Why Return of the Sword Matters

The Return of the Sword anthology is a rare thing in this day and age. I’m not talking about the passion that went into it, it being the work of a handful of dedicated people, Jason M. Waltz chief among them, who have labored without the resources of a big publisher on the risky proposition of publishing an anthology of short fiction. No, fortunately for readers of genre fiction such dedication is well represented in the small press — and is perhaps a prerequisite for running a ‘zine or small publishing house.

No, what makes it different is that it represents a kind of fiction that is, paradoxically, at once hugely popular and successful in the world of big novels and multi-book epics, while concurrently being all but ignored by short fiction periodicals or the anthologies of big publishers. Why should this be? Give this book to a fan of Martin, Jordan, Erikson, Bakker, Donaldson, or, dare I say it, Tolkien and I am certain it would be well received. The modern fantasy epic, after all, owes a great deal to the practitioners of heroic fantasy and sword and sorcery fiction in the short form.

But publishers of such work are few and far between. In a time when it has often been remarked that the short story is dying, short stories that actually adhere closely to a type of fiction that is eating up the bestseller lists can hardly be found, at any level. There was a time, far after the hey day of such stories in the pulps, that it was still possible to buy an anthology of fantasy tales at the local book store. Such shared world anthologies like Thieves World and Liavek, and collections such as the original Flashing Swords and Swords Against Darkness, kept the kind of storytelling you’ll see apparent in Return of the Sword alive, and provided a launching point or a chance to branch out for many a writer.

But what is the kind of thing you’ll find in Return of the Sword? Why is it unique? When the familiar themes and tropes of heroic fantasy are condensed into a short story one gets a distillation of the form, a tale that does the job of a larger story in terms of world-building and invention but in a concise, fast-paced package. These stories move, these stories are about something, these stories perform a juggling act that is too often not part of the modern short story writer’s toolkit, and do it in such a way that you never know it’s being done. These stories are examples of an almost-lost art form.

And for the stories themselves I was pleased to see such a variety, from personal stories to epics, tales of heroism juxtaposed with those of unvarnished, unsentimental survival. Intrigues and cynicism, dread weapons of soul-stealing power, warriors of uncommon virtue and commoners of unlikely character. You’ve got a lot of stories about dignity here, which I like, about aging and loss, about sacrifice of all kinds. About what duty means, and honor, and self-sacrifice.

But don’t take my word for it, some great reviews of the individual stories in the book can be found at the blogs of Bryan Hitchcock and Jeff Draper.

Or just go ahead and grab a copy, secure in the knowledge that you not only will be keeping alive a tradition of fantasy adventure fiction, but getting a collection of uncommonly good tales as well.