If the only thing DMR Books ever did was introduce readers to new, kick-ass Sword & Sorcery writers, it would have been enough to earn them a place of honor on the shelves of every true genre fan.

Fortunately for us, Mr. Ritzlin has elected to go one further. From DMR Books' earliest days, they've been committed to publishing high-quality reprints of unjustly forgotten classics of Sword & Sorcery, Science Fantasy, and Historical Adventure.

While it's hard for me to pick a favorite reprint volume off of DMR's impressive list, I'd say the edge goes to Poul Anderson's Swordsmen From the Stars. Fact is, Anderson is one of the very best authors the the genre ever produced, effortlessly writing anything from Hard SF to retold Viking Sagas over his five-decade career.

That said, most of his earlier work has remained stubbornly out of print. The reasons for this are certainly many, with shifting editorial tastes at the Big Publishing Houses probably being chief among them. Single-author short story collections have historically been a hard sell. Even worse, much of Anderson's short work from those early days violated later, unspoken editorial taboos against "genre mixing."

To put it simply, by the 1980s, "books with rocket ships" and "books with swords" were distinct marketing categories. Stories that mixed them as freely as Anderson did were plain out of fashion.

Which is just one reason why Fantasy, a 1981 title from Tor books, was such a rare treasure.

Part of the Jim Baen Presents line, Fantasy is weighted towards Anderson's older work, if only just. Of the eleven fiction pieces featured, six of them first appeared in 1960 or earlier.

Of those, at least half have rarely ever been reprinted.

The collection is divided into three sections, each featuring a group of loosely-connected stories and a non-fiction essay. By loosely-connected, I don't necessarily mean they share characters or continuity. I mean they can be grouped by a rough similarity of theme or setting.

The groupings are, for the most part, logical. The first section is "Historical."

The first story in the book is "House Rule," a tale of the Old Phoenix tavern. The Old Phoenix is a sort of cross dimensional watering hole, featured in several of Anderson's stories. People from any timeline or reality can meet there, and it's not remarkable to see Leonardo da Vinci sharing drinks with Albert Einstein, while Sancho Panza (of Don Quixote fame) hangs out with formless entities beyond comprehension. In this tale, the unnamed narrator bears witness to a reunion of star-crossed lovers.

The next story is "The Tale of Hauk," a frequently-reprinted story of Norse warriors, ill omens, and family obligations. Originally appearing in Andrew Offutt's legendary Swords Against Darkness anthology, it's the Anderson short most likely to be familiar to S&S fans.

That said, a reread of this story reminded me of just how fantastic it is. Few writers have ever done "That Northern Thing" as well as Anderson at the top of his game, and he's firing on all cylinders here. "The Tale of Hauk" feels authentic in a way no other Sword & Sorcery tales do.

The first section ends with "Of Pigs and Men," a witty, tongue-in-cheek history of the Aryan people of Northern Europe. Like "Hauk," this essay is a refugee of Andrew Offutt's Swords Against Darkness series, originally appearing in volume IV.

Section two is "A-Historical," and is where this collection really begins to shine.

The first tale here is "A Logical Conclusion." It originally appeared in the November, 1960 issue Fantastic Stories of the Imagination under the more appropriate title, "A World to Choose." It's one of the rarely-reprinted stories, appearing only three times since its initial publication.

In this story, a meek and unassuming 20th century man named Carl Greenough has his mind and memories dropped into another world, into the body of a northern pirate named Kendrith of Narr. The Goddess who affected the switch needs an "outsider" with strange ways of thinking (read: technology) to help one of her devotees win a war. Greenough, a former conscript in the Korean War, understands things like airborne operations, and helps the Goddess' people invent gliders.

The story details the climactic battle in the war, and it's full of Anderson's trademark blood-and-thunder. It also deals with the irresistible pull Greenough feels to this world. When his mission is over, he can go home. But after two years living a life of high adventure and excitement, does he really want to?

Next are "The Valor of Cappen Varra" (1957) and "The Gate of Flying Knives" (1979), two tales of Anderson's swashbuckling bard. In the first, Cappen Varra falls in with a band of Vikings, and ends up confronting a troll. It's a fun, witty adventure tale.

The second, written decades later, is part of the Thieves' World shared universe. In it, Cappen Varra must find two missing women, one of whom is his current lover. In terms of tone and pacing, it's similar to the first, but it features more action and swordplay.

Overall, the Cappen Varra tales feel a lot like Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. They have the same mix of wit, humor, and adventure. I found myself wishing there were more stories in the sequence. (According to ISFDB, there is a third story of Cappen Varra. It appeared in the October-November 2001 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a few months after Anderson's death.)

After the Cappen Vara stories is "The Barbarian," a brilliantly funny parody of Conan and Conan-like characters. Originally appearing in 1956, it's been reprinted a handful of times over the years.

The section closes out with Anderson's most famous essay, "On Thud and Blunder." Originally appearing in Swords Against Darkness III, this essay likely needs no introduction to readers of the DMR blog. Anderson covers the need for some degree of realism and logic in Heroic Fantasy, in order to create verisimilitude.

The last section is "It Could Happen to You," and mostly features tales where the fantastical meets the modern or the futuristic.

The first story in this section is "Interloper," and is one of the absolute standouts of the collection. Rarely ever reprinted, this story posits a scientific explanation for Elves, Vampires, and other assorted mythical creatures. An alien resembling a Nordic elf lands on earth, only to learn other aliens (which have given rise to other Earth legends) have already claimed the planet as their own. But more than one of these "aliens" is hiding something.

The elves' pseudo-scientific portrayal in this story will be familiar to anyone who has ever read either The Broken Sword or Three Hearts and Three Lions. To my knowledge, this is the first time Anderson plays with the concept, giving the story added historical value.

"The Pact" is a wickedly funny story of a demon summoning a man to Hell to do his bidding. But the man in question is an astronomer, and has some tricks of his own. It's Dr. Faustus inverted, updated, and looked at sideways.

It's hard to imagine another writer pulling it off. Anderson makes it look effortless.

"Superstition" is another rarely-reprinted story. It posits a post apocalyptic future where magic, ritual, and witchcraft have risen back to prominence. Society has rebuilt, and is once again reaching to the stars, but blind faith in science and scientific principles—absent an underlying spiritual or metaphysical cause—is now seen as backwards and superstitious. Astronauts have a seer on every flight, sigils and signs are painted on every rocket.

On a routine Mars flight, trouble arises when the newest member of the crew doesn't believe in the seer's power. He clings to a "superstitious" belief in science, and when disaster strikes, the rest of the crew blames him.

"Fantasy in the Age of Science" is another essay, this one original to the collection. In it, Anderson gives a brief tour of the genre's history, and what sets it apart from Science Fiction.

"The Visitor" is a hauntingly beautiful tale of ESP, fate, and life after death.

The last fiction piece in the book is "Bullwinch's Mythology." Originally appearing in the October 1967 issue of Galaxy Magazine under the title "Poulfinch's Mythology," it's a darkly funny satire of works like those of Graves and Bullfinch. In some unspecified future, the scholar Bullwinch details the pantheon of 20th Century America.

The collection finishes off with Afterword by Sandra Meisel, which offers a thoughtful and insightful retrospective on Anderson's fantasy work.

Overall, this is a remarkably solid collection. The editor did a praiseworthy job selecting the tales and essays. Grouping them along thematically coherent lines helped to create a sense of weight and momentum, one you usually don't find in single-author collections.

If you're an Anderson fan, I highly recommend you track this book down. It's worth owning for the rare stories alone.

If you're not an Anderson fan, track it down anyway.

I guarantee by the time you finish reading it, you will be.