NEW POSTS FOR 2020!!!

Starting tomorrow I'll be returning from a hiatus to bring you 2 weeks worth of monsters from the godfather of Sword and Soul, Charles Saunders. If you follow me on Instagram you've probably noticed I've been obsessed with Saunders' work this year. It started out with a short story in the Daw anthology Amazons! that featured his (surprisingly dora milaje-esqe) female warrior Dossouye. I was taken with how he wrote action sequences and his excellent and new (to me) take on monsters (a mixture of pulp cosmic horror and continent wide African mythology). 

I searched his name and discovered he wrote the Imaro series (Saunders' take on a heroic fantasy character set in a fictional Africa) but that it's popular success/exposure was hindered due to some pretty unforgivable publisher mistakes. However, when you find someone that has gotten their hands on these stories, they fucking love them. LOVE them. I dove in and the same thing happened to me. Imaro is like Conan or Kane but with a more thought out, well organized arc that spans 4 novels. Whereas Howard's Conan tales dip in and out of the heroes life without consideration for continuity, Imaro is on a quest and and we follow him from beginning to end. He also has more personality. He's got weaknesses, he's got friends and traveling companions (with backstories of their own), he's got loss, he's got passion and we see him learn.  I was prosthelytizing to anyone who would listen. Everyone needed to read Saunders. Especially the Imaro stories. 

In total I've read all 9 of Saunders' novels, one collection of short stories and 8 stories I've tracked down in zines and anthologies. And in those stories I've found monsters. Oh, the monsters I've found. I can't wait to show you the wizard with vitiligo who gets a lion's head and a waterbuffalo's ears and horns. Or the mangabaan that are split down the middle half man, half rock. There's also the azuth that's like a centaur if the top was a gorilla and the bottom was a buffalo. HOLY SHIT there's so many. It starts tomorrow. Get ready.

ALSO, for your own sake, go read some Saunders!
Imaro
Dossouye
Abengoni
Damballa