Last year DMR Books released Heroes of Atlantis & Lemuria, which quickly became one of our most popular titles. This anthology contained all of Manly Wade Wellman’s tales of Kardios, the last survivor of Atlantis—or so I thought…

It’s common knowledge that five Kardios stories appeared in the ‘70s: four in the Swords Against Darkness series and one in Heroic Fantasy. However, I recently discovered that there was in fact a sixth and final Kardios tale which was written shortly before Wellman’s death. This was startling news, for when I asked Wellman’s estate if there were any more Kardios stories besides the five from the ‘70s, I was told there were not. The information on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database confirmed this.

This put me in a difficult situation. I had just published a book that was supposed to be a complete Kardios collection. What were my options? I couldn’t reprint a new edition containing the missing story, as that wouldn’t be fair to everyone who had already bought it.

Eventually I settled on a solution. Next month DMR Books will release a new anthology of rare, obscure, and overlooked sword-and-sorcery stories entitled Renegade Swords. The last Kardios tale, “The Slaughter of the Gods,” will be included, alongside tales by some of the greatest authors in the genre—Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, to name two. More details will be revealed next week… so stay tuned!