This past week DMR Books released Renegade Swords IV. This is a series collecting obscure mostly sword & sorcery and fantastic adventure tales.Trade paperback (9’‘ x 6’), 216 pages.
Contents:
Story Author Original Appearance
The Demon Cat Keith Taylor Weird Tales, Winter 1989/1990
On Skellig Michael Keith Taylor Swords Against Darkness II (1977)
The Last Magician David H. Keller Weird Tales, May 1932
The Dark Rider Michael Moorcock Eldritch Dream Quest, Nov. 1960
Cube From Space Leigh Brackett Super Science Stories, August 1942
The Dark Isle Robert Bloch Weird Tales, May 1939
The People of the Arrow P. Schuyler Miller Amazing Stories, July 1935
The Land of Lur Earl Leaston Bell Weird Tales, May 1930
The Honor of a King Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur Adventure, Sept. 20, 1923
Keith Taylor is the best writer of Celtic tinged sword & sorcery if not modern fantasy. The Scithers/Schweitzer/Betancourt era of Weird Tales had a steady amount of Keith Taylor who was the Robert E. Howard of that incarnation, Tanith Lee who was the Clark Ashton Smith, and Thomas Ligotti who was the part of H. P. Lovecraft. I bought those issues back in the day. They often had cover and interior art by Steve Fabian.
David H. Keller’s story is in the mode of Clark Ashton Smith. Michael Moorcock’s story is pre-Elric from a small press.
Leigh Brackett’s story is not sword & sorcery but has a very distinct nod to Robert E. Howard. Before Robert Bloch created Norman Bates, he experimented with different type of stories in Weird Tales in the late 1930s. He and Henry Kuttner were holding up the magazine for a few years after Howard and Lovecraft died.
P. Schuyler Miller’s story is a genocidal cave man story that is very blood and thunder. Earl Leaston Bell’s is an almost stream of consciousness story that may remind some of Lord Dunsany.
Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur was a philologist who worked the same territory of J. R. R. Tolkien. He co-wrote a number of stories with Farnham Bishop and solo featuring medieval settings. He turned a few sagas into pulp stories. “The Honor of a King” is his stab at telling the Finn & Hengest story that Tolkien tackled.
This is the strongest entry yet in the anthology series. Karl Edward Wagner had edited three Echoes of Valor anthologies for Tor Book in the 1980s. Wagner reprinted pulp era heroic fantasy. He had told me in a letter that he had plans for a fourth and fifth volume. My guess is he would have reprinted more Robert E. Howard, Manly Wade Wellman, Henry Kuttner, probably Clifford Ball. View Renegade Swords as a continuation of Echoes of Valor. I had made recommendations to the editor over the years with some of those incorporated into these books including this one.
If you have a taste for pulp era and pulp influenced sword & sorcery and fantastic adventure, get this book, get all of the Renegade Swords books. I give this book my most high recommendation. You can order from dmrbooks.com or Amazon
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The cover art is kickass old school.