The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, MarApr 2023 by Sheree Renée Thomas & The Magazine of Fantasy && Science Fiction

Author:Sheree Renée Thomas & The Magazine of Fantasy && Science Fiction
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, Fantasy fiction, Short fiction, Magazine
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc.
Published: 2023-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

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New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine: Issue #0, edited by Oliver Brackenbury, New Edge Sword & Sorcery, 2022, $3.99. tpb, $11.99, hc.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine is a throwback magazine with a modern sensibility. It has the look of the offset ’zines from the latter third of the last century, complete with the large pages featuring three columns of text and the black & white artwork. But it’s been produced in the era of ebooks, PDFs, and print-on-demand, and its mission statement is very contemporary (and inspiring for a publisher in any era):

“New Edge Sword & Sorcery takes the genre’s virtues of its outsider protagonists, thrilling energy, wondrous weirdness, and a large body of classic tales, then alloys inclusivity, mutual creator support, a positive fan community, and enthusiastic promotion of new works into the mix.”

Back in the seventies, the late Charles R. Saunders first introduced me to ’zines and the world of the small press. Titles like Dark Fantasy, Whispers, Copper Toadstool, Space & Time, Night Voyages, Simba, and so many more. We even put out a few ourselves.

It was my first foray into the idea of a literary community, one where the writers, artists, and readers mingled more as peers rather than being ranked in a “star system.” I loved those years of reading and contributing to those magazines and made a lot of friends who are still friends to this day (though alas, they seem to be passing on with frightening regularity as the years go by).

All of which made me very happy to see Oliver Brackenbury and his friends take up the mantle now. The look of their magazine might be a little retro (which I like) but the storytelling prowess of the authors they’ve collected proves that there’s still new tales to find in this venerable genre.

That said, I have to say what I like best about the magazine is the non-fiction: There’s a great piece on C. L. Moore and her Jirel of Jorey stories. Another on the outsider. High fantasy often revolves around a family of choice (disparate beings getting together on a quest), where Sword and Sorcery is more likely to focus on the loner. A look at women in the field’s original stories, using Robert E. Howard’s less well-known character Dark Agnes as a touchstone. A review of Kirk A. Johnson’s The Obanaax, which sounds like a fascinating book I have to track down. Editor Brackenbury’s opening and closing remarks.

And then there’s a really excellent interview with Milton Davis in which he and Brackenbury discuss the past, present, and future of the Sword and Soul subgenre, giving the right props to Charles R. Saunders, who started it with his Imaro and Dossouye stories. They go on to talk about the relevance of that genre now and where it can go in its explorations of pre-colonial Africa. And I have to admit that, as a friend and a reader, it was great to just hear people talking about Saunders and his worth.

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