Ossani's Escape

Pleased to find out that my swords and sorcery story "Ossani's Escape" is scheduled to be published in autumn (the Fall) in 2026.

A Grim God's Revenge

It was in 2017 that my first effort at a swords and sorcery story, "A Grim God's Revenge", was published in Mythic #4. Sadly this publication ceased to exist a year or so back. I reprinted "A Grim God's Revenge" in my collection of the same name.

Below is a link which will lead you to a pdf of my story which I'm presenting here as a free read. Hope you enjoy it.  

 

A Grim God's Revenge 

A Grim God's Revenge

 

New story finished - The Dead Man's Battleaxe

I just managed to get the first draft of a new fantasy story finished before I'll have to lay aside writing to reading submissions for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 11. I know from past experience I'll not be able to concentrate on any new writing of my own till well after that book's been published.

 

The new story is only fairly short, 3,400 words, and is called "The Dead Man's Battleaxe".

Submissions to Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 11 open at midnight tonight, October 1st.

 

      

Submissions for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 11 will open on the 1st October 2025 and end at midnight of the 31st, with publication scheduled for late November. Please don't send any submissions till then.

 

Payment is £25 per story plus one contributor's copy of the paperback. The book will be published as a paperback and ebook. Please send your submissions as attachments (doc, docx or rtf) headed  

 

"Submission - Swords & Sorceries 11" 

 to:

paralleluniversepublications@gmx.co.uk

Please send only one submission  at a time - the one you consider the best fit for us. 

Although we like original stories we are always more than happy to consider reprints. Just let us know where and when it was previously published. 

You can send in simultaneous submissions, but let us know if your story is accepted elsewhere as soon as possible. Bear in mind you will receive either an acception or rejection by the end of the first week in November.

There is no limit on the size of submissions.  

There is absolutely no need to tell us anything about yourself as the only thing that matters is the story. Everything else is irrelevant. We will ask for details about yourself if your story is accepted. 

All rejections and acceptances will be sent by email by the end of the first week in November. Please don't enquire about your submission before then.

And good luck!

In the past we have received a number of stories that may be fantasy but are not swords and sorcery. If you are unsure what swords and sorcery is, you could get a better idea by checking out volumes 1 - 10. Saying that, swords and sorcery is a broad genre and we are more than willing to consider stories that stretch its limits, as we have in the past.

Also check our dedicated facebook group: 

Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy

 

   

The contents of Volume One are:

THE MIRROR OF TORJAN SUL - Steve Lines

THE HORROR FROM THE STARS - Steve Dilks

TROLLS ARE DIFFERENT - Susan Murrie Macdonald

CHAIN OF COMMAND - Geoff Hart

DISRUPTION OF DESTINY - Gerri Leen

THE CITY OF SILENCE - Eric Ian Steele

RED - Chadwick Ginther

THE RECONSTRUCTED GOD - Adrian Cole

The cover and all the interior artwork is by Jim Pitts. 

 

amazon.co.uk

amazon.com

Ossani the Healer - stories so far

In recent years I have created a number of recurring characters in my dark fantasy/swords and sorcery tales, almost all of which are set in the cities around the Azure Sea. Just to add to the complications, though, most of these characters interact with each other in various tales, either as major or minor participants. 

One such character is my secretive sorcerer, Ossani, who prefers to masquerade as being nothing more than an apothecary and healer. Indeed, his preferred name is Ossani the Healer. 

He first appeared as a minor character at the end of "The Storyteller of Koss", whose main character is Nadrain the Storteller. (Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Volume 1)

He next appeared, alongside Welgar the Northerner, in "Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus".  (Welgar the Cursed)

After this he appears as a minor if influential character in "The Troupe".

The events in this story ultimately leads to his decision to leave his home city of Assabarr and head for the safe haven of Oriaska, hotly pursued by the Priestly Inquisition. The events involving this are detailed in my story "Ossani's Escape" which is scheduled to be published shortly in a magazine. 

Again, he appears in a minor role in "Ezmiyel the Beggar", which is yet to be published.

And again he is a minor character in "The Sorcerer's Casket", this time interacting with another recurring character of mine, Horbeck. 

The story "Emerging from Their Twilit Realms" has Ossani sharing space with Welgar again. (Welgar the Cursed).

Set a short while later, Ossani is yet again involved with Welgar in "From the Ashes", which is yet to be published.

Ossani is the main character in "The Moneylender of Oriaska" (Swords & Heroes Quarterly #2) in which we are introduced to his future apprentice, Arrenya, though she is not yet named. 

As you would expect from the title, "Ossani's Apprentice", Arrenya is the main character in the next tale, though Ossani does play a prominent role in its denouement. (Swords & Heroes Quarterly #2).  

"Masks of Deception", another unpublished story, sees Ossani as the main protagonist.  

The final tale, the twelth so far, is "The Narcolopsia", another as yet to be published tale. Here Ossani is once more reunited with Welgar and is possibly in his most perilous position yet. 

Here is a full list of Ossani stories: 

The Storyteller of Koss (Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Volume 1)

Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus (Welgar the Cursed)

The Troupe

Ossani's Escape (due to be published 2025 - more details later)

Ezmiyel the Beggar 

The Sorcerer's Casket

Emerging from Their Twilit Realms (Welgar the Cursed)

From the Ashes 

The Moneylender of Oriaska (Swords & Heroes Quarterly #2)

Ossani's Apprentice (Swords & Heroes Quarterly #2)

Masks of Deception

The Narcolopsia

 

Ossani's Escape

Very pleased to receive an email tonight confirming that one of my sword and sorcery stories has just been accepted for publication in a well known magazine. The story's called "Ossani's Escape" and involves a recurring character who first appeared in "The Storyteller of Koss" (Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Volume 1) and in "Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus" (Welgar the Cursed). 

I have written several more stories about this healer-cum-sorcerer whose eyesight is so weak he wears a special ocular of his own design which holds a variety of different lenses.

 

More details later.

 

 

 

The Farmhouse and A Bottle of Spirits to be reprinted by PS Publishing in New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural Omnibus

Interesting to see that the two volumes of New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural edited by David A. Sutton in the early 1970s are being reprinted in an omnibus volume. I don't understand why this is being described as "an anthology edited by Stephen Jones" but there you have it. 

 

The book contains two of my earliest horror stories, "The Farmhouse" and "A Bottle of Spirits". Not two of my best by any means but it's still nice to see them get a fresh airing. 

 

Alas, I was never approached to submit something for consideration in the "third" volume edited by Stephen Jones. Such is life.

 

"The Farmhouse" went on to be my first story published in the United States when it was reprinted in Stuart David Schiff's Whispers magazine and then in the hardcover anthology First World Fantasy Awards edited by Gahan Wilson for Doubleday.

 

Actually this is not the first time the two volumes of New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural have been reprinted. David Sutton did this in 2013, retitled Horror! Under the Tombstone, published by Shadow Publishing.

 

 

 

THE CHILDREN OF EVE BY JOHN CONNOLLY

 

The latest issue of Phantasmagoria magazine includes the following review I wrote of Jhn Connolly's latest Charlie Parker novel, The Children of Eve.

THE CHILDREN OF EVE

By John Connolly

Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 2025

This is the latest volume in the ongoing saga of Charlie Parker, whose private eye investigations all too often bring him into far too close a contact with dark forces. Nor is this any different.

It starts innocuously enough with Parker being asked to find avant garde artist Zetta Nadeau’s missing boyfriend, an ex-army veteran who has abruptly disappeared, presumably having gone into hiding after carrying out a mysterious job. As Parker’s investigation begins he discovers that, disturbingly, the boyfriend, Wyatt Riggins had been involved in something more sinister than his girlfriend suspected, the abduction from South America of a group of children, stolen from cartel boss, Blas Urrea, who wants them back. Complicating matters, the children appear to have been stolen on the orders of an American mob boss who had been working with Urrea till their relationship soured. Both sides are now using dangerous heavies either to find the children or hide them securely, resulting in a rising body count and some particularly sadistic murders, including hearts being cut out of bodies while their owners are still alive – that is till the hearts have been torn free and partially devoured.

It's a typically dark tale from John Connolly who is a master at creating unforgettable villains and intricately conceived stories, within which one atrocity will soon be topped by another. Charlie Parker, and his friends Louis and Angel, are often tested to the brink, never more so than in this tale, with its overtones of something even darker and more ominous lurking above and beyond the story itself, which will only reveal itself in some future volume.

Splendidly well written, this is yet another horrific page-turner (quite literally), and I cannot wait for the next.