It’s been awhile but it’s time
for another Sword & Sorcery Audiobook Showcase! Let’s go back to March 2022
for Book 10 of Savage Realms Monthly. The Audible version came out a few weeks
ago and with a runtime of a few minutes shy of four hours, it makes it the
longest one yet. We get three three tales as well as author interviews.
Book 10 kicks off with “Black Sunset
in the Valley of Death” by returning author Steve Dilks. It’s an hour and thirty-seven
minutes long, so we’re in novella territory here. We get a fully fleshed-out
tale of Dilks’ Bohun character who first graced the pages of SRM’s first issue
in “The Festival of the Bull.” I’ve also read another story featuring the black
barbarian in the Rogue Blades S&S anthology Neither Beg Nor Yield (“Harvest of the Blood-King”), but I must
say, this here is my favourite of the three. It’s engrossing and is really
tailor-made for fans of Conan. I look forward to more of Bohun’s adventures.
Next up, “The Vampire Tree” by Joe Bonadonna, is the shortest tale here,
running at forty-two minutes. It concerns a mercenary, Thibron the Skulker, who
we will most likely see more of in the future, and his quest to destroy the
titular vampire tree. This is a fun story with noir undertones that moves at a brisk
pace. The final tale, “The Wizard of Kon” by Michael A. Wexler, is an hour and
twenty-one minutes long and features a battle between wizards. I must say this one
dragged a bit and lost its momentum after a while. Fans of wizard tales will
most likely enjoy it, but it didn’t fully resonate with me. Although, it
features the most colourful narration of the three tales from our
always-reliable narrator Moose Matson, so that helped to elevate it for me.
Speaking of narration, Matson
shows no signs of boredom reading those Sword & Sorcery yarns month after
month; it always feels like he’s having a blast narrating and impersonating the
various heroes and villains inhabiting the stories in SRM. His enthusiasm for
the material is contagious and even when a story is only so-so, it raises it up
a few notches. As usual, we get a brief interview with each of the authors and
I enjoy those almost as much as the stories themselves. I’m always curious to
hear about the inception of a character or a tale, and find out who and what
influenced the writer in his/her formative years. Savage Realms Monthly never
disappoints and Book 10 is just as strong as any other issue published thus far.
If you dig Sword & Sorcery, Conan, Dungeons & Dragons or old school
fantasy tales, then you’re in for a treat with these three tales.
Rating: Four
stars out of five
Get Book 10 on Audible
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