Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #59, February 2024
“The Dreams From The Barrow” by Harry Piper
“Axandrjo The Silvernosed Vagabond” by C.D. Crabtree
“The Iron Serpent” by H R Laurence
Reviewed by David Wesley Hill
They must be buying ink (OK, pixels) by the gallon over at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, given that the shortest tale in the February issue weighs in at close to 8,000 words—a novelette. In “The Dreams From The Barrow” by Harry Piper, we’re taken to a rather generic fantasy milieu, an unnamed village in an unnamed forest in an anonymous feudal kingdom. The protagonist, a young field hand, has an eerie encounter in a forgotten tomb deep in the woods, and turns down the offer made him by its moldy resident—until his village is attacked by a murderous band of ruffians, and he reconsiders his decision. As you might imagine, it’s probably not a good idea to make promises you don’t keep to evil dead things, and the remainder of the story proves this point in bloody detail. Strangely, this reviewer was left actually rooting for the gruesome barrow-wight instead of for the narrator, who comes across as a humorless and faithless fellow, and who tells his tale in an oddly academic voice given that he’s an untutored peasant… At times an exciting story, but mostly not.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m a big fan of Jack Vance. So, too, is C.D. Crabtree, whose novella, “Axandrjo The Silvernosed Vagabond,” is an 11,000-word homage to the fantasy master. The protagonist, for instance, is a literary descendant of the anti-hero Cugel the Clever from The Eyes of the Overworld—and shares DNA, too, with Liane the Wayfarer of The Dying Earth—and many of the other players echo the perverse egocentricity that is typical of Vance’s walk-ons and minor characters. Enjoyably, there are Vancian references throughout the text, such as the glass tubes Axandrjo fears being plunged into by the Justiciary, which call to mind similar tubes used to execute space pirates in Trullion: Alastor 2262. Crabtree also seeks to capture the fey beauty of Vance’s language, but in this noble attempt, unfortunately, the author fails. The thing is, Vance’s writing style is as spare and parsimonious as it is otherworldly, while Crabtree’s prose, overburdened by adjectives, comes across as overwrought… A heartfelt effort that I really wish had succeeded. We need another Michael Shea, may he RIP, ASAP.
A second novella brings an end to the issue, “The Iron Serpent” by H R Laurence, in which the barbarian Heodric, a mercenary guard aboard the merchant sailing vessel Flute-Girl, finds himself in the fight of his life against a band of corsairs. Soon, however, his situation becomes even more dire when the titular snake attacks, leaving Heodric and his enemies stranded together on the mysterious island known as Ironlair, which is home not only to a flock of deadly swordbirds but to a hungry demigod… A simple adventure with just enough surprises to keep this reviewer entertained. Recommended.