Enter the Realm of Sword & Sorcery!

We're launching a new Kickstarter today - a campaign to introduce three new sword and sorcery proejcts by David A. Riley, Tim Hanlon, and Andrew Darlington. You can get all the details here. There are 10 Reward Levels and 10 Add-On Options, so you can build up your S&S library quite nicely!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lyndonperry/three-new-sword-and-sorcery-collections

Check out these three stories representing three new collections by David A. Riley, Tim Hanlon, and Andrew Darlington arriving via Kickstarter November 12, 2024. 

Free Story - “The Forbidden City of Cyramon” by David A. Riley. Test drive this beauty from Riley's upcoming collection, Welgar the Cursed.

Free Story - “Queen of the Shifting City” by Tim Hanlon. Sample this delicacy from Hanlon's upcoming collection, Path of the Swordsman.

Free Story - “The Blood-Beast from Hellmouth” - An Eternal Assassin Story by Andrew Darlington. Taste test this morsel from Darlington's upcoming The Eternal Assassin Chronicles.

Latest Kickstarter - A Sherlockian/Lovecraftian Mashup

 Sherlock & Friends: Eldritch Investigations

Up on Kickstarter, a new campaign for fans of mystery with a bit of cosmic horror! This is an anthology of 9 adventures featuring Holmes’s friends & rivals as they pit their detection skills against Lovecraftian horrors. The campaign ends May 2, 2024, so check it out here.

Every backer at $6 or more will receive an electronic copy of the anthology, Sherlock & Friends: Eldritch Investigations (EPUB & PDF) which features 9 adventures (over 80,000 words). These tales 'channel the spirits' of Victorian and Edwardian age detectives that graced the dime novels and pulp magazines of this golden era. Reward tiers for paperbacks and hardcovers available as well! 

Here's the cover reveal! Slick, eh? The stories are excellent as well. All edited and ready to go! 

We're Live on Kickstarter!

 Swords and Heroes - an anthology of sword and sorcery - has launched!

Check out the project at my Kickstarter Campaign page here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lyndonperry/swords-and-heroes

12 exciting stories of heroic adventure!

This project launched yesterday and has already funded to the half-way point - w00t! Very excited. Lots of reward tiers to choose from and add-on options. Thanks for checking it out and backing it if you like  tales of epic fantasy.

Review of Feast of Fools Anthology

Feast of Fools and Other Tales

Edited by Robert Poyton, an Innsmouth Gold Book (Nov 2022, 250 pages). Includes 11 stories of sword and sorcery.

I'm in this antho (my story is “To Tame a Demon”) so I won't review it as I would a collection that I have no connection with, but I will share a few thoughts on the stories and authors in the ToC. (For a blow-by-blow, see my Goodreads review.)

Overall, I enjoyed these 11 tales and would recommend the e-book or paperback for fantasy fans in general and sword and sorcery fans in particular. (Amazon affiliate link, btw.)

I had a couple favorites, including “The Horn of Tur” by H. R. Laurence; “The Rotting Goddess” by B. Harlan Crawford; and “The Lucky Thief” by Tim Mendees. Though I enjoyed them all. Oh, and “Wind” by Russell Smeaton.

Overall impression: editor Robert Poyton pulls together an enjoyable collection of heroic adventures that will likely appeal to fans of the wider genre of fantasy fiction. Not all the entries are tales of sword and sorcery, strictly speaking (mine certainly wasn’t), but the storytelling is fairly solid throughout and most authors wrap up their tales in a satisfying manner. 

Quite a few of these adventures showcase an endearing anti-hero mercenary who deigns to guide his charges on some dangerous quest. And while there are similarities in trope among many stories in this antho, each tale has its own unique take on the plot's direction and conclusion.

While I won't rate this antho, I will say I'm proud to be a part of it!

Now, on to Book Date Monday. (Even though it's Wednesday - I just can't get it together by the first of the week! lol Click the link for more blogs that showcase what's on their TBR pile.)

My 52 Week Challenge: 3 of 52 books read/reviewed so far.

1. Razored Land by Charles Gramlich - post-apocalypse (not yet published, review forthcoming)

2. The Stroke of Winter by Wendy Webb - mystery (reviewed Jan 11)

3. Feast of Fools and Other Tales - S&S anthology (reviewed Jan 18)

Currently Reading...

+ Clovel Sword Saga by Gordon Brewer - 2 S&S novellas ("The Clovel Destroyer" and "Trail to Omcuur"). Third of the way through and enjoying the story so far.

+ Blackfoot Dawn by John Legg - western, book 2 in Mountain Times trilogy. I'm about a quarter of the way in and it's dragging a bit, haven't really gotten to the plot yet, I don't think.

Still in my TBR Pile...

+ Laws and Prophecies by L. S. King - sword and planet, book 3 in Sword's Edge Chronicles

+ Point of View - Better Writing through Stronger Narrative: Drake's Brutal Writing Advice by Maxwell Alexander Drake - non-fiction book on writing. I've actually started this, so I guess it should be in my "currently reading" pile. So far, good info and humourously communicated.

What tomes are currently taking up space in your house? Drop me a comment and happy reading!

Swords & Heroes on Kickstarter

Swords & Heroes is a new anthology of sword and sorcery coming to Kickstarter on January 31. Click the "Notify me on launch" button to keep up-to-date on this exciting project featuring 12 great stories of heroic fantasy adventure, including tales by Adrian Cole, Charles Gramlich, and Gustavo Bondoni.

The ToC is complete and will be announced soon. Back the campaign and be the first to receive a copy of this antho before it hits the shelves later this year. Plenty of reward options starting at only $5.

ResAliens Relaunch

 ResAliens Zine is back with a brand new issue!

Remember the days of underground zines and fan-fic newsletters? When indie readers and writers came together to create something magical? Then you might enjoy becoming a fellow alien sighter (and project backer!) as I relaunch of Residential Aliens, a #zine of spiritually infused speculative fiction.

Drop by my Kickstarter page here and check out the various reward levels. Lots of options and you'll get some great reading in return. Thanks for your interest. Should be a fun ride!

Monster Fight at the O.K. Corral Anthology

Let's do this thing! Accepting stories for a new Weird Wild West anthology to be launched via Kickstarter in March, 2023. Title: Monster Fight at the O.K. Corral.

Looking for 12 to 15 new and original western horror tales, from 3k to 5k words each. Artwork, too. Funded via Kickstarter. Contributor paperback and $40 one-time payment (with bonus incentives). 

Sub window open now through Dec 31, 2022. Email me (see graphic) for complete guidelines and payment proposal. All writers welcome.

Dead or Alive - An Aston West Collection

Disclaimer! I'm the editor and publisher of Dead or Alive - An Aston West Collection by T.M. Hunter. That being said, I think it reasonable to assume that if I liked these stories well enough to publish them I should be able to talk about them! After all, editors are simply people who promote stories they enjoy reading. So read on...

The Aston West series is classic space opera where rawhide adventure of the frontier meets sophisticated technology of the 23rd century. T.M. Hunter has developed an engaging and likeable antihero in Aston West, the reformed (?) space pirate who still manages to get himself into a number of ill-advised scrapes. That, despite the gentle guidance of his AI companion, Jeanie, who is his ship's brain and has a few adventures of her own.

In Dead or Alive, Hunter pulls together a representative collection of 11 new and classic stories featuring Aston, Jeanie, and a number of other recurring characters. These short fictions coordinate nicely with Hunter's longer works, Heroes Die Young and Friends in Deed. (Visit AstonWest.com.) These compact novels, along with the novella Seeker, establish the author as a fresh voice in the expanding universe of space opera/science fiction. T.M. Hunter is here to stay, and we can thank him that Aston West is as well.

Note: The Kindle, NOOK, EPUB, and other e-versions are on their way. In the mean time, you can buy a 10 story collection at iTunes for your iPad/iPhone (see the different cover to the left? That's why!). Also, the paperback is always available at CreateSpace.

Some Amazon Reviews:
“Fabulous book! I was kept in suspense on every page and I couldn't stop reading until the end!” - About Heroes Die Young

“My favorite sci fi hero is back! Aston West, the reluctant hero and space scavenger, seems like an old, dear friend to me.” - About Friends in Deed

Zero Hour - Stories of Spiritual Suspense

If you have a nostalgic fondness for old episodes of the Twilight Zone, then you'll likely enjoy Stoney M. Setzer's collection of short fiction. In Zero Hour - Stories of Spiritual Suspense, Setzer combines mystery, thriller, and moral themes into a family friendly volume. Think Mystery Theater with a spiritual twist.

Disclaimer! I had the privilege of editing these 15 stories and then recently publishing this anthology through my indie publishing venture, ResAliens Press. But, despite my bias, I can say these are fun and engaging reads.

But don't take my word for it. Check out this review from MindSpike.

The cover copy claims similarity to The Twilight Zone, and certainly there is something of that flavor herein. Stories like “In the Shadow of the Sphinx”, and “All Hail Sam” feel like they should begin with Rod Serling voiceover delivering the moral lesson of the story. Other tales hearken back to radio programs like Escape and X Minus One, with the subtle deviations from reality that tell the reader something is just barely off about the world they are experiencing; “Doomsday Falls on a Tuesday This Year” and “Square Peg” need only a scratchy background of static noise to complete the illusion. Still other offerings evoke the classic short stories of Larry Niven or Isaac Asimov with their emphasis on the ordinary character reactions to the most extraordinary situations, including “The Alabama Hammer” and “We Serve All Kinds Here”. Finally, Setzer delivers his more direct spiritual lessons in the form of pure morality plays in “Darkest Before Dawn” and “Enamored.”

Find Out More: Visit Stoney's website, Zero Hour, and his Facebook Page to discover the stories behind the stories. Plus, you can purchase one of his short stories not in his collection at Amazon titled The Widow Greer. Still not convinced? Then read his time travel conundrum, "Unsinkable," for free in Issue 5.1 of ResAliens.

About the Author: Author Stoney M. Setzer lives outside of Atlanta, GA, with his beautiful wife and three wonderful children. As a fiction writer, he strives to create suspenseful stories with Christian themes. His works have been featured in such publications as Residential Aliens and Christian Sci-Fi Journal, as well as a number of anthologies. He is employed as a middle school special education teacher.

The Silly Club

I'm a "Member in Good Standing" of The Silly Club!

And you can be too! Just submit a silly fantasy or sci-fi short story and get accepted into the silly anthology we're compiling. Guidelines here. You may even be awarded this silly banner as a prize! :-)