Music to Waar By

My friend Nathan Long has a new book out, Swords of Waar, a real blast of a sword-and-planet romp. I got to read it and its predecessor in rough draft, and they were a helluva lot of fun, and hard to put down. But I’d expect nothing less from Nathan, who’s responsible for some excellent, excellent heroic fiction in the Warhammer universe. His Blackhearts omnibus really ought to be required reading for anyone who intends to write sword-and-sorcery, and I’m looking forward to reading his next two Ulrika books, because the first one knocked me out.

Swords of Waar is the second of Nathan’s take on Barsoomian style action adventure, with a tough biker chick cast in the role usually reserved for John Carter rip-offs. To celebrate its release, Nathan came up with a rock-and-roll playlist on his web site.

And that list was so inspiring, a couple of my other sword-and-sorcery writer friends came up with playlists of their own, for their own work. Here’s a list from John Fultz, creator of Seven Princes and fellow Black Gate author. And here’s a soundtrack for some of the works of Alex Bledsoe, best known for his Eddie LaCrosse books. Speaking of Alex Bledsoe, he’s got a new short story up at Apex magazine, so if you’ve been curious about his work, you can try a sample of it for free right here.

And, hey, as long as I’m providing links to free reading stuff, let me follow up on a link to a preview of a new Martha Wells novel coming out next year, the steam punkish Emilie and the Hollow World.

There’s a little less than 30 days between now and the release of The Bones of the Old Ones! I’ll be talking a lot more about that in the next few weeks, in all kinds of places. I suppose I should think about a playlist for my own work…