Heroic Fantasy Quarterly–Q47

2021.

Finally.

Oh, do not rest easy my friends; we may have gotten out of 2020, but like the Battle of Pelanor Fields, it is just a prelude for marching upon Mordor, such is the situation we find ourselves in now.  The many, many, fires started in 2020 may have been put out, but there are dozens of them that need to be tamped out.  As you rest between tamping out your fires, HFQ is here to give you the drive you need to get the new year started strong. We bring a party-pack sized issue, with three stories, three poems, art, music and audio.

 

Fiction

The Medallion’s Song, by Ginny Patrick, with artwork by Karolina Wellartova.  Having been gifted a mysterious amulet by her imperious owner, young Serena is on the run, trying to get the funds to hitch a ride on a caravan out of town.  But Macaea City has more than its share of dangers, and Serena has more than her own share of secrets.

The Silver Light of Forever, by Mike Adamson, Gareth, the living blade of Duke Manorino, is a man with a mission:  survive long enough to take a promised draught of elixir of moonleaf—and live forever.  But the Duke’s promise keeps getting put off and pushed back and a man can only be a living blade for so long before time makes a fool of him.

Winter Luck, by Evan Dicken, with art by Miguel Santos and audio by Karen Bovenmyer.  Ochiai  Haruyoshi’s long feud with the Takeda clan has been long and desperate.  Sorcery and treachery are afoot in the mountains of Japan in this outstanding tale

 

Poetry

Dragon’s Hoard, by Dawn Vogel, dragons can be very particular with what treasures they guard.

Rabbit’s Foot, by Colleen Anderson, with audio by the author.  Luck is one of those things, it has to have balance.

The Wind Through the Fields, by Aidan Redwing, with Audio by Leeman Kesler.  There are a lot of stories about battles and battlefields, but often the field has its stories, too.

 

Artwork

Winter wanes in our part of the world, and Jereme Peabody’s “Ostgra Nomads” leads us out of the winter months.

These nomads travel with the wild herds of the Ostgra.  The Ostgras are a large, flightless bird which eat plants, fruits, grass, shrubs, flowers, and seeds.  They sustain the nomads with large eggs which give them ample food throughout the year.  They prize their mounts and their feathers which enable to charge quickly into battle and shoot their longbows from long ranges making them deadly adversaries.

Jereme is a software engineer in the DC area and is also a freelance concept artist working mostly on video games and books.  He started his artistic career dabbling with sculpting, pencils, and even still-life oil painting.  As tablets became available, he crossed over from traditional art to digital by first digitally painting still-lifes, then through experimentation and practice, transitioned to landscapes and fantasy.

 

Goings On

David Farney:  Keeps the fires burning.

Adrian Simmons:  Adrian’s story “The Guardian of Nalsir-Fel” is now out in Tales from the Magician’s Skull # 5.    He also finished his November 1979 SF/F magazine reviews with a look at Omni, then looked back over the entire 1979 cadre, and then looked forward to the November 1989 SF/F magazines.

Sub-editors James Rowe and Arien Skiba were, after years of working remotely for HFQ, easily able to transition to remote work at their respective jobs.

 

Tales From Around the Fire

It has been a little more than a year ago that we finished Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume III, in both hardcopy and kindle versions.  With an introduction by Darrell Schweitzer, and illustrations for each story and poem.  Click here and get your copy!

As talked about last issue, Robert Zoltan’s magazine  Sexy Fantastic hit the electronic newsstands  with tales by Faith Jones, Robert Zoltan, a classic Fritz Lieber reprint, and a Charlie Stross interview.

Need more sword and sorcery?  Skelos #4  will scratch that itch!   With stories by Bill Crider, Adrian Cole, and Milton Davis, you will want to delve deep.

Valuable ally of HFQ John R. Fultz will have a short story collection coming out from DMR books in April.  Keep your eyes out for it!

Now, as you know, we at HFQ have a soft spot for goblins.  We are a pro-goblin publication!  Thus you can understand our excitement when we learned about Mark Finn’s latest project:

 

 

 

The kickstarter is ON and as of February 20 it has funded AND NOW we’re pushing it to get those sweet, sweet, stretch goals.

Need an old school D&D injection into your current D&D game?  Mark Finn’s Monty Haul game supplements and your campaign will never be the same—in a good way!  Click the ad below to get in on it!