There’s Still Some Flash in That Sword…

I’m having trouble believing it’s November already. My day job is really keeping me running these days. Which would be fine if I were even caught up on that, but I’m not.

But I can’t let another day pass without acknowledging the return of Flashing Swords. The current issue can be read online by clicking on the “current issue” link (obvious, I know, but it took me a while to figure out–I must have been distracted by something else on the page). There are a few options available for downloading a barebones text for offline reading, and both e-copies and hardcopies can be purchased through Lulu: a good thought, this. The prices might discourage the casual buyer, but the option is more for the FS fanatic, I think.

It was a satisfying issue, I thought. My favorite bits were probably Steve Goble’s Calthus story, the short poem of Nordic doom by Jason Waltz and the article by Joseph McCullough on Anglo-Saxons in (post)Roman Britain. But it was also fun to see S.C. Bryce continue her serial about Dermanassian. Michael Turner’s “The Jewel Below” is an interesting adventure story in a medieval Islamic setting, and if if I said anything less bland about it than “interesting” I would probably give away something about the ending, so I won’t. T.W. Williams kicks in a vigorous first-person yarn titled “No Man’s Knight” (and he means it). Michael Erhart contributes a story from the same background as his new book Servant of the Manthycore. The story stands well by itself, but it did made me want to read the novel. There’s also an interview with Ralan, and with Margaret H. Bonham.

Well, that’s all the time I have for fantasy at the moment. I have to run off and see an opera with witches and sea-monsters and knights and demons and Cupid losing his arrows and getting zapped with them. Serious, realistic storytelling from the Italian Baroque era.