The Phantom Queen Awakes

My contributor's copy of The Phantom Queen Awakes arrived today, brightening up what might otherwise have been a dull and rainy Wednesday.

It is, to say the least, a rather handsome object, beautifully put together with a wonderful cover by Reece Notley and equally wonderful interior art by Cecily Webster.

A themed anthology based around the Morrigan - one of the most powerful Celtic gods - the writers involved include Katharine Kerr, Anya Bast, Elaine Cunningham, C.E Murphy and... well, me (with the story The Children of Badb Catha which is set in an alternate time line where the Romans invaded Ireland).

It's both humbling and energising to appear alongside these writers, particularly in such a quality product. And it was a delight to work with the editors - Mark Deniz and Amanda Pillar - who were thoughtful, insightful and utterly professional every step of the way.

Trust me, your life will not be complete until you own a copy of this book.

http://www.morriganbooks.com/?page_id=186

HPL & S&S

I’ve been working on a couple of stories recently that I’ve been, in my own mind anyway, referring to as Mythos Sword and Sorcery. Basically it’s my attempt to fuse a bit of Lovecraft with the tradition of S&S and heroic fantasy.

Mind you, it’s nothing new: Clark Ashton Smith did it with his Hyperborea stories (although Smith was adding to the Mythos rather than taking from it), Brian Lumley did it with his Primal Lands stories, Conan in his original, Robert E. Howard, incarnation often encountered creatures that Lovecraft would have known, and sword-wielding heroes have always battled against dark and mysterious forces.

It did get me thinking, though, about how these tales might differ from my other stories (and from the stories of those that have trod this particular ground before me). Hopefully, it’s mood and tone that will set them apart.

In a sense the difference between Lovecraft and his contemporary Robert E. Howard was mostly one of tone. In general, Howard’s work is more up tempo, more optimistic than Lovecraft’s – this is not to say that Howard didn’t write downbeat, pessimistic stories, but as a rule of thumb if you were the hero (particular a series character like Conan) there was a good chance you would make it through to the end and beyond.

With Lovecraft, though, it’s rare that his characters escaped unscathed – either physically or, more usual, psychologically – and the worlds he created are darker than Howard’s, a purgatory rather than a playground.

Now I’m fully aware that some of my own work tends to look on the darker rather than the lighter side of things but, as a rule of thumb, I rarely try to push a story in any one direction, preferring to let it unfold naturally.

But in the Mythos S&S stories I’m taking a leaf out of HPL’s book: for the characters, doom is not only inevitable but unavoidable and the universe cares little for the affairs of human beings. It’s not so much a sense of inbuilt pessimism rather than an acknowledgement that the heroes cannot win.

In a way, I suppose that is one of the fundamental differences between horror and fantasy – in horror the protagonist is almost always doomed to fail (or to die or be tortured or discover that he is the heir to a terrible secret), whereas in (heroic) fantasy the hero is almost always doomed to succeed (or marry the princess or defeat the dark lord or have his destiny fulfilled).

It’s interesting to start a story knowing that the hero can’t win, since the normal way in S&S is for the hero to cut his way (often literally) through any obstacle; he may have the occasional setback, if only to add to the dramatic tension, but there is literally nothing that his wits and sword cannot overcome. But for the hero of a Mythos S&S story every setback is just another step along the path to his own destruction, every obstacle serves to obscure the truth of his situation until that final moment of terrible realization.

Of course theory and practice don’t always coalesce but in the few stories that I’ve been working on (one of which, The Song of Tussugaroth, will appear in an addition of Innsmouth Free Press later this year) have fitted the concept extremely well so far.

So Nameless Horror is just a state of mind after all.

MY FAVOURITE SHORT STORIES: THE STREETS OF ASHKELON BY HARRY HARRISON

I can’t remember when I first read Harry Harrison’s The Streets of Ashkelon, but it was a long time ago – possibly in the Brian Aldiss edited Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus under the story’s variant title An Alien Agony – but it is a story which has stayed with me ever since and one to which I return time and time again.

For me, it’s one of those stories that does what SF does so very well, shining a light into those murky places where mundane fiction either will not or can not go: asking difficult questions about the nature of faith, belief and pride (and taking a few well aimed and accurate shots at the nature of colonialism along the way).

On the backwater planet of Wesker’s World, trader John Garth has found what he believes to be an idyllic place where the native inhabitants – furry little amphibians known as Weskers – live a primative life in a state of primal innocence with neither belief in nor need for religion. As Garth says ‘They have ugly little gods, taboos or spells to hag-ride and limit their lives. They are the only primitive people I have ever encountered that are completely free of superstition and appear much happier and sane because of it.’

This idyll is shattered, however, by the arrival of a Christian missionary, Father Mark, who has come to bring the Weskers to God (or indeed to bring God to the Weskers). The clash between the two men forms the theological spine of the story – faith versus humanism – but also leads to its ultimate tragedy.

Whereas Garth has been teaching the Weskers about the material world – bring knowledge in exchange for their exquisite art – Mark seeks to teach them about the unseen and the power of faith. In their own way, each man seeks to exploit the highly intelligent and inquisitive Weskers, each believing this is way is the Right Way. But for the Weskers the clash is a more personal one, and they are creatures for whom Blind Faith alone is not enough.

Requiring nothing less than a miracle to bring them to God – and reasoning that one miracle is not so much to ask in order to bring an entire planet to worship at God’s Throne – the Weskers set their mind to the ultimate miracle, the miracle that brought humanity to God in the first place.

‘… everything had been constructed down to the last detail, following the illustrations in the bible. There was the cross, planted firmly on top of a small hill, the gleaming metal spikes, the hammer. Father Mark was stripped and draped in a carefully pleated loincloth. They led him out of the church.’

In crucifying the missionary, the Weskers believe implicitly that God will bring him back to life and thus provide the necessary miracle they so desperately seek, but have in fact brought about a state of sin from which they will never be released.

“He will rise, won’t he, Garth?”

“No,” Garth said. “he is going to stay buried right where you put him. Nothing is going to happen because he is dead and he is going to stay dead.”

The rain runnelled through Itin’s fur and his mouth was opened so wide that he seemed to be screaming into the night. Only with effort could he talk, squeezing out the aliens thoughts in an alien tongue.

“Then we will not be saved? We will not become pure?”

“You were pure,” Garth said in a voice somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “That’s the horrible, ugly dirty part of it. You were pure. Now you are…”

“Murderers,” Itin said, and the water ran down from his lowered head and streamed away into the darkness.”

Beautifully crafted, The Streets of Ashkelon is a perfect example of what SF at its best can do: its theology and its human characters in particular fully rounded and realized.

Bizarrely, though, it remained unpublished for a number of years in the USA - although it appeared in New Worlds the UK in 1962 – its themes and questions proving themselves too difficult for editors at the time.

Since then, the story has gone on to appear in many anthologies and is rightly held up as a classic of the genre. Simply wonderful.

AND OTHER SUCH DELIGHTS REVIEWED AT LOCUS ONLINE

Lois Tilton has given And Other Such Delights - which appeared in issue 42 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies earlier this month - a lovely review at Locus Online, describing the story as "a wonderfully inventive tale, full of fantastic and cruel delights".

I am, to say the least, rather pleased.

http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2010/05/lois-tilton-reviews-short-fiction-late-may-2010/#bcs201005

THE DEATHLESS ONES AT FANTASTIC HORROR

It's been a bit of a wait, but well worth it, as my short story The Deathless Ones is up and live at Fantastic Horror.

Yet another installment in my ongoing Shining Cities sequence, this is a look at the epicurian delights of the Latter Days.

http://www.fantastichorror.com/15/lecky-thedeathlessones.html

MY FAVOURITE SHORT STORIES: WAILING WELL BY M.R JAMES

An undoubted master of the weird tale, Montague Rhodes James (1862 - 1936) produced some of the finest macabre fiction of the early 20th century. Stories like Casting the Runes (later filmed as the magnificent Night of the Demon by Jacques Tournier in 1957), O Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad (the Jonathan Miller helmed version of which filmed for the BBC in 1968 has the most frightening ghost never seen on television) or Canon Alberic's Scrapbook, are masterclasses in mood and atmosphere, existing in that shadowy region where the known meets the unknown and the natural and supernatural rub shoulders.

In addition, though, M.R James had a wickedly funny sense of humour which he sometimes used to great effect, particular in the 1927 short story Wailing Well. The story of two schoolboys – Arthur Wilcox and Stanley Judkins – Wailing Well tells a portion of their respective careers, one which ends in ‘giddy eminence’ and another which ends in pure terror.

Arthur Wilcox, who provides the initial lead in to the story, is a high achiever, an athlete, scholar and boy scout of exemplary pedigree and bearing who’s only failing is that he pushes himself too hard, leading to something of a minor breakdown which takes him out of the story. Stanley Judkins, on the other hand, is his polar opposite in everything but physical appearance, slovenly, ink-stained and generally rebellious.

When a boy scout outing leads the school’s troop close to the infamous wailing well ‘in the beautiful district of W (or X) in the county of D (or Y)’ Stanley becomes determined to investigate this strange place despite being told that it is an evil place haunted by murderous spirits, three women and a man:

"I've seen 'em, young gentleman!" said the shepherd, "seen 'em from near by on that bit of down: and my old dog, if he could speak, he'd tell you he've seen 'em, same time. About four o'clock of the day it was, much such a day as this. I see 'em, each one of 'em, come peerin' out of the bushes and stand up, and work their way slow by them tracks towards the trees in the middle where the well is."

"And what were they like? Do tell us!" said Algernon and Wilfred eagerly.

"Rags and bones, young gentlemen: all four of 'em: flutterin' rags and whity bones. It seemed to me as if I could hear 'em clackin' as they got along. Very slow they went, and lookin' from side to side."

"What were their faces like? Could you see?"

"They hadn't much to call faces," said the shepherd, "but I could seem to see as they had teeth."

And it is here that the story takes a shift from light-hearted school tale (very much in an Anthony Buckeridge style) into something much more sinister, for when Judkins approaches the wailing well, something terrible is waiting for him.

At this moment Algernon, who had been staring with all his might, broke into a scream.

"What's that on the track? On all fours — O, it's the woman. O, don't let me look at her! Don't let it happen!" And he rolled over, clutching at the grass and trying to bury his head in it.

With inevitable and nicely restrained horror, M.R James paints a picture of a supernatural murder made all the more horrible for the light touch with which he has previously used.

“a cry was heard more piercing and dreadful than any that the boys on the hill could raise. It was too late. The crouched figure behind Stanley sprang at him and caught him about the waist. The dreadful one that was standing waving her arms waved them again, but in exultation. The one that was lurking among the trees shuffled forward, and she too stretched out her arms as if to clutch at something coming her way; and the other, farthest off, quickened her pace and came on, nodding gleefully. The boys took it all in in an instant of terrible silence, and hardly could they breathe as they watched the horrid struggle between the man and his victim. Stanley struck with his can, the only weapon he had. The rim of a broken black hat fell off the creature's head and showed a white skull with stains that might be wisps of hair. By this time one of the women had reached the pair, and was pulling at the rope that was coiled about Stanley's neck. Between them they overpowered him in a moment: the awful screaming ceased, and then the three passed within the circle of the clump of firs.”

All too often, the great ghost and horror stories of the Victorian and Edwardian era seem a little quaint to us now, but Wailing Well has lost none of its power, either to raise a wry smile or a spine tingling moment. Best read late at night while the wind howls outside your window (or better yet in broad daylight when you can be assured that the dark things can come nowhere near you) it is a minor but nonetheless brilliant work from a master of the genre.

I have heard that the present population of the Wailing Well field consists of three women, a man, and a boy.

The Joy of Rewriting

It sounds like an ironic title for a post, I know, but I’m actually very serious about the joys of the rewrite.

It’s a very rare thing for any writer to produce a perfect first draft and even if, like me, you redraft and correct things as you go along (which probably explains why it takes me so long to produce even a short story) chances are that something will need fixing after you have breathed that satisfied sigh and placed the words ‘The End’ at the end of the story.

In general, too, most editors will ask for some sort of re-write even after they have accepted a story – in fact sometimes as a condition of acceptance. I’ve usually found that the suggestions they make are spot on - or maybe I’ve been lucky in working with editors who understand what exactly it is I’m trying to do with a particular tale and are anxious to make it as good as it can possibly be.

Over the last year or so I’ve been asked by editors to rewrite stories for length, to reduce the overall level of violence (and, in one case, to actually increase it), to swap scenes to increase the pace of the story and even to change some of the character names and some minor story concepts. All of which I have done with great pleasure since, in most cases, the points made by the editors in question were absolutely right.

But, over and above the re-write to editorial demand, I think it’s important for writers to look back over their work and self-edit it. Rewrites can happen at a structural, conceptual, paragraph, sentence and even word level. It doesn’t necessary mean tearing down the story and starting from scratch, but rather it can often mean re-honing certain aspects of a story in order to make them clear (clear in this sense being a relative term, since I also firmly believe that there’s nothing wrong with making a reader work a little from time to time).

The amount of rewriting necessary will, of course, depend upon the story in question – sometimes a rewrite can be something as simple as taking out unnecessary repetition (I myself have the terrible habit of using the phrase ‘as if’ a little too often in first drafts) or even finding a better word to express exactly what you mean.

Some writers are afraid of the rewrite, worrying that it somehow might dilute the power of their original thoughts or visions, but as far as I’m concerned it is a necessary and, yes, joyful task.

Happy rewriting.

Sword and Sorcery

For all those with an interst in sword and sorcery, a new market - Iron Bound - is seeking new s&s and heroic fantasy fiction. Worth checking out, I reckon. It's non-paying, I'm afraid to say, but any market for s&s is to be welcomed.

"Iron Bound Magazine is an online magazine focusing strictly on everything and anything fantasy. Tales of sword and sorcery, tales of wizards, tales of elves and orcs, tales of thieves and kings, and such are all welcomed. We are open for submissions."

http://ironboundmag.wordpress.com/submission-guidelines/

FRANK FRAZETTA PASSES AWAY

Probably the best known artist working in fantasy, Frank Frazetta has died at the age of 82.

His depiction of Robert E. Howard's Conan, particularly on the covers of the old Lancer paperbacks, more or less defined the popular view of sword and sorcery - mighty barbarians, beautiful scantily clad women and horrific monsters to be slain - and had much to do with the popularity of the Conan reprints.

His other work on covers for as diverse a range of characters as Tarzan, John Carter and Karl Edward Wagner's Kane further helped to create the visual language of s & s, to the extent where a series of his paintings were turned into short-lived but much sought after series of novels written by James Silke featuring the Death Dealer.

Bold, colourful and unashamedly fantastic, Frank Frazetta was the giant of fantasy art. He died of a stroke on May 10, 2010, in a hospital near his home in Florida.

ASYLUM (1972)

Starring: Robert Powell, Peter Cushing, Charlotte Rampling, Herbert Lom. Directed by Roy Ward Baker.

The landscape of British fantasy cinema from the late 1950’s to the mid 1970’s was largely dominated by Hammer Film and only Amicus Productions, founded by Max Rosenberg and Milton Subosky, offered them any serious competition. Often using the same writers, directors and stars, their output was more self-consciously ‘modern’ than Hammer’s – rarely straying into the Mittle Europa settings that were Hammer’s trademark.

Although Amicus made a number of fine features – And Now The Screaming Starts, Horror Hotel, The Skull and two Dr Who movies starring Peter Cushing – it was their portmanteau films for which the company became best known. Offering a Four-For-The-Price-Of-One (sometimes Five) approach, the films featured a number of different stories linked by a single character or setting.

In Dr Terror’s House of Horrors it was Cushing’s eponymous Dr Schreck, in Torture Garden Burgess Meredith japed as the Carny from (literally) Hell, The House That Dripped Blood featured, well, a house, Tales From the Crypt had Sir Ralph Richardson slumming it as a mysterious monk and Asylum had Robert Powell and the titular Looney Bin.

When Dr Martin (Powell) arrives at an asylum for incurably insane he is presented with a strange conundrum. It appears that Dr Starr, the asylum’s chief psychiatrist has also gone ‘incurably insane’ and is housed in one of the cells upstairs. Challenged by Dr Rutherford (Patrick Magee in fine scenery-chewing form) to identify Starr, the scene is set for a veritable who’s who of British actors in a series of tightly written little chillers from the pen of the great Robert Bloch.

Taking their inspiration (as many of the Amicus portmanteau films did) from the old EC horror comics, each separate tale has a real sting in it.

Richard Todd and Sylvia Sims star in a story of voodoo, chest freezers and revenge from beyond the grave in Frozen Fear. Peter Cushing and Barry Morse try to resurrect the dead but end up giving a mannequin murderous life in The Weird Tailor. Charlotte Rampling and Britt Ekland appear in a story of split-personalities and murder in Lucy Comes To Stay, while Herbert Lom, Powell and Magee give toy robots a bad name in Mannequins of Horror.

Usually in an Amicus film there was usually at least one tale that didn’t work (the haunted piano in Torture Garden, or the horror at the end of the Indian Rope Trick in Vault of Horror) and Asylum is no exception. For all charms of Ms Rampling and Ms Ekland, Lucy Comes to Stay is easily the weakest of the stories on offer here) but fortunately Frozen Fear, Mannequins of Horror and, particularly, The Weird Tailor more than make up for this.

Cushing is, of course, excellent as a man tortured by the dead of his son. Richard Todd looks slightly uncomfortable as wife-murdering Walter, Herbert Lom does a very fine turn as Herbert Lom, all moody stares and quick little gestures, and both Patrick Magee and Robert Powell provide a solid anchor for the whole thing. Of particular note here is Geoffrey Bayldon as hospital orderly Max, who gives the film its creepy heart and who’s unsettling performance is both intense and restrained – you’ll never think of Catweazel the same way again.

Cheap and cheerful (or fearful) stuff, efficiently shot by Roy Ward Baker (Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, Vault of Horror) Asylum is another of those little gems from the tail-end of the British horror boom.

AND OTHER SUCH DELIGHTS

"Out of the shattered glory of PameMorturas, came Wolfram Morringun the mennisinger, his Nothing Box filled with the tortured sounds of that splendidly ruined city. Across the Silent Plains and Fading Forests he came, his step and mood both light."

A return once again to the Shining Cities of Old Earth, And Other Such Delights is currently online at the very wonderful Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

You can read it here:

http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/story.php?s=89

On a separate note, it now means that I'm closer than ever to getting together a collection of my Shining Cities tales since And Other Such Delights is the eigth story in the sequence to see the light of day (and there are four 'orphan' stories that sort of fit into the sequence if you look at 'em slantindicular).

MY FAVOURITE SHORT STORIES # 6: EASTWARD HO! BY WILLIAM TENN

To quote Bruce Sterling, “If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters… we can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins makes us seem harmless.”

One of science fictions greatest court jesters was William Tenn (the pen name of Philip Klass) who’s work had a finely honed satirical edge, so finely honed that it was, indeed, sometimes not immediately apparent that he was playing with Big Ideas.

Eastward Ho! is one of the cases in point, a witty and clever story of nuclear war and reconstruction that sees a devastated America where the shoe is very firmly on the other foot and the native tribes have taken control of the reins of power, pushing white society aside and undoing the injustices of the past.

In Tenn’s imagined future the United States of America is a struggling, backward and mostly agrarian society, while the Arapaho, Seminole, Cheyenne and, most importantly, the Sioux, dominate much of continental America in the aftermath of a disastrous nuclear war been the USA and USSR.

When Jerry Franklin, eldest son of the Senator from Idaho, is sent on a diplomatic mission to Osceola VII, Ruler of All the Seminoles he discovers that the fierce and highly organized Sioux nations have already displaced the Seminoles and are preparing to annex the USA. As Chief Three Hydrogen Bombs explains “…we have an expanding population. You don't have an expanding population. We need more land. You don't use most of the land you have. Should we sit by and see the land go to waste…” If that isn’t Manifest Destiny in action then I don’t know what is.

Realizing that things are only going to get worse and that the USA has already been overrun by the Sioux, Jerry makes a momentous decision… to travel sail across the Atlantic: "Due east all the way. To the fabled lands of Europe. To a place where a white man can stand at last on his own two legs. Where he need not fear persecution. Where he need not fear slavery. Sail east, Admiral, until we discover a new and hopeful world—a world of freedom!"

A short and joyous story, Eastward Ho! not only plays with the conventions of SF but also with those of the (then) popular western. There is a gleeful delight in character names – characters such Makes Much Radiation and Three Hydrogen Bombs, weapons such as the Crazy House .45 and the Geronimo .32 – seemingly throw-away jokes that convey a huge amount of information in a very short space of time, and fills in a hell of a lot of back-story in very few words:

"Tell me," Jerry asked, bending down. "Have you heard any other news? Anything about the rest of the world? How has it been with those people—the Russkies, the Sovietskis, whatever they were called—the ones the United States had so much to do with years and years ago?"

"According to several of the Chief's councilors, the Soviet Russians were having a good deal of difficulty with people called Tatars. I think they were called Tatars.”

A writer of great subtlety who, at first glance, appeared to be working in broad strokes, (his short story The Liberation of Earth is another small masterpiece) William Tenn deals with racism, the march of history, politics and the nature of national and personal pride (“After all, he was the son—and the oldest son, at that—of the Senator from Idaho; Sam Rutherford's father was a mere Undersecretary of State and Sam's mother's family was pure post-office clerk all the way back.”) in an incredibly entertaining and economical narrative.

Rarely has a jester capered to such good effect.

UP DATING THE WEBSITE

I am currently in the business of updating my website - it ain't much, but it's mine.

Within you can find more or less the same things that you can find on this blog but with some slightly fancier backgrounds and a list of my previously published and upcoming fiction.

It's far from finished but I like it - the virtual version of a pied-à-terre.

http://sites.google.com/site/jameslecky/

UPDATES AT WITH MANY SHADES

The other hat which I sometimes wear is as the sole lunatic in charge of With Many Shades - a guide to science fiction and fantasy on the net.

In what can only be described as a flurry of activity, I have posted a whole load of new links to such magazines as Strange Horizons, GUD, Mindflights, Lacuna, Jupiter, Ideomancer, Clarkesworld, Chizine, Black Gate and a few more.

Drop by, why not.

http://withmanyshades.blogspot.com/

The Sorcerers Guild/ Harper's Pen Award

The Sorcerer's Guild

The Sorcerer's Guild, a blog dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of sword and sorcery and heroic fantasy fiction, especially short fiction. The Sorcerer's Guild draws its inspiration from the original Sorcerer's Guild. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA) is the name of a literary group of American fantasy authors active from the 1960s through the 1980s, noted for their contributions to the fantasy subgenre of heroic fantasy or "Sword and Sorcery." The group served as a vehicle for popularizing and promoting the respectability of the subgenre.The original members of SAGA were Poul Anderson, Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp, John Jakes, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Andre Norton, and Jack Vance. Later, other members joined, and from 1973 - 1981, the group produced five anthologies of stories written by the members (published under the Flashing Swords title) and handed out the Gandalf Award for lifetime achievement.

The new Sorcerer's Guild is open to fans and authors. We will not produce an anthology, but we will award a prize for the best Sword and Sorcery or Heroic Fantasy short fiction for a given year - The Harper's Pen Award. Soon, we'll begin posting review, interviews, and news about Sword and Sorcery in all its forms.

If you have any news to share, please feel free to contact me with press releases, promotion material, and review copies. Feel free to join in, become a friend, and follow the Guild on Twitter.

The Harper's Pen Award

In days of yore, a Harper was a bard who sang of the deeds of heroes and gods, demons and monsters, but these days we bards use the Pen (or the laptop) to tell our tales of the heroic exploits of mighty warriors and cunning wizards.

Thus, the Harper's Pen.The Harper's Pen Award (formerly the Ham-Sized Fist Award) is given in honor of the best Heroic Fantasy or Sword and Sorcery short fiction published during a given year. The award is sponsored by The Sorcerer's Guild.

Each year, nominations for The Harper's Pen Award are collected and finalists chosen for recognition by The Sorcerer's Guild. From the finalists a winner is then selected and the award is given to both the author and the publisher of the story. By establishing this award, we hope to encourage authors to continue to explore heroic fantasy and sword and sorcery fiction, as well as to reward those who continue to publish it.

The rules are simple. Any heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery short fiction story published through an established editorial process - that is, not self-published - is eligible. Any subgenre of heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery is eligible, including but not limited to: historical, modern, sword-and-planet, etc. The nominated story must have been published between January 1 and December 31 of the contest year. Final determinination of story eligibility is at the sole discretion of the judge or judges.

http://sorcerersguild.blogspot.com/p/sorcerers-guild.html