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Whetstone #6
Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Sword and Sorcery Issue Six
WHETSTONE is an amateur magazine that seeks to discover, inspire, and publish emerging authors who are enthusiastic about the tradition of "pulp sword and sorcery." Writers in this tradition include (but are not limited to) the following: Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner, and many more. "Pulp sword and sorcery" emphasizes active protagonists, supernatural menaces, and preindustrial (mostly ancient and medieval) settings. Some "pulp sword and sorcery" straddles the line between historical and fantasy fiction; at Whetstone, however, we prefer "secondary world settings," and other worlds liberated from the necessity of historical accuracy.
- GenresSword and SorceryFantasy
100 pages, PDF
Published December 16, 2022
4 people are currently reading
8 people want to read
About the author
Jason Ray Carney
40 books78 followersJason Ray Carney, Ph.D. is a lecturer in popular literature and creative writing at Christopher Newport University; he is the author of the academic book, *Weird Tales of Modernity: The Ephemerality of the Ordinary in the Stories of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and H.P. Lovecraft* (McFarland 2019) and the sword and sorcery collection, *Rakefire and Other Stories* (Pulp Hero Press 2020). He co-edits the academic journal, *The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies* and is the editor of *Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword and Sorcery.* He is the area chair of the "Pulp Studies" section of the Popular Culture Association.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 27, 2025
This issue contained quite a bit of variety. Most were good, a couple really good. B. Harlan Crawford’s story was probably the best, and fits well in the genre. Some stories were borderline adjacent. A good bit of creatures and different forms of necromancy in this issue. Still very solid for an amateur zine. Good job.
December 27, 2022
Whetstone returns with another solid collection of short sword and sorcery stories. As always, the collection is solid. These continue to be a bi-annual treat and a must read for genre fans. Overall, I found the stories in this issue all solid, and many of them quite good.
If I had to pick a stand out story in this issue it would be Owen G. Tabard's The Carrion Eaters. The prose is fantastic, the setting wildly imaginative and the opening and closing conceit of the story feels like it's ripped straight out of the silver age of comic books.
The opening two stories I also thought were very strong. The Vault with the Nine Sigil's by Hugo Award winning author Cora Buhlert had a cheeky sense of humor to it. The Rage of Thezydr by Chase A Folmar is gorgeously written and engaging.
Mathew X. Gomez's a Will of Fire played very cleverly with existing tropes by changing the cultural context, and subverting tropes in a way that genuinely felt clever, not just subversion for subversion's sake
B. Harlan Crawford and Michael Burke's stories both really "got" the genre. Good reads each. And Jimmy Stamp's Voda's Atlas had a fun sense of humor to it that made it stand out in the pack.
Overall, it's a good issue. Each story is enjoyable. If I had to levy one complaint I did feel the tone was somewhat monotonous. Almost all of the stories had a darker mood to them. The few that were humorous still did so through dark humor. Part of Sword and Sorcery is the swashbuckling adventure and I could have used a story or two with a sense of "days of high adventure" to balance out the tone. A little bit more dumb fun I think would go a long way to even out the feeling of the overall anthology. But it's a minor complaint.
Overall - for an 'Amateur' free publication Whetstone continues to outpace many of the paid small press sword and sorcery publications when it comes to quality. You don't want to miss it.
If I had to pick a stand out story in this issue it would be Owen G. Tabard's The Carrion Eaters. The prose is fantastic, the setting wildly imaginative and the opening and closing conceit of the story feels like it's ripped straight out of the silver age of comic books.
The opening two stories I also thought were very strong. The Vault with the Nine Sigil's by Hugo Award winning author Cora Buhlert had a cheeky sense of humor to it. The Rage of Thezydr by Chase A Folmar is gorgeously written and engaging.
Mathew X. Gomez's a Will of Fire played very cleverly with existing tropes by changing the cultural context, and subverting tropes in a way that genuinely felt clever, not just subversion for subversion's sake
B. Harlan Crawford and Michael Burke's stories both really "got" the genre. Good reads each. And Jimmy Stamp's Voda's Atlas had a fun sense of humor to it that made it stand out in the pack.
Overall, it's a good issue. Each story is enjoyable. If I had to levy one complaint I did feel the tone was somewhat monotonous. Almost all of the stories had a darker mood to them. The few that were humorous still did so through dark humor. Part of Sword and Sorcery is the swashbuckling adventure and I could have used a story or two with a sense of "days of high adventure" to balance out the tone. A little bit more dumb fun I think would go a long way to even out the feeling of the overall anthology. But it's a minor complaint.
Overall - for an 'Amateur' free publication Whetstone continues to outpace many of the paid small press sword and sorcery publications when it comes to quality. You don't want to miss it.
December 20, 2022
Hits and misses, but overall this is a strong issue with many interesting pieces. Just to name a few - 'Grendelkiller' by Turlough Lavery offered quality drama, 'Victuals' by B. Harlan Crawford scratched my Stone Age itch, 'Head in the Dirt' by Jon Carroll Thomas filled my need for necromantic shenanigans, and 'Voda's Atlas' by Jimmy Stamp delivered...well, the closest I can compare it to is if Star Wars' Doctor Aphra was a cartographer. Extremely memorable.
I've only got two points of reservation. The first is that, like many (but not all) modern sword and sorcery magazines/anthologies, the contributor list is almost entirely white guys like me. I think there's ways to cast a broader net. The second is that one of the stories completely relied on the old gimmick of 'isn't it funny that the morbidly obese villain is so gross,' which doesn't scan for me.
Four stars, looking forward to the next one.
I've only got two points of reservation. The first is that, like many (but not all) modern sword and sorcery magazines/anthologies, the contributor list is almost entirely white guys like me. I think there's ways to cast a broader net. The second is that one of the stories completely relied on the old gimmick of 'isn't it funny that the morbidly obese villain is so gross,' which doesn't scan for me.
Four stars, looking forward to the next one.
December 20, 2022
A neat bundle of adventure goodness, in a time where people value bloated page counts and needless worldbuilding exposition as the end-all-be-all in fantasy literature.
Standouts: The Vault with the Nine Sigils (good supernatural karma), Grendelkiller (I do love me some irony), A Will of Fire (desert demon goodness), Head in the Dirt (Tales from the Crypt-ish, even more so than The Vault with the Nine Sigils), Viktuals (Primal) and The Lighting Sword (a sweet, concentrated yarn, the perfect ribbon).
Everything else ranged from average to almost DNF'd, i.e. A Green and Pleasant Wasteland/The Carrion Eaters. Seriously, the POV and prose/storytelling from AGPW was just insufferable and Carrion Eaters has that characteristic meandering pretentious tone cosmic fantasy stories tend to have. No clue how they made it into the magazine. Oh well, you can always skip them.
Standouts: The Vault with the Nine Sigils (good supernatural karma), Grendelkiller (I do love me some irony), A Will of Fire (desert demon goodness), Head in the Dirt (Tales from the Crypt-ish, even more so than The Vault with the Nine Sigils), Viktuals (Primal) and The Lighting Sword (a sweet, concentrated yarn, the perfect ribbon).
Everything else ranged from average to almost DNF'd, i.e. A Green and Pleasant Wasteland/The Carrion Eaters. Seriously, the POV and prose/storytelling from AGPW was just insufferable and Carrion Eaters has that characteristic meandering pretentious tone cosmic fantasy stories tend to have. No clue how they made it into the magazine. Oh well, you can always skip them.
December 23, 2022
4 top-line stories grace this Christmas issue:
"Bugbear" most visceral, savage, thrilling.
"The Lightning Sword" most complete, fulfilling.
"The Carrion Eaters" most otherworldly clever one-of.
"Voda's Atlas" most promising potential of characters and future tales.
"Bugbear" most visceral, savage, thrilling.
"The Lightning Sword" most complete, fulfilling.
"The Carrion Eaters" most otherworldly clever one-of.
"Voda's Atlas" most promising potential of characters and future tales.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews