampton, W. E. Couvillier, John Keller, Megan Arkenberg, Joshua Hampton, and David Sklar.
Introduction by John O’Neill of Black Gate Magazine.
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 27, 2015
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46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 27, 2020
Although I've finished reading this in its entirety I have only managed to finish half of my review.
Richard Marsden - Man of Moldania; An experienced dragon slayer enters a village tavern looking for hire and soon after finds more than he bargained for. I was sold on this tale from beginning to end. Interested in reading more by this author. 4 stars.
James Lecky - The Black Flowers of Sevan; Militant figures at odds on money owed wager a sort of gamble involving their lord's mysteriously beautiful wife. I felt the setting and story were interesting but it wasn't until the last few pages that it went from good to brilliant. Would like to read more by this author. 4 stars.
William Gerke - Monster in the Mountains; A beastly character named Gowther stumbles through the snow into a residence where hospitality turns cosmically and devastatingly alien. A series with Gowther would be fantastic! 5 stars.
R. Michael Burns - Shadows from Firelight; Once a priest, Samurai warrior Hokagé and his kitsune companion Sasa set out to save the soul of a princess atop a devastatingly high white mountain peak. 5 fist-pumping stars!
*Set in medieval Japan this last story and one by Dariel Quiogue set in 13th Age Eastern Asia were the reasons I recently rushed into purchasing all three anthologies of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly in paperback. After reading reviews by fellow GR friend, Richard Fisher who knows the fields of Sword & Sorcery and Heroic Fantasy like very few others + reviews by others on GR, Amazon and elsewhere I knew this was a series of stories I had to have. I am completely spellbound! There is a Hokagé tale in each collection of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, three thus far + 1 more on the author's site, and he's currently in the works of writing three more novels with the same characters. I cannot wait to read the other short stories and super-pumped up in anticipation to read the novels. So much so that I have gone completely bonkers in researching and tracking down newer released Fantasy fiction culturally Asian focused including stories set in medieval Japan, old world China, as well as tales set in Taiwan and surrounding, even to the point of stretching my parameters outside of Sword & Sorcery and adult Fantasy fiction to include Historical-fiction, YA, and even a couple of Children's books. Anything and everything similarish in nature to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 47 Ronin, including old school samurai favorites, Throne of Blood and Hidden Fortress.
** Though I have added a mountainful of books of like nature recently recommendations are positively welcome!
***The rest of the review to come.
Richard Marsden - Man of Moldania; An experienced dragon slayer enters a village tavern looking for hire and soon after finds more than he bargained for. I was sold on this tale from beginning to end. Interested in reading more by this author. 4 stars.
James Lecky - The Black Flowers of Sevan; Militant figures at odds on money owed wager a sort of gamble involving their lord's mysteriously beautiful wife. I felt the setting and story were interesting but it wasn't until the last few pages that it went from good to brilliant. Would like to read more by this author. 4 stars.
William Gerke - Monster in the Mountains; A beastly character named Gowther stumbles through the snow into a residence where hospitality turns cosmically and devastatingly alien. A series with Gowther would be fantastic! 5 stars.
R. Michael Burns - Shadows from Firelight; Once a priest, Samurai warrior Hokagé and his kitsune companion Sasa set out to save the soul of a princess atop a devastatingly high white mountain peak. 5 fist-pumping stars!
*Set in medieval Japan this last story and one by Dariel Quiogue set in 13th Age Eastern Asia were the reasons I recently rushed into purchasing all three anthologies of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly in paperback. After reading reviews by fellow GR friend, Richard Fisher who knows the fields of Sword & Sorcery and Heroic Fantasy like very few others + reviews by others on GR, Amazon and elsewhere I knew this was a series of stories I had to have. I am completely spellbound! There is a Hokagé tale in each collection of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, three thus far + 1 more on the author's site, and he's currently in the works of writing three more novels with the same characters. I cannot wait to read the other short stories and super-pumped up in anticipation to read the novels. So much so that I have gone completely bonkers in researching and tracking down newer released Fantasy fiction culturally Asian focused including stories set in medieval Japan, old world China, as well as tales set in Taiwan and surrounding, even to the point of stretching my parameters outside of Sword & Sorcery and adult Fantasy fiction to include Historical-fiction, YA, and even a couple of Children's books. Anything and everything similarish in nature to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 47 Ronin, including old school samurai favorites, Throne of Blood and Hidden Fortress.
** Though I have added a mountainful of books of like nature recently recommendations are positively welcome!
***The rest of the review to come.
January 6, 2016
Good - no, great! - anthology of the best s&s of the first years of HFQl (if you don't know them you're not a true s&s fan)! Each piece - poetry or prose - (except the last) is exciting adventure filled with strong saucy swordsfolk. this is really a showpiece collection of impressive s&s talents from editors to authors, and I highly encourage you to see so yourself...and then to continue the good reading right at the HFQ website.
February 26, 2020
I normally don't read e-books if I can get a physical copy. For the past couple of months I've been reading quite a bit on my kindle though. This particular anthology came up during the Sword and Sorcery's January/February group read, and I wanted to check it out too.
Overall I enjoyed most of the stories, a few just didn't work for me.
Man of Moldania by Richard Marsden - old dragon slayer, running out of options, twist ending.
The Black Flowers of Sevan by James Lecky - Possession is not love; got an Arabian Nights feel from this, I would definitely like to read more.
Monster in the Mountains by William Gerke - Gowther is a really interesting character I would like to read more about. Something lives in the mountain that is from another world. Another favorite.
Shadows From Firelight by R. Michael Burns - A lone Samurai will combat the Tengu King for a young woman's soul. More please.
No Two Stones by Christopher Wood - Too alien, didn't grab me, DNF.
The Sea Wasp by Robert Rhodes - Scholar turned slave finds treasure on a burial ship. But will he survive the sea monster that suddenly attacks?
Lord of the Brass Host by Dariel R. A. Quiogue - What lies buried should stay at rest. Two princes turned mercenaries discover a tomb rife with a clockwork army.
The Last Free Bear by J. S. Bangs - A family abducted, a quest to free them, a talking bear, and a duel with a wolf pack.
Shattering the Spear by P. Djeli Clark - A sword and soul tale. A lone warrior discovers the secret of an age old legend when his spear is shattered.
The Baroness Drefelin by David Pilling - An enamored knight's exile leads him to the one thing he is trying to flee.
The poetry and verse is not for me, I typically don't read it. This time was no exception. My loss.
Recommended!
Overall I enjoyed most of the stories, a few just didn't work for me.
Man of Moldania by Richard Marsden - old dragon slayer, running out of options, twist ending.
The Black Flowers of Sevan by James Lecky - Possession is not love; got an Arabian Nights feel from this, I would definitely like to read more.
Monster in the Mountains by William Gerke - Gowther is a really interesting character I would like to read more about. Something lives in the mountain that is from another world. Another favorite.
Shadows From Firelight by R. Michael Burns - A lone Samurai will combat the Tengu King for a young woman's soul. More please.
No Two Stones by Christopher Wood - Too alien, didn't grab me, DNF.
The Sea Wasp by Robert Rhodes - Scholar turned slave finds treasure on a burial ship. But will he survive the sea monster that suddenly attacks?
Lord of the Brass Host by Dariel R. A. Quiogue - What lies buried should stay at rest. Two princes turned mercenaries discover a tomb rife with a clockwork army.
The Last Free Bear by J. S. Bangs - A family abducted, a quest to free them, a talking bear, and a duel with a wolf pack.
Shattering the Spear by P. Djeli Clark - A sword and soul tale. A lone warrior discovers the secret of an age old legend when his spear is shattered.
The Baroness Drefelin by David Pilling - An enamored knight's exile leads him to the one thing he is trying to flee.
The poetry and verse is not for me, I typically don't read it. This time was no exception. My loss.
Recommended!
May 18, 2024
Nice collection of heroic fantasy/ sword and sorcery type stories. A really good variety of short stories and some poetic verse stories. Having Dariel Quiogue’s Snow Leppard tale was worth the price of admission alone. Nicely done.
July 1, 2018
In my quest for modern sword & sorcery I did pass Heroic Fantasy Quarterly by a few times, but as I don't like reading stories from my laptop & phone and HFQ does not offer an epub download (like for example Beneath Ceaseless Skies) I never got around to reading an issue.
To see what I've been missing so far, I decided to order this book: the best of HFQ's first years: 2009-2011. It promises to offer the best of their heroic fantasy short stories and poetry.
To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of poetry, so I mostly browsed those (Megan Arkenbergs "What Sieglinde Serpentslayer said to the King" was great though). While there were some really classic sword & sorcery stories, like "The Black Flowers of Sevan" by James Lecky and "The Sea Wasp" by Robert Rhodes or even classic weird tales like the sword & planet "No two stones" from Christopher Wood, I found a lot of the tales more akin to alternate history or classic 80s/90s fantasy, especially compared to Cirsova and the new Tales of the Magician's which I bought and read slightly after this book.
While the recent trend of grimdark can be a bit grim and dark just to show how edgy the writer is, here I would have like a bit more anti-heroes and humor. Also the trend in a few of the stories in non-western fantasy settings to use foreign words for things that have completely valid English words just for flavor tends to irritate me (if I have to use google to be sure that your talking about a rhinoceros you're just annoying me).
Still a very decent bunch of stories, so I will be picking up the next volume as well.
To see what I've been missing so far, I decided to order this book: the best of HFQ's first years: 2009-2011. It promises to offer the best of their heroic fantasy short stories and poetry.
To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of poetry, so I mostly browsed those (Megan Arkenbergs "What Sieglinde Serpentslayer said to the King" was great though). While there were some really classic sword & sorcery stories, like "The Black Flowers of Sevan" by James Lecky and "The Sea Wasp" by Robert Rhodes or even classic weird tales like the sword & planet "No two stones" from Christopher Wood, I found a lot of the tales more akin to alternate history or classic 80s/90s fantasy, especially compared to Cirsova and the new Tales of the Magician's which I bought and read slightly after this book.
While the recent trend of grimdark can be a bit grim and dark just to show how edgy the writer is, here I would have like a bit more anti-heroes and humor. Also the trend in a few of the stories in non-western fantasy settings to use foreign words for things that have completely valid English words just for flavor tends to irritate me (if I have to use google to be sure that your talking about a rhinoceros you're just annoying me).
Still a very decent bunch of stories, so I will be picking up the next volume as well.
February 29, 2016
I feel a bit uneasy reviewing this anthology as I am a contributor to it. Obviously I'll leave it to other readers to respond to my contribution ("Shadows from Firelight") but as for the rest, I greatly enjoyed it. Every story took me someplace different and offered me interesting characters to follow through their adventures. The poetry offerings clearly came from some poets who know the classics like Gilgamesh and Beowulf, but managed to work more sophisticated psychological sensibilities into well-written traditional language. Not one tale or poem here is weak or poorly written; these are writers who care both about story and language.
And -- just for the record -- was paid a flat fee for my contribution to this anthology, so I'm not making these comments with the goal of bringing in some cash. I simply think the editors have put together a truly solid fantasy anthology that fans of the genre will really enjoy, and I'm very pleased to be a part of it (you can tell by all the intensifiers I'm using here).
And -- just for the record -- was paid a flat fee for my contribution to this anthology, so I'm not making these comments with the goal of bringing in some cash. I simply think the editors have put together a truly solid fantasy anthology that fans of the genre will really enjoy, and I'm very pleased to be a part of it (you can tell by all the intensifiers I'm using here).
January 18, 2025
This was a very good good collection of Sword & Sorcery stories, punctuated by poems— which, regrettably, I couldn't appreciate much.
My favourites were~
1. Richard Marsden's 'Man of Moldania';
2. James Lecky's 'The Black Flowers of Sevan';
3. William Gerke's 'Monster in the Mountains';
4. R. Michael Burns's 'Shadows From Firelight'— the BEST story of this anthology, in my opinion;
5. Christopher Wood's 'No Two Stones';
6. J.S, Bange's 'The Last Free Bear';
7. David Pilling's 'The Baroness Drefelin'.
Surprisingly, the most boring work of this book was penned by P. Djeli Clark, who had later given us the magnificient stories belonging to the 'Dead Djinn' Universe. But overall the book containged highly readable stuff.
Recommended.
My favourites were~
1. Richard Marsden's 'Man of Moldania';
2. James Lecky's 'The Black Flowers of Sevan';
3. William Gerke's 'Monster in the Mountains';
4. R. Michael Burns's 'Shadows From Firelight'— the BEST story of this anthology, in my opinion;
5. Christopher Wood's 'No Two Stones';
6. J.S, Bange's 'The Last Free Bear';
7. David Pilling's 'The Baroness Drefelin'.
Surprisingly, the most boring work of this book was penned by P. Djeli Clark, who had later given us the magnificient stories belonging to the 'Dead Djinn' Universe. But overall the book containged highly readable stuff.
Recommended.
August 13, 2024
Rating: 4 stars.
December 23, 2025
Overall, an enjoyable read, but I often thought the majority of stories were far too lengthy.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews