HEROIC FANTASY QUARTERLY–ISSUE 13

Even as the rumble of the Oklahoma City Thunder fades, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly keeps the adrenaline going with Issue 13. This is our three-year anniversary issue — an eternity on the internet! Coincidentally, tales by two of this quarter’s fictioneers mark their third publications at HFQ. Weird. But in a good way. In this issue we’re also proud to present poetry by a Texan and an Oklahoman — a veritable Red River Rivalry of speculative poetry!

We get year four off to a strong start with a full complement of material:

Fiction Contents:

A GAME OF CHESS, by David Pilling
Two-time HFQ alum David Pilling is back with his third remarkable tale, in which the most disabused knight of the Round Table has to do some heavy heroic lifting to save his hotheaded companion. We got your en passant right here!

RENEGADE, by Alex Marshall
Also returning for a third round is Alex Marshall with a tale of adventure, action, and a last shot (pun intended, you mixed-techies) at redemption in his far-future world of Pangaia.

DANCE UPON SAND, by Seamus Bayne
We enjoyed last issue’s CROWN OF SORROWS so much that we had to have more adventures of the now less-than-human Ordwin. If you missed this tale’s forbear, check it out here.

Poetry Contents:

ADVICE ON THE SLAYING OF WURMS, by Michelle Muenzler
No ordinary creatures, no ordinary rules.  5/1/17- Michelle’s excellent poem was reprinted in another outfit and we’ve had to remove it from HFQ’s website.

ADVENT OF AN APOCALYPSE, by Bethany Powell
Bethany Powell is back at HFQ with another great piece. You think your work is never done? Try escorting fallen warriors to the afterlife . . .

Art:
Jonas Jakobsson’s Watched by Owls graces our banner in Issue 13. Many thanks, Jonas — love your work! If you want to check out more of his art, you can find him at Deviant Art, here.

Happenings:
We’ve gained no moss in the last three months. Nor have the writers of sword and sorcery and heroic fiction. As can be seen from the ads on this site, Patrice Sarath’s third book in the Books of the Gordath trilogy, The Crow God’s Girl, is out, as is the second book of Howard Andrew Jones’ tales of the adventures of Dabir and Asim with the Waters of Eternity. After HFQ, these two books should be at the top of your summer reading list. (We get the edge here because, well, we DO have some ego — plus we’re cheap. Er, free!)

Adrian Simmons has a story published in the first issue of James Gunn’s AD ASTRA magazine.   Fear not good readers, this is a tale in the classic science fiction tradition, and Mr. Simmons is true to his sword and sorcery roots by including scenes of mandible melee mayhem.

The board game Scrumbrawl continues to collect skins at conventions across the country, and now VicTim games has teamed up with Game Salute to aid in getting the product to the masses.

It’s shaping up to be a good publishing year for HFQ editor William Ledbetter. His new short story, “Last House, Lost House” — a science fiction twist on Goldilocks and the Three Bears — is now out in the Short and Twisted Fairy Tales (ebook only).  His award winning short story “The Rings of Mars” is now out in Writers of the Future Volume 28, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback or ebook. He also has a new short story called “Bridges Dark and Distant” in the ebook charity anthology “The Gruff Variations”. All the stories are based on the classic Three Billy Goats Gruff story and all the money goes to a great cause. It’s available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

David Farney has news. But David Farney is mum for now. David Farney likes to write little to nothing about himself, but when he does he prefers to refer to himself in the third person.

Of course, an HFQ editorial wouldn’t be complete without a reminder that our awesome T-shirts are still available and, if anything, are only getting more awesome. Unless you lost yours (as David Farney has), in which case your shirt is probably suffering mightily.

And we’ve made good on our promise to dirty our hands with this social media thing all the kids are talking about. Pop in to our live journal or facebook site and see what’s shaking. Next thing you know we’ll be Twittering. We mean Tweeting. Bah! Discovering and publishing cool yarns and poems of longer than 140 characters sounds like a lot more fun . . .

Until next time, thanks to all readers and awesome contributors for following HFQ these last three years. We hope to keep it old-school fresh for another three! Now go forth and read — we’ll pick up the tab for this here celebration.