The Riddle of Iron Part 8: Newpulp, and “Tales from the Magician’s Skull” (issue 11)

Join me as I try to answer “The Riddle of Iron” in a continued journey to help move the great genre of Sword and Sorcery forward, for the glory of the #IronAge. 

Part 1. (What is Sword & Sorcery?)

Part 2. (The Tower of the Elephant)

Part 3. (Jirel of Joiry)

Part 4. (The Historic Riddle of Steel)

Part 5. (The meaning behind the Riddle of Steel in the ‘Conan the Barbarian’ motion picture)

Part 6. (The Importance of “Appendix N”)

Part 7. (Definition for the #IronAge)

What We Can Learn from NewPulp

Somehow, there’s still readers today who are willing to ignore all the Shiny New Things and OLED screens and Marvel movies to, against all odds, pick up stories written 100 years ago and appreciate them, giving them a new lease on life. There’s something beautiful about that.

And anyone who manages to sit down and write a complete story these days is nothing short of a hero to me. There’s so many distractions that overcoming it all to create something is a special rarity.

To put forth something worthy of publication, worthy of being read, requires even more sacrifice, moderation, willpower, and self-control than it ever has before. While most folks are content sitting around their whole lives watching streamed content in their spare time, drinking their lives away, getting their social media dopamine kicks, or playing “Apps” full of transactional Skinner Box content, a writer has to at some point say no and diverge from a life of straight consumerism in order to create.

Writers mostly do their thing on a computer full of distractions, full of video games and MMOs that can make time disappear like you wouldn’t believe, full of ads and endless YouTube rabbit holes. A writer must ignore all these impulses and willfully choose writing instead.

It’s not easy. Not even close. With all the traps, it’s a wonder there’s any writing getting done these days at all.

And yet people do still write, draw, and create. There’s enough talent out there that Cirsova magazine got 1.25 million words-worth of submissions in the timespan of one week. While I don’t envy P. Alexander‘s job of having to read through so many short stories (a Herculean task on its own) only to have to reject most of them, I still admire that there’s so much passion for New Pulp, even in this post-apocalyptic future known as 2023.

Exhibit G: A review for Tales from the Magician’s Skull – issue No. 11

To avoid repeating myself, I’m going to quote what I already said about this issue here:

Tales from the Magician’s Skull is one of the premier Sword & Sorcery magazines still in print, and I’d heard this is the best place to find what the “bleeding edge” of Sword & Sorcery is all about.

This is the latest issue. And as you can see, my copy is already well-read.

In the early-to-mid 90’s, I used to love reading these types of magazines. They called them “slicks”, and there was a wide variety available, even at Barnes and Nobles among the typical magazines. I miss those days. They’d have a witty tongue-in-cheek “From the Editor” section at the front, some nice artwork accompanying the stories, and usually a Q&A from the fans in the back, similar to what you see on the last page of comic books.

This magazine recalls that time period perfectly, witty banter courtesy of The Immortal Skull Himself, who signs his sections “–So Sayeth the Skull!” (who I’m not entirely convinced isn’t a ghostly entity who possesses Howard Andrew Jones from time-to-time to take his turn at the keyboard).

In the 90s, these magazines were about $5 a pop and easy to find, usually right near the hacker ‘zines and other hobby books, such as Beckett baseball card price guides. (These days, print magazines are anywhere from $14.99 to $24.99 an issue and have to be ordered online if you want the pleasure of a physical reading experience.)

These magazines were full of short stories by talented writers, and they were sometimes more fun than reading a novel since you’d get more variety and could discover new authors along the way.

But then it all disappeared. B&N stopped carrying these magazines as printing costs rose, and interest in short stories–and reading in general–waned. Many of those who still read preferred to do so online or digitally, dealing deep blows to a market that was already struggling within its razor-thin margins just to stay afloat.

I’m holding in my hand an exception to that rule: A magazine that stayed in print despite the odds and still manages to capture some of the fun from that era.

Having heard it’s where the bleeding-edge of S&S is, and yearning for those days long past, I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in its pages.

Mild spoiler alert begins HERE. And be warned these are honest reviews – While I enjoyed the issue overall, I didn’t enjoy all the tales.

1. Test of the Runeweavers by H.T. Grossen

We’ll start with the first story, arguably the best in the issue.

It starts out vivid, as many Sword & Sorcery yarns that begin in waterborne vessels do, allowing the writer to take full advantage of the reader’s senses. This is one of those stories where you can almost feel the spray of water and taste the salty sea air.

Good and evil characters alike can cast the same brand of magic, a magic of spoken runes. These runes flash across the target like a string of letters, and the results are something convincingly tangible. There’s an immediacy and weight to how it’s written. You can feel the anticipatory delay as the magic charges, and the satisfaction as it releases and lands its mark.

The windup is especially felt in a particular moment when the main character tries to launch a spell … only to receive a preemptive fist to the face.

“I began to chant ancient words of the Runetunga as I rose, glowing runes materializing and illuminating the darkness around me, but Arne’s hard fist connected with my left-eye and turned my anger into pain and embarrassment as I grunted and fell back to the ground again. The letters hanging in the air dissolved to dust…”

The art of Runetunga is how this crew manipulates both water and wind to sail, how they affix their feet to the deck during tumultuous waters, and how they’d communicate to someone below deck that dinner was ready.

There’s an entertaining sea battle where you get to see long distance spell-flinging in action – runic words flying over the water between ships, and it all ends in a high-powered wizard duel of kaiju proportions.

The world felt almost Final Fantasy X-ish in atmosphere by the end which, to me, is a very good thing. Impeccably written. Clean prose.

Instead of creating an original world, this story leans heavily on Norse culture and mythology and doesn’t leave much room for Weird Fiction, though the magic system, scenarios, and prose in general were memorable enough to more than make up for it.

2. Lady of the Frost by C.L. Werner

Much like the first story, Lady of the Frost borrows heavily from real-world culture. This time, Japanese lore and mythology, so-much-so it’s pretty much set in Japan, complete with Yokai.

I get why the first story decided to set itself in a real-world culture since the magic system took a lot of purple prose real-estate to explain. But this story is set in Japan simply because the writer seems to like the aesthetic. And that’s fine. .

This one is well-written, but didn’t wow me like the first. I think it was going for a ghost story vibe, but skeletons laying around in ice just isn’t enough to frighten me.

There’s this frost demon encounter, which is memorable and dramatic enough to pull the whole story together.

But there’s this annoying hermit who has the worst takes:

“A man who seeks virtue can never find it,” he said as he filled the cups. “Virtue can be judged only by others, never by oneself. The effort itself may be contaminated by the motives buried deep within one’s own heart. Pride, ambition, even guilt. Any one of these things can poison a man’s quest for virtue and find his efforts hollow and duplicitous.” The hermit shook his head and sighed. “Yet good can be done for others even in a lost cause. By such deeds can a man’s life prove of value in the end.”

His Consequentialism calculus wore me thin. The idea that virtue exists to provide value to your life only through helping others is a depressing concept. And if virtue requires an observer to be of any value, I’d hate to see what this hermit gets up to when there are no observers around.

This idea that man is inherently evil unless curtailed by the state (and medicated into submission) is pervasive in Current Year culture, and that one must form his own morality based on ever-changing consensus instead of discovering objective truth is also troubling, but it’s something pushed in academia today so I’m not at all surprised to see these concepts bubble up here.

All-in-all, it’s a serviceable tale for anyone in the mood for a decent Japanese samurai-style ghost story. I have nothing against the author, but personally have had my fill of this type of storytelling from being involved in far too many critique exchanges. There seemed to be a surge of this kind of story following anime’s surge in popularity in the late 1990s to late 2000s.

3. The Eyes of Rath Kanon by Bill Pearce

The first thing that hit me about The Eyes of Rath Kanon was it felt like a fantasy short story written in the 1980s. It’s third-person omniscient, so there’s some head-hopping which can be hard to follow, and the dialogue is a bit formal at times, so the story can be hard to get into.

But eventually Daryellow reaches a pretty cool dungeon.

There’s this mask of a mountain god, and he places it upon his face. And, from there, things get more interesting. There’s this betrayal which leads into the final act, and it all held my interest well.

It was a nice relief to see an original world which helped add to the escapism. This tale was one of my favorites. It seems there’s a whole series of tales about Sedlock Daryellow. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of his adventures.

4. Ghostwise by Caias Ward

What’s there to say about this one? Not great, not bad. The story perhaps makes too big a deal of the darkness of the skin of the main character and his apprentice, and how bad she feels about having white hands.

But this is another one that focuses on the magic system, this time a ‘ghostwise’ power that sets up the ending nicely.

There’s also a memorable confrontation between two kings from the past.

The writer is able to convey the commotion and confusion of crowds well, and there’s an interesting concept involving ghosts trying to pull the soul from your body that is well-described.

All-in-all, this was my least favorite of the lot so far, but it was still pretty good.

5. Melkart and the Whore of Babylon by Mark Mellon

Like with Daryellow, there’s apparently a whole series of adventures starring Melkart.

This one in particular is well-written, perhaps better than most of the others so far in that it’s clear, concise and easy to follow, all while staying evocative.

Since this story was written as a fictional account of real-world Babylon, it may not quite be at that level of pure unshackled imagination that the pulps brought, but since we don’t know much about that time period, it leaves plenty of room for the author’s imagination to breathe, and even soar at times.

Melkart and the Whore of Babylon reads more like an homage to the stories of olde rather than an attempt at something new. But it’s comfort food for people who enjoy Sword & Sorcery, or even Sword & Sandal, complete with bicep flexing and harems of slave girls.

This story had the most immediacy, and a better balance between action and dialogue than the stories that came before it. The main character acts heroic and the ending fight is as unusual as it is satisfying. Daryellow was interesting as a character, but Melkart stands out even more as his own thing due to the uniqueness of his powers. So just like with Daryellow, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for more stories featuring Melkart.

6. Kick in the Door and Improvise by Dawn Vogel

The first thing I noticed was this story started out feeling a bit like a 1990s high fantasy. A very good thing in my eyes. This couple of girls (who, by the end end, are strongly hinted to being in a lesbian relationship) mean to steal a crown for a princess.

Once the princess appears, she’s practically dying of constipation just because she’s actually being a princess and looking the part. Which, of course, isn’t allowed in Current Year. The whole girdle torture thing has grown into a tired cliché, but it keeps appearing in modern fiction. And since she’s wealthy, there’s a bonus “eat the rich” message that comes along with it.

The story devolves quickly into long fetch quest try/fail cycles for a laundry list of items. This was the only story I found myself skimming through and skipping sections. It’s my least favorite story of the issue which is a pity, because it had some vivid locale descriptions and had great potential.

So far, that’s two stories with big button agendas.

7. The Lens of Being by Daniel Amatiello

My third-favorite. While it’s set in real-world Africa and follows a pirate crew, this never gets in the way of the story: The “Africa” here is suitably imaginative, feeling more like a fantasy world all its own. There’s rich descriptions, and even a moment of Weird Fiction during a memorable confrontation with a dangerous mage.

The mage tries to make the main character (Captain Vilimut) feel the hopelessness of Predeterminism, that everything is just part of a Causal Chain. In my favorite story moment, Vilimut can sense that, while the mage is partly right, she senses there’s something more within that causality.

But by the end, she concludes that everything is probably predetermined after all and just shrugs before shipping off to another adventure. Maybe one day she’ll realize what that “something” she caught a glimpse of was. Until then, Causal Determinism isn’t a healthy state-of-mind to be in, so perhaps, in a way, the mage won that encounter by successfully demoralizing her into a reductionist mindset. An interesting tale.

8. Bound in Brass and Iron by Matthew X. Gomez

A lot of what I like can be found here – interesting battles and creatures, exploration of ancient temples and catacombs. Although I was let down by the Athiest message that seemed to pervade the story. An argument that all gods are just demons. The main character is smug about it, too.

The problem is, in a world of wonder, a faithless man from a faithless clan is collecting stuff just to collect stuff and be smug, to show he’s better than the gods. Which removes any feelings of danger. At least Captain Vilimut‘s Predeterminism was something to believe in. But nothing just…lands flat for me. Especially when his worldview is affirmed by strawmen gods slipping on metaphorical banana peels at his pleasure.

In fact, his whole existence seems transactional:

Liam sighed. “You say you owe me thanks then give me none. No matter. I can’t spend your thanks. Can’t use it to bind my wounds or drown myself in drink. I can’t eat it, or use it to leave this city. So keep your thanks. I’ll be no richer than I was before it.”

That should tell you everything you need to know about Liam – A selfish asshole who cares only about getting his. He’s much like how the Boomer generation treated Gen Y.

If that weren’t enough, he further comes across as a hypocrite when he begrudgingly accepts a blessing, once again for his own self-benefit. The problem with blessings is they’re only one-half of a two-way street. Liam acted more like he’d been handed some free swag he intends to dump into the next trash receptacle he passes. So if this moment was supposed to show character growth, it didn’t come across well.

What could’ve been a great top three story for me was killed by an unlikable main character. Maybe Liam grows up at some point in his adventures, but that moment doesn’t seem anywhere in sight by the end of this particular tale.

Conclusion

I’ve been reading a lot of pulp era tales lately – a lot of Clark Ashton Smith in particular – and if I’m being honest, nothing in this magazine can compare to the unbridled wildness that was being authored in the 1930s.

There was a raw energy and creative force driving those old tales, written when the world was still full of wonder, a world where sailing the ocean and looking upon the stars commanded our fascination, a time before PostModernism and Scientific Positivism had indoctrinated almost everyone through our school system. (Did you know the word “system” meant “sewer” in Ancient Rome?)

But I do feel Test of the Runeweavers is a good example of what New Pulp has to offer. I had a enjoyable time with most of these tales (Melkart, Daryellow, The Lens of Being come to immediate mind), so I do not regret having picked up Tales from the Magician’s Skull.

I also feel Current Year dogma doesn’t belong in Sword & Sorcery. Escapism can’t happen if on-the-nose hot-button issues keep popping up in these stories like viral news headlines. (Try to disguise it at least a little, folks.) And if I want true escapism, I would much rather these tales be set somewhere like Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea than places like Japan, Africa, and ancient Nordic countries. Yet nearly every story here leans upon that crutch.

I don’t read Sword & Sorcery to educate myself about existing world cultures; I read it to discover new cultures that have sprung forth from the imaginative wellspring of the writer’s mind. Most people are more world-wise and cultured than they’re given credit for. Yes, even people like me who live in “flyover country”. But so many authors feel like it’s their duty to ‘educate’ us of the world abroad. Which isn’t always the motivation, but it often is.

Disappointingly, we had only one or two brief moments of Weird Fiction within these pages, most notably the moment where Captain Vilimut experienced the reductionist nature of the Causal Chain.

And we had some good guy magic wielders which proved surprisingly effective in New Pulp Sword & Sorcery, creating some of the most memorable tales and unique moments.

My favorite tales tended to hint at character growth, but I understand how some serialized adventures have no room (or need) for character growth. Episodic content is fine if it’s fun enough, but coming away thinking the character was affected by the adventure can be its own reward, and help the reader feel like the experience wasn’t a waste of time.

And whether or not a main character is female or has an unusual skin color doesn’t matter or make much of an impact anymore. TradPub wants you to believe you’re “sticking it to the man” by featuring such characters, but the old adage that you should just tell an interesting story with interesting characters still rings true. The male-to-female MC ratio in these stories was about 50/50, so it’s not at all uncommon these days. Just don’t make the mistake of sticking a bunch of labels to a character in the hopes it will be a suitable substitute for actually writing an interesting character.

Back in 1934 when the first female Sword & Sorcery lead–written by a female author no less–was published, sure, it was a big deal. The main character being female was enough back then to stick out from the pack, not that Jirel wasn’t an interesting character in her own right.

But keep in mind this was only two years after Conan’s debut. Also keep in mind that the biggest and most influential Sword & Sorcery magazine at the time not only welcomed her story with open arms, but it became the featured story that got the cover art. They didn’t “gatekeep” her. They didn’t relegate her story to the back of the book. That battle was won 90 years ago. And it wasn’t even a battle because the “gatekeepers” left the gates wide open and have always encouraged anyone interested in writing Sword & Sorcery to enter their world from the start.

They couldn’t control who got inspired to write the stuff and who didn’t, which is still a “problem” Oldpub struggles with today. At the end of the day, the people who feel a passion for writing this stuff are the ones who are going to show up to the writing panels and learn everything they can. Which is great if you value the individual. If you don’t look at it through a racist or sexist lens, the more writers there are, the better. Everyone has a different voice.

But, let me tell you, OldPub wouldn’t have liked the demographic makeup of those in panel attendance at the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium. Which tells me they’re trying to fight a cultural problem, not a gatekeeper problem. You can’t easily strongarm a culture into being interested in something it’s not, just like I can’t force my wife to suddenly like Magic: The Gathering.

At the end of this magazine, instead of a Q&A from fans, we got AD&D stats for the monsters that appeared in each tale. Since I’m not much of a table top gamer, I found little value in this aside from being able to compare the power level of each monster. But I’m sure a Dungeon Master looking to add new adversaries to his campaign would love this feature.

Like I said, I enjoyed my time with this magazine. No matter what I had to say about some of the individual stories, it’s good to support these efforts, these creations that keep coming into our lives despite the odds. I’m glad publications like this are still in print and I’m looking forward to reading more of what New Pulp has to offer.

More to come.