Heroic fantasy Book

For me this is easily a five star book.

Homerun.

Reading this in 2020 it's very hard to imagine some of these fantastic authors were just getting started back when this book was published in 1979. The table of contents reads like a who's who of tried and true DAW published authors from the 70s and 80s.

Everything is original to this anthology, and honestly, there are only a few stories I have encountered elsewhere. Norton's Witch World, Cole's Voidal, Lee's Cyrion, Saunder's Imaro, Schweitzer's Sir Julien, and Wellman's Kardios all have stories in this collection.

E.C. Tubb has a story called Blood in the Mist that was perhaps my favorite. Never knew Tubb had penned S&S. The introduction to the story states that there were two other stories one published in Weird Tales and one in Witchcraft and Sorcery. I would really like to read those. Some folks on FB helped me to discover that two paperbacks were published about Malkar: Death God's Doom and The Sleeping City. Both are outrageously priced but Amazon offers them both in digital.

The editors Gerald W. Page and hank Reinhardt also have stories in this collection and I enjoyed both.

Several authors were new to me: Don Walsh, A. E. Silas, and F. Paul Wilson. I look forward to learning more about them.

I feel like this collection is a must have for any S&S collection.

Recommended!