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Richo Reviews: Swords in the Shadows, Various Authors (Outer Shadows, 2023)

I've been on a bit of a fantasy kick lately, and I'm always on the hunt for new horror, so the premise of a collection of horror-meets-sword-and-sorcery stories leapt out at me. Despite what seems a straightforward setup, there is a huge variety of story in Swords in the Shadows - in tone, setting, genre, and quality. I love short story collections for just this reason - the diversity, the sense of turning over the page to something completely new. So let's jump in to some of these stories.

It shouldn't be any surprise that Hailey Piper's story, Wolfen Divine, is a standout. This is writing on another level. These few pages are crammed full of evocative worldbuilding, compelling action, a masterful character sketch, explorations of predation, survival, and love in desperate circumstances - suffused with tension and culminating in an anguishing emotional climax.

Stephen Graham Jones is a writer that (shamefully) I've not read for all that I've heard about him, but his contribution here is an incredible introduction. The Dog in the Corner is a deeply weird, deeply sickening body horror story of beasts made human and humans made bestial. It haunted me for days after reading it. He and Piper could sell this book by themselves.

There are a surprising amount of historical stories here, which wasn't quite what I was expecting. However, that's not to say I didn't enjoy them. Osanobua's Garden by Justin C. Key is a vivid exploration of the social, psychic and spiritual upheaval caused by colonialism and slavery, while Rena Mason's Tiger Claws and Crocodile Jaws brings the folklore of Thailand into startling reality.

But it was horror takes on classic sword-and-sorcery tales that I came for, and this book provides. Brian Keene's The Shadow in the Swamp gives us a brief but electrifying foray into a fantastical future (?) world of spirits and strangeness. In The Suture Kings  Mary SanGiovanni blends traditional fantasy, Lovecraft-esque dream worlds, and a truly unique (and horrifying) imagination to create an enthralling story. James A. Moore's The God of Rot is a brief but effective story that turns what could be a classic Howard story into something deeply ominous. Jonathan Maberry's The Prince of Dust and Shadows is less successful than the classic fantasy adventures it emulates, until it comes to his depiction of goblins. Here he returns what decades of fantasy literature, games and films have made into a weak, unthreatening creature (at least individually), even a source of comic relief, into something genuinely unsettling and upsetting.

A final mention should go to Wrench and Sorcery by Joe R. Lansdale, a barnstormer of a story that, while pushing the theme pretty far, is a great end to the collection.

Some of these stories fall foul of their short page counts, trying to cram too much in or leaving thoughts unfinished. Others manage a marvelous amount in such a short space, deftly building fantastical worlds, interesting characters, and dreadful happenings. There are some real gems here and no real failures, though certainly some stories are more successful than others.


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