*Renegade Swords III* cover art by Brian LeBlanc

Two years ago DMR Books released the first Renegade Swords anthology. With stories by Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Manly Wade Wellman and more, it was an instant smash hit. The second volume, featuring stories by Michael Moorcock and Karl Edward Wagner, appeared a year later. And now, Renegade Swords III is on its way!

The concept of the Renegade Swords series was to collect obscure or overlooked sword-and-sorcery stories that wouldn’t fit in elsewhere. The tales in RS III are the most obscure yet (but no less worth reading), as not one has ever been reprinted before!

Kicking things off is the novelette “A Ship of Monstrous Fortune” by Adrian Cole (a name you’ll be seeing a lot on DMR titles this year). It’s a dark tale of two warriors who paid a steep price for immortality, and joined “the grim crew of the ship that sailed beyond worlds, beyond time.” Following that is James Cawthorn’s one and only tale of the hero Handar the Red, which was originally published in Tarzan Adventures in 1958. Cawthorn is best known for his illustrations of Michael Moorcock’s work, and Renegade Swords III will include his own depictions of Handar. Next will be a story from the late ‘80s incarnation of Weird Tales, “Magic’s Price” by Lars Walker, a Nordic-themed tale of a berserker who asks a boon of a wizard.

In 1953 the small press SSR Publications released an anthology entitled Shanadu in very limited quantities. It’s notable for being the first shared world anthology in the fantasy genre, as well as being the publication where Brian McNaughton (of The Throne of Bones fame) made his debut. While copies of Shanadu are hard to find today, the stories won’t be for much longer, as all three of them will appear in Renegade Swords III!

The release of Renegade Swords III is scheduled for early March. It will be published in trade paperback and digital editions.

Stories included:

“A Ship of Monstrous Fortune” by Adrian Cole
“Handar the Red” by James Cawthorn
“Magic’s Price” by Lars Walker
“Quest of the Veil” by Gene DeWeese
“The Fire-Born” by W. Paul Ganley
“The Black Tower” by Brian McNaughton and Robert E. Briney

*Arminius, Bane of Eagles* cover art by Brian LeBlanc

What else does DMR Books have in store in 2022? May will see the release of an anthology of new fiction entitled Terra Incognita: Lost Worlds of Fantasy and Adventure. The theme of the anthology, as the title indicates, is the discovery of lost worlds, and the perils and adventures that result. This project is the brainchild of Weirdbook editor Doug Draa, and he’s assembled a stellar lineup of authors for it, including Howard Andrew Jones, S.E. Lindberg, and Adrian Cole. Speaking of Cole, you may have already heard the news about his upcoming alternate history/fantasy series, War On Rome. If you haven’t, you can read about it in this post. The first novel in the series, Arminius, Bane of Eagles, will be out in the fall, and we’re planning a few things to make its release even more special. More details as they develop. Also in the fall, we’ll release the Samhain Sorceries anthology. I’m still wading through the submissions, but I can promise you that it will be one you won’t want to miss. 2022 looks to be another great year for sword-and-sorcery!