Review: The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Volume 3

So we are up to the most recent installment of HFQ’s Best Of anthologies. This is the best collection yet. As usual, there are both stories and poems; I am just reviewing the stories here. And, also as usual, I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, and when I do include them, put them in parentheses (like this).

EDIT: Please see note after the following paragraph!

I’ll open up with my biggest disappointment here: the handling of the interior illustrations. There are a lot of great black and white illos, but they are all pixelated. For me, this ruins them. The black and white art should be crisp, but it is fuzzy and indistinct with tiny squares. Not sure how this happened, but it would have been better to have left them out entirely in my view. The artists deserve better than having their art presented like this. Obviously, it was a mistake, but I wonder how it slipped through without notice in the proofs? Or maybe the error was at a later stage in the printing.

EDIT: Editor Adrian reached out to me after seeing my review. Some of the early pre-production copies had the pixelation issues, which they worked out. All the published copies have crisp artwork, as was intended. When he sent me the review copies of the three volumes, he unwittingly grabbed one of the early, “not-ready-for-prime-time” copies as he described it. He offered to send me a new copy with the correct artwork, but I declined, as it appears I have a collectors’ edition! So please ignore my complaint above. I have left it for the record, but be aware that any copy you order will have the very nice artwork unmarred.

The cover illustration, however is not marred by the production process! It is another great cover by Robert Zoltan. Not quite as good as on the previous volume, which was bloody awesome, but it is still moody and inspiring, with subtle colors.

Obligatory typo rant: a noticeable sprinkling throughout the volume. The first story stops in mid-sentence (and the chapter heading is not bolded like the others). A few odd ones (like in the story “Mouth of the Jaguar” the top of one page showed “The Princess Trap” in place of the proper story) but on the whole not too bad. But, since I am the only person in America who cares about typos…

First up we have the introduction, and this is the best of the three so far. Written by veteran Darrell Schweitzer, it is a deconstruction of what makes up an Sword and Sorcery tale. Not another such intro, I hear you say? This one is concise and to the point, and I largely agree with it. The focus is on how broad the Sacred Genre is, and can be; but eventually it is no longer Sword & Sorcery. I am not sure it ever lands the knockout blow, but maybe that’s the point.

The first story is A Whisper in Ashes by Charles Gramlich. This is an awesome story, and a great way to kick off the anthology. The writing is sparse and evocative simultaneously, reminding me strongly of Leigh Brackett’s work. No higher compliment from me. The prototypical wandering warrior comes across a mystery that leads him to a village that leads to an apocalyptic ending. There are a couple of things that might otherwise bug me (like just how did that longship get in a mountain tarn, and what is the monster that was created by its destruction?) but the writing and storyline and pacing are just so damn good it doesn’t matter. Great, great story.

A Lonely Grave on the Hill by Cesar Alcazar is next. This is a moody Irish-inspired fantasy piece. It opens with a pack of wolves chasing someone down, and the protagonist intervenes, leading to to helping the dying man on his final journey. There is not much here and it plays out as you more or less expect, but it is decently told. There are other stories of the hero, Connacht, and I’m tempted to track them down.

This is followed by Corinth by Gerald Henson. The story travels between present and past as the central character comes to terms with how he got his position as first monarch of the nation of Corinth, and how he may be the last. Some interesting imagery and religious symbolism are invoked, with the God in Seven Parts. I liked this story.

Next is The Last First Time by Colin Heintze. A starving, wounded merchant stumbled into a city, and it is in fact a manifestation of that city’s final day before its total gods-sent destruction. Every year on that day, the merchant returns to relive an amorous encounter with a woman who was to have been the sacrifice to save the city. I liked this one as it developed, despite finding the central character a bit despicable, and then I was caught unawares at the end. It is a strong twist I did not see coming. A very strong tale.

Next up is Mouth of the Jaguar by Evan Dicken. This is a Central American fantasy, with some familiar names but some of the adversaries show this ain’t Earth. A priestess who was to be sacrificed fights free and bargains her way into a quest to save a city from a horrific fate. A bit of a standard setup with the dangerous journey and uncertain allies, but it is well-written and engaging. The action was a bit confused at times, but there was plenty of it to satisfy. An amusing twist caps things off. Another strong story.

Next we have A Matter of Goats by Ben Fenwick. This is a moody story set in the Balkans. The protagonists are well-constructed and there is nice tension among the allies as they try to deal with an ancient evil plaguing a village. A tremendous shout-out to Chekov’s gun gives the story an almost inevitable feel, but it is satisfying. The enchanted blade was a bit confusing, though, as initially it was stated the character got it in Rome, later it is plain it is from Spain. And I’m not sure why Mahmud was surprised by the story’s culmination, though, as it was plain for all to see what the shell was, given its engravings, and the big canon in his own village. Despite these minor points, I liked this one a lot.

The Tomb Robber’s Tale by Sean P. Robson follows this. The title describes the story. Not sure I buy the set-up of the massive cemetery of the city having its own economy of robbers and their courtesies for one another, but it works. A couple of the engagements are telegraphed, but these work, too. The tale gets progressively weird and takes a Clark Ashton Smith-like turn at the climax. This one left me wondering what would happen next, even beyond the ending, so it’s a good one.

A short one is next, Lady Cardula and the Gryphon by Shawn Scarber. It’s tough to evaluate tales as short as this as there isn’t much to get into and it usually depends on an unexpected turn. That’s the case here, but it’s not a groaner. Decent.

This is about the middle of the volume, and the editors weigh in with a few brief reflections. A well-deserved bow.

Shadows and Foxfire is next, by R. Michael Burns. It is another tale of the samurai Hokage, which I was glad to see. This one, though, is a prequel, showing how he met his fox-godling companion. I don’t like prequels, as there is rarely any suspense in them; you know that the main character(s) will survive, since you have already read their later adventures. Still, a good tale well-told, giving a sense of the two characters’ bond. I did notice that this story did not have the strong and unusual descriptive phrases that stood out for me in other Hokage stories. That’s a minor whine, though.

This brings us to With a Golden Risha by P. Djeli Clark. This is a fantasy with an pan-Asian feel about sky pirates. The central character is a bard who begins the story stranded for his amorous activities, and is rescued by the pirates in their airships. There is little discussion of what keeps the ship aloft. Given how the floating rocks are pondered, a few words of rationalization would be appreciated. There are engines, but they seem to blow into the sails for propulsion rather than to keep the ship aloft. Anyway, the story is pretty good, with a pirate leader reminiscent of sincere, charismatic communist leaders before they came into power (like Mao, though this is just a parallel and not intended to be representative of him). They come upon a map to a lost city that supposedly has untold wealth…and you can guess where they go from there. A humorous twist at the end that you may or may not expect, though it is set up earlier. I liked this story quite a bit.

The next story is written by one of the editors, Adrian Simmons: Bronze-Ard, the Ferret Master, and Auspicious Events at Swift Creek Farm. It is a bit of a slow boil, until it almost unexpectedly cuts loose. There are two main viewpoint characters, one of which is a weasel, with a few paragraphs from a goddess’ perspective. The thrust can be hard to follow at times, particularly with the mind and perceptions of the weasel until it gains more intelligence, but a careful reading makes it clear. The catalyst for the sea change in the story is a classic one (theft from a dragon’s hoard) and the terror and shock of it is grippingly conveyed in a stretch of excellent writing. I don’t quite buy the weasel’s plan (it was a stroke of luck that Bellaw could damage the dragon – but the sword was evidently magical, so I guess it was more than blind luck) but this is a very strong story. Great writing, pacing, and detail in this one.

The next story is Crazy Snake and the Ciguanaba by Eric Atkisson. Crazy Snake is a half-Comanche warrior on a quest for his mother’s homeland far to the south of the Comanche lands. This story takes place in Nicaragua in mid-late 1856 or early 1857, during the brief time of Walker’s rule. It follows Crazy Snake’s frightened, maddened flight through the wilderness and subsequent capture and the events flowing from that. This is a pretty good story, well-written, but some things bug me. The Edgar Rice Burroughs Coincidence Meter is pretty high (in two major aspects: first, his wild, faithful horse tracks him over a waterfall and through the wilderness to where he was captured, only to be captured by merchants and sent to Walker as an offering, at the same time and on the same boat Crazy Snake is being sent to Walker on, thus making his rebellion possible; and the Ciguanaba that chased Crazy Snake in the opening is actually the mother of the supernatural youth being held prisoner by the castellan who rules the jail that Crazy Snake ended up in after his blind flight, thus allowing another plan to occur). Also, would a Comanche in 1856 be aware of time as the “civilized” people are? He counts off five minutes in his head, and then two and a half when he sets his plan in action. Now Crazy Snake speaks Spanish and English, so there might have been interaction in a previous story or time, but it’s not explained and feels like an anachronism. I’m not saying that Comanches had no sense of time, just that it seems a stretch that the disliked white man’s concept of time would be so easily adopted by a warrior brave that lived in Comancheria until the time he set off on his quest. I’m also a little skeptical about the gleefully racist character of Vance that Crazy Snake encounters at the prison recognizing him as Comanche; many, if not most Comanche had face and arm tattoos, and painted their paces and parts of their bodies, which Crazy Snake does not seem to have or do. Would Vance actually be able to identify Comanche from Apache or Navajo facial characteristics from one another? There are actually a few more problems with this story, but I am giving a bad impression of my own feelings about it. It is a good story, paced very well. I just wish it was a little tighter, or the seeming anachronisms explained, and that it was not reliant upon coincidence, but maybe I’m blowing that up. The notes say there are three other Crazy Snake stories, and I’d certainly like to read them.

That is followed by the Madness of the Mansa by Cullen Groves, a fantasy with strong African inspiration. There are very impressive parts to this story, primarily the extent of the meter used in so much of the conversation (as decreed by the mad Mansa). There are some intriguing characters and cultural aspects, and some solid action. The scheme was believable and pretty funny. Not sure what the deal was with the character of Mendax, as the story was about Draba; is this part of a series, and this is just one story where Draba shone? Mendax feels superfluous, only showing up at the beginning and ending. Also not sure about the weird statue being worshiped by the Onga-men at the end – it is more or less indicated that this is the source of the Mansa’s madness, but why was such a statue not noticed in one of the courtyards in the palace before? Anyway, it wraps up satisfactorily, and it is a strong story.

The last story is The Reeds of Torin’s Field by Andrea G Stewart. This is a grim and moody tale of a burned-out hero who seeks death, out of pain from a tragic event he caused. This is a solid story with pretty good world-building in its limited space. I always wonder a bit at protagonists who think they can bring back the dead and have things go on as they did, but then these characters don’t have the luxury of having read a thousand stories about why it always goes wrong! I liked this one quite a bit. The final scene is a good one to end the whole book on.

And there we have it. While I liked all three of the anthologies, this one stands out a bit more for me as every story is good or better (usually better).

Thanks to Adrian for sending me the copies to review.

If you want to help me install a new radar in my secret antarctic base, you can buy the book from the link below. If you go there and put it in your cart, and buy within 24 hours of having done so, I will get 3% in commission at no extra cost to you, or taking it out of Adrian’s dragon-like hoard of gold.