Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 10 now available as a paperback and eBook

 

Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 10 is now available as a paperback and kindle eBook. 

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This is the tenth volume in our popular Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy series of anthologies in the footsteps of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and other pioneers of the sword and sorcery genre.

The stories and authors included this time are:

Masks for the Madness by Harry Elliott
Safe as Banks by Geoffrey Hart
Death Abandoned by Virgo Kevonté
Cavern of Stones by Phil Emery
Bad Moon Rising by Robert Mammone
The Salt of Tilantokka by Gregory D. Mele
Shanglor: a Stranger Tale by Jay Litwicki
A Confusion of Renegades by Adrian Cole

The artwork on the covers and in the interior are by award-winning artist Jim Pitts.

 

 

Adrian Cole - Who has the eighth story in Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 10

From my Introduction to Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 10 (to be published in May) here are details of the eighth writer included in the anthology: Adrian Cole:

Closing this volume is Adrian Cole’s “A Confusion of Renegades”. Adrian Cole is a native of and lives in North Devon, England and has been in nearly every volume of Swords & Sorceries. In a career which spans 50 years of publication in 2024, Adrian has had some three dozen novels published and close on 200 short stories. He works in several genres, including Heroic Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, Horror, SF, Mythos and supernatural crime. He has appeared in a number of Year’s Best anthologies and in 2015 his Nick Nightmare Investigates won the prestigious British Fantasy Award for best collection.

His latest published work is Germanicus. Lord of Eagles (DMR, US), the second in his epic War on Rome trilogy, set in an alternative Romano/ Celtic Europe in the days of Rome’s emperors.

Further new works that have appeared recently include a reprinting of his Sword and Planet saga, The Dream Lords, a compendium volume of the initial three volumes with new material, and a new volume, the sequel, Dream Lords: Legacy, both books from Cirsova Press, US. His Elak of Atlantis stories, which bring back into print Henry Kuttner’s celebrated Sword & Sorcery Atlantean king, have been collected and published with new material in a trilogy from Parallel Universe Publications, each illustrated by Jim Pitts: Elak – Warrior of Atlantis, Elak – King of Atlantis, and Elak – Sea Hawks of Atlantis.

 

Elak - Sea Hawks of Atlantis set to be pubished this week

The final volume of Adrian Cole's Atlantis Trilogy, Elak - Sea Hawks of Atlantis, is set to be pubished as a paperback later this week, followed by a kindle ebook version soon afterwards.

 

Cover art for Elak, Sea Hawks of Atlantis by Jim Pitts, tales by Adrian Cole

Award-winning artist Jim Pitts has now sent in his fabulous cover artwork for Adrian Cole's third Atlantis collection, Elak, Sea Hawks of Atlantis, which will be published in January next year. 

The tales included in this 323-page collection are:

THE SWALLOWER OF ISLANDS Published here for the first time
JEWELS OF THE SEA HAG First published in Tales from the Magician’s Skull, Special #2 (USA) 2022
PRISONERS OF DEVIL DOG CITY First published in Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 5, edited by David A. Riley, Parallel Universe Publications (UK) 2022
THE CURSE OF BLOODBONE ISLAND First published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, (USA) 2023
GOD OF THE DREAMING ISLES First published in Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 6, edited by David A. Riley, Parallel Universe Publications (UK) 2023
WHEN THE SEA GODS RISE Published here for the first time

All three volumes will be available as uniform edition paperbacks and as kindle ebooks.

Adrian Cole - Weirdbook, Phantasmagoria magazine and the Elak of Atlantis Trilogy

Not only is the current issue of Weirdbook an Adrian Cole Special, but the next issue of Phantasmagoria magazine will have an article about Adrian Cole's Elak of Atlantis Trilogy by David A. Riley, plus all three collections of Elak books by Adrian will be reviewed. These will appear together with a plethora of illustrations from the books by Jim Pitts.

Weirdbook Adrian Cole Special

Adrian Cole is being honoured with a Weirdbook Special devoted to him. In a few months he will also have the third and final collection of his Elak of Atlantis books published by Parallel Universe Publications, Elak, Sea Hawks of Atlantis.

Congratulations on this special edition of Weirdbook, Adrian!

Elak, King of Atlantis

Volume 2 of Adrian Cole's Elak of Atlantis trilogy is already primed for publication a month or so after Elak, Warrior of Atlantis has been released.

Here is a glimpse of the front cover for Elak, King of Atlantis. Originally published in 2020 by Pulp Hero Press, this will include additional artwork by Jim Pitts, plus a new Introduction.

Elak, Sea Hawks of Atlantis will conclude the trilogy. More about that later. 

Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 2 - our contributors

Here are some brief details of the authors whose stories will appear in Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 2, to be published in June.

Opening the collection is The Essence of Dust by veteran horror, fantasy, SF writer Mike Chinn. Mike lives in Birmingham, UK, with his wife Caroline and their tribe of guinea pigs. In 2012 he took early retirement so he could spend more time writing (and not housework). Over the years he has published over sixty short stories, as well as editing three volumes of The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes, and Swords Against The Millennium, also for The Alchemy Press. His own contribution to the Pulp Adventure genre, The Paladin Mandates, garnered two nominations for the British Fantasy Award in 1999, and Pro Se Productions have recently published a revised and extended edition. Pro Se also published the second Damian Paladin collection, Walkers in Shadow, along with his first Western, Revenge is a Cold Pistol. 

 In 2015, his Sherlock Holmes steampunk mash-up, Vallis Timoris (Fringe-works), sent the famous detective to the Moon. Parallel Universe Publications has also published a collection of his stories, Radix Omnium Malum.

Tais Teng (Highjacking the Lord of Light) is a Dutch SF writer and illustrator with, in his own words, the quite unpronounceable name of Thijs van Ebbenhorst Tengbergen, which he shortened to Tais Teng ’to leave room for a picture of an exploding starship or a clever steam-punk lady on the covers of my novels.’

In his own language he has written everything from radio-plays to hefty fantasy trilogies.

To date he has sold sixty-eight stories in the English language and two children's books: When the Nightgaunt Knows Your Name and The Emerald Boy. His YA novel Phaedra: Alastor 824, set in the universe of Jack Vance, has been published by Spatterlight Press.

His most recent sales have been to Daily Science Fiction, Unreal, Lowlife and Cirsova.

English website: http://taisteng.atspace.com/

Art: https://taisteng.deviantart.com/

Martin Owton (Out in the Wildlands) lives in the south of England. In addition to some 30 published short stories, he has written 3 published novels: 2 non-epic adventure fantasies, Exile and Nandor – ‘which could certainly be called sword and sorcery’ – and a con-temporary fantasy Shadows of Faerie set in Southampton and the New Forest. A former member of the defunct T-Party Writers Group, he is represented by Shiel Land Associates. In real life he is a drug designer for big pharma.                  

 

Susan Murrie Macdonald (Zale and Zedril) is only one of three writers who also had stories in our first volume. Susan is a free-lance wordsmith: ghost-writer, blogger, journalist. She has published roughly twenty short stories, mostly fantasy, but also some science fiction, westerns, romance, and children's stories. She is the author of R Is For Renaissance Faire, a children's book based on her four years as a volunteer with the Mid-South Renaissance Faire.  She is a stroke survivor, although she has been out of the wheelchair almost two years and can limp half a mile with the help of a cane.  She is an ex-copy editor and an ex-teacher.  She still works as a freelance proof-reader.  She is a staff writer for SciFi. Radio with over a hundred articles posted on their website. She is, of course, working on a novel; ‘isn't everyone?’

Susan lives in a small town in Tennessee about twenty kilometres from Memphis.  She is married to a travel agent and has a son and daughter of university age. She has had stories in Tales from OmniPark, Under Western Stars, Space Force: Building a Legacy, Cat Tails: War Zone, Wee Tales, The Caterpillar, Sirius Science Fiction, Itty Bitty Writing Space, Bumples, Alternative Truths, More Alternative Truths, Paper Butterfly, Sword and Sorceress, Knee-High Drummond and the Durango Kid, Barbarian Crowns, and Supernatural Colorado. 

The second writer also to have been included in our first volume is Steve Dilks (The Amulet and the Shadow). Steve has been published in Weirdbook, Startling Stories, Savage Realms Monthly, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Savage Scrolls. His novellas of Gunthar, the Black Wolf of Tatukura were collected together in the paperback Gunthar - Warrior of the Lost World. Another collection, this time featuring his sword-&-sorcery hero Bohun of Damzullah is due to be published under the title Bohun; The Complete Savage Adventures. His second Bohun story The Horror From the Stars appeared in volume 1 of Swords & Sorceries.

Andrew Darlington, whose Antediluvia: Seasons of the World is arguably the most unusual story in this collection, watched the very first episode of ‘Dr Who’, he also watched the most recent episode.    He says that whatever academic potential he may once have possessed was wrecked by an addiction to loud Rock ‘n’ Roll and cheap Science Fiction, which remain the twin poles of what he laughingly refers to as his writing career. He is most proud of his Parallel Universe collection A Saucerful Of Secrets. His latest book is a biography of the Beatles spin-doctor Derek Taylor: For Your Radioactive Children (SonicBond Books). His writing can be found at Eight Miles Higher: 

Andrew’s website is  http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.co.uk/

Pedro Iniguez (A Thousand Words for Death) is a speculative fiction writer who also enjoys reading and painting. His work can be found in magazines and anthologies such as Space and Time Magazine, Crossed Genres, Dig Two Graves, Tiny Nightmares, Deserts of Fire, and Altered States II. His cyberpunk novel Control Theory (Indie Authors Press, 2016) and his 10-year collection, Synthetic Dawns & Crimson Dusks, (Indie Authors Press, 2020) are available on Amazon.

Originally from Los Angeles, he now resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he is currently working on his second novel.

Dev Agarwal is a science fiction and fantasy writer. His fiction has been published online and in magazines including Albedo One, Aoife’s Kiss, Aeon and, forthcoming, in Mithila Review. His non-fiction has been published online and in a variety of magazines.

Dev has been editing non-fiction for a number of years and is non-fiction editor for the magazine Khoreo. He is also the editor of Focus, the magazine for genre writers produced by the British Science Fiction Association.

His fantasy often draws on historical events. His story Stone Snake is the start of a series of adventures of the principal character travelling home.

Author of Seven Thrones, Phil Emery’s work has been published in the UK, USA, Europe, and Canada since the seventies. His particular claims to sword-&-sorcery infamy include appearances in the Rogue Blades’ anthologies Return of the Sword and Demons, and the experimental fantasy The Shadow Cycles, together with a doctoral thesis on the subject.  The sworder Zain first appeared in print in a 1972 story entitled Swords at Night.  Both he and his creator are a little longer-in-the-scabbard these days . . .     

 

Adrian Cole (The Eater of Gods) is the third writer who also appeared in volume one. He has been writing stories set in his own fantasy series such as the Voidal and Elfloq for many years, as well as reviving Elak, King of Atlantis, originally created by the late Henry Kuttner. Adrian’s first collection of Elak tales was published in 2020 by Pulp Hero Press to much acclaim. Though not sword and sorcery, his collection Nick Nightmare Investigates won the 2015 British Fantasy Award for best collection and he is a regular contributor to Weirdbook magazine, as well as having stories in anthologies such as Year’s Best Fantasy, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Mammoth Book of Halloween, Occult Detective Quarterly Presents, and The Alchemy Press Book of Horror.

And, of course, there is the inimitable Jim Pitts. His amazing illustrations add much to the interior as well as the covers of this book. Jim’s career began in the 1970s when he created artwork for David Sutton’s ground-breaking fanzine Shadow. Since then he has contributed illustrations to an impressively wide variety of publications both here in the UK and overseas, particularly the United States. A hardback retrospective of Jim’s work, The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts was published in 2017. This was split into two volumes for the soft cover version.  Later this year a second hardcover collection of Jim’s more recent work will be published by Parallel Universe Publications: The Ever More Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts.

The contents of Volume 2 are:

Introduction by David A. Riley

The Essence of Dust by Mike Chinn

Highjacking the Lord of Light by Tais Teng

Out in the Wildlands by Martin Owton

Zale and Zedril by Susan Murrie Macdonald

The Amulet and the Shadow by Steve Dilks

Antediluvia: Seasons of the World by Andrew Darlington

A Thousand Words for Death by Pedro Iniguez

Stone Snake by Dev Agarwal

Seven Thrones by Phil Emery

The Eater of Gods by Adrian Cole 

Illustrations by Jim Pitts. 

Volume 1 is still available:

amazon.co.uk

amazon.com

Parallel Universe Publications

Adrian Cole's Tough Guys Reviewed on the Horror Review website

Adrian Cole's Tough Guys gets a favourable review by Brian J. Lewis on The Horror Review website.

"Do you like adventure stories with a supernatural twist? Then Tough Guys by Adrian Cole might be exactly what you’re after. Cole gives us four stories to enjoy in this volume that show us four very different types of tough guy."

Click onto the link above to read the full review. 

Five-star review of Tough Guys by Adrian Cole on the Slaughtered Bird website

There is a truly brilliant 5-star review of Adrian Cole's collection Tough Guys on the Slaughtered Bird website by David Bubrow.

"If you’re familiar with Adrian Cole’s body of work, what I’m about to say about his collection of novellas TOUGH GUYS won’t come as a surprise. If you’re not familiar, then thank me, because I’m going to tell you about an amazing read. Simply put, TOUGH GUYS is the best old-school horror I’ve read in many, many years. In it, Cole reaches deep into your soul to elicit atavistic terrors, making the stories timeless, while mingling them with a feeling of adventure reminiscent of the finest works of Robert E Howard and Michael Moorcock."

To read the full review click on this link. 

Another full-page ad for PUP in Fear magazine

Issue 40 of Fear magazine has just been published. Not only does it have a lengthy interview with PUP author, Adrian Cole (Tough Guys and Kitchen Sink Gothic) but we again have a full-page, full-colour ad.
Amongst the treats in this issue are interviews and articles on Tim Lebbon, Rowan Casey, Christopher Rice, Stella Gemmell, and John Jarrold, and an obituary for the author of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty. 46 pages for a mere £3.99.
Check out Fear's official website: www.fear-magazine.com

Parallel Universe Publications Monthly Contest

Artwork: Jim Pitts

Earlier this month we posted our first monthly contest on Facebook, offering a free copy of Adrian Cole's great collection, Tough Guys. All anyone needed to do to enter this draw was to like, comment on, then share our post. 
We intend to continue this monthly draw on or close to the 1st of every month. To see this you need to link up to either David A. Riley or Parallel Universe Publications on Facebook. A different PUP book will be up for offer each month.

Three great reviews for Parallel Universe books just posted on the British Fantasy Society website

Three PUP books were reviewed on the BFS website yesterday: Adrian Cole's Tough Guys, Richard (Mark Samuels) Staines' England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell, and Johnny Mains' A Little Light Screaming.

Cover Art: Jim Pitts

TOUGH GUYS by Adrian Cole. Parallel Universe Publications, Lancashire, UK. £8.99 (UK), 194 page paperback. ISBN: 978-0-9935742-2-1
Reviewed by Pauline Morgan

Often, when an author produces a collection of stories, the majority of them have been published elsewhere either in magazines or anthologies alongside those of other authors. Tough Guys is unusual in two respects. First, the four pieces here – three novellas and one short story – are all previously unpublished; second, they are as different from each other as one might expect in an accumulation of unseen stories. The second is unusual as Cole’s previous collection was Nick Nightmare Investigates (Alchemy Press), where all the stories revolved around the same character and the world he inhabited. As a collection it worked extremely well as Cole won the BFS Award for the book.
Although called Tough Guys, there are some tough women here, too. The first story ‘Wait For The Ricochet’ is another about Nick Nightmare. Here we get an insight into some of his background. He gets a message to visit his old mentor, urgently. Zeff is a lifer in Sing Sing, a place where Nick did three years. Zeff is dying but he needs Nick to carry the information about the hiding place of a powerful artefact to the new keeper of the knowledge. Nick cannot refuse. The task might seem simple but there are others who want the information. One of them, Lucien de Sangreville, is aware that it will be easier the extract what he wants from Nick rather than the person it is intended for. The complication is that the person de Sangreville kidnaps to put pressure on Nick, is the one the information is intended for. Thus, Nick has to rescue him before he can complete his mission. He is aided by Ariadne Caradine, a wealthy woman who readers will recognise form previous Nick Nightmare stories. She elegant, charming and deadly, an ideal partner in this caper. The other important and familiar character is Oil-Gun Eddie. It is him, they need to rescue.
‘If You Don’t Eat Your Meat’ is science fiction blended with horror. At some time in the past the Virus decimated the population. In the countryside, winters are harsh and farmers and their families try to survive anyway they can. The rules the city people live by are often set aside. The narrator, Ryan Blackstone is a teenager in one such family on the edge of the moors. The Blackstones have had a feud with the Tregathick for many years, so when one of the cows goes missing, they are the first to be suspected. Ryan and Wayne, the youngest of his brothers are sent to check. Ryan sees the Tregathicks butchering the cow but is spotted. Chased through the snow drifts and desperate, Ryan kills Jed Tregathick. Since the Tregathicks are eating their cow, the Blackstones eat Jed. The feud escalates from there until Ryan flees to the city. This is not a pleasant story and even though there is some sympathy for Ryan, he does his best to alienate the reader.
Another character you can end up not liking is the narrator of ‘A Smell Of Burning’. The narrator wakes up immobilised in hospital. He cannot remember what happened, or why he is there. He discovers that he can leave his body and his astral projection is able to wander the hospital. Then he realises that he can tune into the thoughts of the other patients. For a while, this is enjoyable. Then he realises that there is a scary dark cloud also inhabiting the plane. He plucks up the courage to find the patient it is emanating from and tunes into the history of a very unpleasant pyromaniac.
The final story goes back to a Nick Nightmare kind of territory. ‘Not If You Want To Live’ also has the narrator waking up in an unexpected place when he thought he was dead. He is, but has been recruited as a Redeemer. As Razorjack his job is to return the soul to the body of a person who has just died so they can continue a productive life. He doesn’t know why these people are chosen – that’s another department. After initial training and a number of field missions, Razorjack is given a more complex task. A member of a group called the Adversaries are upsetting the balance. Razorjack has to trap one of them. He is sent back to live in the real world and await a call. A wealthy man, Silvio Fellini, will ask him to Redeem his wife who died from an overdose. Although Razorjack’s memories of his life up until his original death have been deeply buried, circumstances cause them begin to surface.
Adrian Cole is a skilled writer and all four of these pieces are excellently written.  I would have liked the first to be longer, but the length is well judged for the other three. This is a book I can highly recommend.

ENGLAND “B” NINETY MINUTES OF HELL by Richard Staines, Parallel Universe Publications, p/b
Reviewed by Sandra Scholes
Forget what you remember about football back in the 70s, Richard Staines puts the record straight about how the England B team scored their goals. It certainly wasn’t through the team’s rigorous training and fitness regime – it was through black magic.
Parallel Universe Publications are fond of putting out story anthologies they think readers will enjoy as they are original and, at times funny. This one, like many on their list have a well-rounded sense of humour right down to the cover art of England Coach Vince Grinstead, some footballs that act as chapter breaks and some quotes on the back cover that are hilarious for those who know who Dennis Wheatley, Genesis and Yes are. The stories form part of a collected works that seems to be of instances, moments that deal with what Staines sees as the real history behind the World Cup in 1970 and other major matches several years after.
What I liked about the stories was the fact they initially transported the reader back to the seventies with mentions of Double Diamond, Brut aftershave, fish & chips and, Satan help me, Pan Books of Horror – remember them? I do. Staines has been clever though, he has charted the journey Vince has gone on from glory to failure and back again by the only means necessary to get his B team to victory. In No Such Thing as a Friendly, Vince takes us through what really happened on the 14th June 1970 while the England “A” team were in Mexico during the World Cup. While the “A” team are living it up in civilized country, the “B” team are in Goboya, an island on the coast of South America with barely a cold pint in sight. A Game of Two Halves has Vince tell the true story of what happened on April 1974 in a match between the USSR Representative XI and their team. Just in case there was any problem winning, they decide to make sure the “B” team are up to the challenge. Here, Vince puts the black into magic. The Ref’s Decision is Final sees Vince down on his luck, his job lost and he is drowning his sorrows in The Smuggler’s Arms. Here, Sir James Bassingron-Smythe makes him an offer he can’t refuse – to take the “B” team back to glory against the Scots. Get Your Fritz Out For the Lads carries on from the previous story where the Scots had smashed the windows of their coach and roll up to a spooky old mansion, hoping to phone for help. It’s one of the best clichés in horror, and one which Richard handles very well.
With a series of comedy horror stories laced with black magic dabbling and fun japes, he has also added the pop culture references of the times. It is a must read for those who remember the good old times of football.

A LITTLE LIGHT SCREAMING by Johnny Mains, Parallel Universe Publications, p/b
Reviewed by Sandra Scholes
There is strange fiction, but rarely do we get to find a writer who challenges what we think about horror as a genre. Johnny Mains stories read like a list of people you wouldn’t want to meet in real life. The third collection of short horror stories, Johnny Mains has his supporters right at the back cover of the book who all pretty much think of him as likely to be sectioned at any moment, yet for him to get to this third collection means he has talent. Johnny has written with other authors, ‘Paintings’ with Simon Bestwick and ‘The Curse of the Monster’ with Bryn Fortey, ‘The Girl on Suicide Bridge’ was nominated for the Best Short Story category of the British Fantasy Awards 2015, and in Johnny’s ‘Author’s Mumbles – Part 3’, he shares with us how he gets his ideas and the writing process he went through that led to its being published. Not since reading musings from Neil Gaiman’s works have I noticed the sheer endurance writers need when their writing is either rejected or changed, or according to the writer, over edited until it doesn’t resemble what the writer intended.
Blossom is one of these stories that is short and starts out with a man who thinks he has the perfect life with his wife and children until a mystery illness shatters the illusion. Johnny intended the story to be a Robert Aickman tribute, but it turned out very different in the last draft. I felt it was one of the stronger ones where the antagonist gets his just desserts, and rightly so. ‘The Case of the Revenant’ is Johnny’s way of paying homage to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, preferring to write about Holmes as Watson can be a little boring sometimes. Set in Austria, Holmes investigates an unsolved case where a family has been murdered. I got the impression Johnny had always wanted to write a Holmes story as so many writers have tried to pen at least one in their lives, though this ends in a much more sinister way than expected.
There are ten short stories here, so I can imagine another anthology coming out at some point soon. Unlike other writers, Johnny makes sure you see the monsters, their evil intent and malice at the very end, rather than a vague image or suggestion of them. Not all the characters have their monsters in their heads and not everyone in the stories are as nice as they appear. Admittedly, there are one or two stories that are deep enough to cause an emotional response (‘Blossom’, ‘A Forest of Lonely Deaths’ and ‘The Girl on Suicide Bridge’).