As promised, the Table of Contents for
edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders
coming June 22, 2010
from Harper Eos
"Introduction: Check Your Dark Lord at the Door" - Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan
"Goats of Glory" - Steven Erikson
"Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company" - Glen Cook
"Bloodsport" - Gene Wolfe
"The Singing Spear" - James Enge
"A Wizard of Wiscezan" - C.J. Cherryh
"A Rich Full Week" - K. J. Parker
"A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet" - Garth Nix
"Red Pearls: An Elric Story" - Michael Moorcock
"The Deification of Dal Bamore" - Tim Lebbon
"Dark Times at the Midnight Market" - Robert Silverberg
"The Undefiled" - Greg Keyes
"Hew the Tint Master" - Michael Shea
"In the Stacks" - Scott Lynch
"Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe" - Tanith Lee
"The Sea Troll's Daughter" - Caitlin R Kiernan
"Thieves of Daring" - Bill Willingham
"The Fool Jobs" - Joe Abercrombie
Limited coming from Subterranean Press too.
36 comments:
Very nice line up you have there, looking forward to this one.
Really looking forward to it. Will the Sub Press edition be out at the same time?
Thanks guys. I don't have a release date on the limited yet but expect Sub Press to announce it very soon(ish).
This looks like it will be amazing. Lots of fabulous people here.
We wanted to do a definitive book and in all modesty, I think it will be.
Holy Jesus Palomino is that TOC impressive, you've done everything short of having Zombie Robert E. Howard and Zombie Fritz Leiber to make this a definitive book.
Is the Erikson tale a Malazan story?
Hey, I know more than just 2 or 3 authors in this one! Definitely must buy it.
Will it be a Pyr book, a SubPress book, or both?
It is not a Pyr book. It is a Harper Eos book, coming out in June 2010 in trade paperback. Shortly thereafter, Subterranean will release a limited hardcover run.
Congrats, Lou! My hat's off to you and Jonathan on the nice ToC. Looking forward to the read.
I'll buy this one the day it hits the shelves. What a line up.
RobB - not a Malazan story, but an amazing one.
Jason & Charles - thank you! And a good many of these stories are novelettes and novellas too.
Thanks for the clarification Lou!
Hey, thank YOU for the interest (now and always).
Oh, I realized I should point out what I took as obvious, that these are all original stories, no reprints. Also, the Moorcock is a new Elric story, the Siverberg a new Majipoor, the Cook a new Black Company, the Enge a Morlock tale, the Keyes a Fool Wolf tale, the Abercrombie featuring characters from his next work...
Thanks Lou. I really enjoyed Erikson's Grandma Matchie (which wasn't Malazan either) so either way it will be cool.
Oh, it is. It is!
What a fantastic TOC! Looking forward to this.
to quote Scott Lynch:
Jesus H. Pancake Flippin' Christ!
What a *perfect* line up.
A drool worthy list indeed. I do hope that this book will be available in Malaysia.
I don't actually know!
I'm gonna contact some people over at Eos to make sure my review blog (Elitist Book Reviews) gets a copy of this to read ahead of time.
Lou, this is seriously killer.
Glad you think so Steve. I cannot tell you how -So. Damn. Proud.- of it I am.
I only know Joe Abercrombie from that list, but I'm still going to order it, if only for his story!
You only know Abercrombie, seriously? Well, good thing he's in the book!
I'm absolutely drooling with anticipation right now...especially for the Erikson story. Great line-up.
Thank you. We actually stunned ourselves with how well the line-up came out. AND - just turned in the copyedit approvals last week. Whew.
HOLY CRAP a new Black Company story! And the rest of the lineup looks pretty dang sweet, too!
Ha! Thanks for that enthusiasm!
Can you tell us anything about Shea's Cugel story? Does it connect in some way with his previous Cugel novel?
Hi anonymous - First, thank you for your interest in Swords and Dark Magic. We hope you enjoy the book when it hits the shelves. Michael's story is mostly a stand-alone adventure within Vance's world with Cugel playing a minor part. I'll be honest, though and say that while I've read Vance's Cugel work and most of Michael's short fiction, I've not read his Cugel novel, so I don't know how it fits with that. I know that's not overly helpful, but I hope it clarifies a little in the interim. Best, Jonatha
I have a feeling that this book is going to produce more than a few finalists for The Harper's Pen Award for 2010.
http://sorcerersguild.blogspot.com/2010/04/sword-dark-magic-anthology.html
Tell me about that award, please.
It's a new award that I started this year, for sword and sorcery short fiction. This year's winner is John C. Hocking for his story, "The Face in the Sea," published in Black Gate #13. There were eight finalists.
The award is unique in that it goes both to the author of the story and the publisher who published it, and the purpose is to encourage authors to keep writing in this genre and to reward publishers for publishing sword and sorcery. For the first year, I was able to provide $200 for each, plus a handmade pen.
The "Harper's" part comes from the bards of old who sang epic poems of heroic fantasy, and the "Pen" represents the newer way of telling tales. I could have called it The Harper's Laptop, but it just isn't as poetic.
For 2010, I hope to have in place an organization of fans, writers, and editors, called the Sorcerers Guild, who will nominate finalists and select the winner.
Please pop by.
http://sorcerersguild.blogspot.com
Sounds great Jeff! Thanks for filling me in. I hope it grows!
I just finished reading the anthology and was not disappointed. I bought the book for the Elric story and read that first. I even thought that might be the highlight of the anthology. But when I started from the beginning and came across "In the Stacks" I had to revise my opinion. Definitely the best story and now another author's works to explore.
I was curious as to how you arrange the contents of the anthology. For instance, how did you know to put the Moorcock story where you did? I understand the Abercrombie being at the end because he's a hot property but I do wonder about the ordering of the other tales.
Anyway, thanks for producing such a great read.
Hi Dennis,
So glad you enjoyed it.
Putting the TOC together for an anthology is like the lost art of making mix tapes. You want to make sure that there is rise and fall, that the emotion left on the tip of the brain as one story fades is picked up and carried as the next story starts. You want to balance for length, for mood (light/dark), for name recognition (don't stack your name authors in a lump), etc... Jonathan and I were pretty much instantly agreed on the start and finish and then we took turns reordering the inbetween bits until we both agreed. Mix tape antho skillz.
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