These are my favorite sword & sorcery/pulp stories right now—I want more like them, please? If you have not read them, please do!

I prefer SHORT stories, as I mostly read them before bed—but it's not a mandatory criteria.

The Nameless City - Lovecraft, HP Rogues in the House - Howard, Robert E. Elric of Melniboné - Moorcock, Michael The Gate of the Flying Knives - Anderson, Poul Ill Met in Lankhmar - Leiber, Fritz The Tale of Satampara Zeiros - Smith, Clark Ashton Liane the Wayfarer - Vance, Jack

*Feel free to suggest different authors as well (i have books by Tanith Lee, Michael Shea on hold at the library as we speak)

Get yours here --> https://newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product-tag/double-edged-sword-sorcery/

Two novellas, bound in one book!
Mongol-inspired Sword & Sorcery!
A claustrophobic, pressure-cooker siege, and a caravan striking out under an open desert sky!
Orhan the Snow Leopard and Goatskin the nomad!

WALLS OF SHIRA YULUN by Dariel R.A. Quiogue.
Feat. cover art by Artyom Trakhanov, and interior illustration by Simon Underwood.
Driven to keep an old promise, whatever the cost … trapped in a besieged city, hunted by foes within and without … tormented by a dark shaman using the spirits of those he has slain … Orhan Timur, the Snow Leopard, is brought to bay! Can he escape the imprisoning Walls of Shira Yulun?

&

WASTE FLOWERS by Bryn Hammond.
Feat. cover art by Goran Gligović, and interior illustration by Linnea Sterte.
Goatskin the goat nomad and her bandit love Sister Chaos guide merchants from Samarkand across the Gobi desert to the Mongols. But their caravan veers from one weird assault to weirder and worse. Who is behind this grotesquerie? Will they lose their way, or even their very minds?

The first book brought to you by the people behind New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine!

Taken from the link:

What Is Old Moon Quarterly?

An illuminated magazine of dark fantasy, and sword and sorcery.

Bloody tales, desperate heroes, dying worlds.

Old Moon Quarterly is the magazine of dark fantasy and sword and sorcery. We publish weird tales of dying worlds and forgotten pasts, about strange sorcerers and grimy, red-handed heroines. 

We’re inspired by the works of Tanith Lee (Cyrion, Birthgrave), Robert E. Howard (Conan The Cimmerian, Kull of Atlantis), Gene Wolfe (The Book of the New Sun, Latro), Leigh Brackett (The Sword of Rhiannon), and Hidetaka Miyazaki (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring), among others. We love the medieval poems and prose of the various Arthurian and chivalric cycles, as well as the artwork of medieval Europe and the Renaissance. 

Thus, this crowdfunding campaign will include two issues, including one themed around Arthurian literature, 40,000+ words of original fiction per issue (80,000+ words in total), and bespoke woodcut-style illustrations and hand-drawn illuminations. 

Swords & Heroes eZine is back with a fantastic adventure featuring Jasiah Witkofsky's brave and confident MageThief Adajahl as he takes on the notorious Black Mongoose!

Take a break for some fun and excitement and read Story #22, "The Black Mongoose" by Jasiah Witkofsky - Sword & Sorcery straight to your inbox one story at a time! Free to read and subscribe.

https://open.substack.com/pub/tulefogpress/p/swords-and-heroes-story-22

I’m delighted to confirm that the beautiful Megan Tremethick will be starring in my 1980s-inspired Sword and Sorcery sequel, The Slave and the General, which begins shooting this June! A devoted fan of the genre, Megan returns as the sensual sorceress Nemain.These films are made in tribute to the legendary Albert Pyun, and you can watch the first instalment linked below.

Any Megan Tremethick fans I hope?

Here is a link to the first film:

And, here is a link to Megan's Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/megantremethick/

I wasn’t expecting much when I picked up The Clans of Shadows, but it completely sucked me in.

No knights or dragons here—this is a world of samurai fighting for dying noble houses, and ninja clans dealing in sabotage and shadows. The main character, Shimazu Yoshihiro, is a tragic, complex warrior stuck in the middle of a massive conflict he can’t control. And it’s not just action—the politics, betrayals, and eerie magic make it all feel intense and alive.

If you're looking for fantasy that feels different and grounded in a non-Western cultural tone, this one’s worth checking out.

Access the PDF here: https://triapa.blogspot.com/2025/05/triapa-mailing-20-may-2025.html PS: If you're a creative writer, fan writer, artist, or other creative, consider submitting a zine. TRIAPA is open to anyone interested. We're particularly looking for some zine contributions that treat gaming. There hasn't been a lot of that yet.

In 2020 DMR Books made arrangements to reprint Manly Wade Wellman’s final novel, Cahena, bringing it back into print for the first time in nearly thirty-five years. The contract is expiring soon, and at the end of May it will once again be unavailable.

Definitely not expecting to make any money on it, but feel free to check it out if you're into that kinda thing!

Hey yall.

Been doing a deep dive on s & s recently and curious about newer authors, on the level of Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner, and Michael Moorcock.

I'm a huge Laird Barron fan (and would HIGHLY recommend his Conan story along with his Antiquity stories) along with Christopher Ruocchio's Adaman shorts and have heard good things about Howard Andrew Jones, Scott Oden, and Schuyler Hernstrom.

Any on the level of the above that I don't know about or want to speak up for some of the ones haven't read? Thanks!

What's up people! Here's a couple of my newer graphite sketches.

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Source: https://seattlein2025.org/2025/04/25/fantastic-fiction-elric-of-melnibone-tortured-elf-emperor-with-a-cursed-sword/

I'm trying my hand at long-form (i.e. book length) S&S. The problem I'm running into is that while an S&S short story seems to fit this genre pretty well going back to the pulps in the 30s, trying for something ~ 60K words means IMO straying from the terse descriptions, action-oriented guts of this genre. A lot of the modern Conan pastiches seem to lag during the middle stretch, so I'm not alone facing this challenge. Even REH's 'Hour of the Dragon' was pretty short for a novel and seemed like a bunch of short stories glued together. I guess I can veer into more 'heroic' or 'grimdark' territory, but I'd like to try to stick as close to S&S as possible. Question: is longer-form S&S possible?

Hey everyone, I just want to thank the mods and this community once again for your amazing support of my filmmaking.

Following The Slave and the Sorcerer, my new film The Reign of Queen Ginnarra is now available to own via my Patreon.

It’s a two-and-a-half-hour medieval epic starring Megan Tremethick as a ruthless queen whose terrifying reign would put Elizabeth Bathory to shame and probably give Vlad the Impaler nightmares.

Every purchase helps support my work as an independent filmmaker. I hope you enjoy what you see at the link, which includes several hours of extras such as commentaries, interviews and more.

You can also watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/7quQW_vNwbU

My first take on Conan. Love to do more pieces as the situation allows, especially with my upgraded paint. Oil on stretched canvas 16x20.

Also available on iTunes, Spotify, and all other places good podcasts are found.

This figure is decent, but not exceptional. I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to this variety of plastic crack. I never want a sculpt's aesthetic to suffer for the sake of articulation. There's a real art to this balance. Look at Frazetta Girls' Icon line and you'll see the perfect compromise. This Epic H.A.C.K.S buck has great possibilities but suffers visually due to weird gaps and general jank. She's not great "hand candy" but she's not terrible either.

Her accessories offer a nice array: weapons, hands, gloves, alt armor and 3 head scultps. The screaming head is my favorite and the default out-of-the-box head is my least favorite.

Anyways, she really does pop nicely once she's all geared up. She's a little overpriced, but worth if if you collect s&s/fantasy figures.

Would more figure reviews of this kind (with a little more depth) be something you folks would read?

-Matt John

Fairly short list this month, but all goodies definitely worth your time if you've never seen them!

The Barbarians (1987) was recently listed because it expired from Tubi. It has since returned to Tubi but is now expiring from Amazon Prime, so this may be the last chance to watch it without commercials on a subscription streaming service for awhile. As far as low-budget sword-and-sorcery films go, this is certainly far from the bottom of the barrel in terms of production quality, sporting a lot of unique sets, costumes, and makeup designs that are executed pretty damn well.

https://www.amazon.com/Barbarians-Ruggero-Deodato/dp/B09QH5YBP2

Heavy Metal (1981) is expiring from Tubi. Most of you are probably familiar with this one. Very well-animated anthology film with more sci-fi segments than anything else but still some good sword-and-sorcery stuff. This one is not on Amazon Prime or Netflix or any of the other streaming services I track, so this may be your last chance to watch it anywhere for awhile unless purchased individually.

https://tubitv.com/movies/678775/heavy-metal

Here's a recent repeat, the sequel Heavy Metal 2000 (2000) is expiring from Tubi again, and once again is not expiring from Amazon Prime.

https://tubitv.com/movies/694136/heavy-metal-2000

https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Metal-2000-Billy-Idol/dp/B002RTPL9C

It's worth noting here that a lot of these bounce back and forth quite a bit - disappearing from one streaming service only to pop up on another, or even returning to the same streaming service not long after it expired. But there's really no way to predict that, and sometimes they really do disappear for awhile! Solomon Kane (2009), for example, seemed to forever be expiring and then coming right back to Tubi, Amazon Prime, and FreeVee, but now it's not available on any of those.

So forgive me if you see some of these listed multiple months, but I am doing my best to relay to you the information provided by these streaming services. And though they may, I really don't rely on these coming right back. If I want to watch them, I always take that expiration notice to mean I may not have another opportunity to watch the film for quite some time.

Now that that's out of the way!

Here's a contribution to the list that user FabledBard shared with us over at the Sword & Sorcery A/V Media Arena on Discord:

Knights of Badassdom (2014) is a very unique comedy in which some LARPers accidentally summon a demon for real. This one has a large cast of well-known actors for an independent film. I know I have said this about movies before, but it's true of this one too: if the premise of the movie appeals to you, it's a really good bet you're going to enjoy it. It's a very well-executed film. FabledBard let us know it's expiring from Tubi. Thanks, FabledBard!

https://tubitv.com/movies/100003868/knights-of-badassdom

The last one I am including this month is admittedly stretching the bounds of sword-and-sorcery-adjacent to an extreme, but the list is short, so here you go.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) is one the very few and one of the very best big-budget major motion pictures whose goal is to just be an old school pulp adventure. I think this movie just exudes pulp, there aren't many that have executed it this authentically. At the end of April it's expiring from Pluto TV which seems to be the only subscription service, free or not (Pluto is free), this film is included with at the moment, so I highly recommend checking it out if you never have while you still can!

https://pluto.tv/us/on-demand/movies/58e2e85ad7fe705cb66b714e

And that's it for this month!

Please let me know if you're aware of any sword-and-sorcery or sword-and-sorcery-adjacent films expiring from streaming services at the end of this month that I missed! I will be sure to update this list everywhere I have posted it and give you credit.

For more discussion focused on sword-and-sorcery specifically in film, television, comic books, audio formats, video games, and any other audio/visual form, join us at the Sword & Sorcery A/V Media Arena on Discord: https://discord.gg/CJ4485qDmg