I Read Stories: Swords And Sorcery Magazine Issue 162, July 2025

 

Swords And Sorcery Magazine Issue 162, July 2025

Little Layti’s Labyrinth by Libra Kivi

A troupe of actors, including veterans from the wars, prepare to put on a traditional play for the festival. Everyone knows the story. But there’s something wrong with the theatre, or the troupe, or the play. Perhaps they’re haunted. When one of the company vanishes under the stage, those who go after them are drawn into the past and learn another version of events.

Scenes of historical action and drama are put into context; the observers familiar with alternative ones. And more is at risk that just the festival.

Or It Might Have Ended Thus… by James Lecky

In the endless night, the men of the last city go out to hunt the monsters. So it has been since the sun vanished, destroyed by a monster. Yet not every hunt is the same. And Solon and a Gaunt fell in love. Such a love can only end in tragedy. Yet which ending?

A story that feels legendary in it’s darkness,  uncompromising violence and destruction, and also in it’s view of love. And how it can only end poorly. Yet the story refuses the two tragedies it offers, despite the need to eat human flesh.

My Mother, Dragonslayer by e rathke

The clans are at peace. Mother is a warrior, and also a witch, her children born of a wolf. So passes life until refugees appear, running from the dragon. She goes to face it, and it is terrible, awful, burns her so badly the deathwalkers come. But her child will not let her die, and so begins the legend. Yet they remember her before the legend.

A third story on the theme of different versions of stories, though in this one we re given the one true origin. Another legendary feel to it, moving from a not-idyllic but peaceful start, to a dark ending.

The Dream-Quest Of Well-Known Kawtar by Luana Saitta

Princess Kawtar is experimenting with alchemy to the dismay of her bodyguard Zeynep. An experiment goes wrong propelling her to a mirror-dream-realm where she must confront distorted versions of her own fears and temptations. Meanwhile back in the mortal realm Zeynep finds Kawtar replaced by a demon, and attempts to find a wizard to return her.

This story, nothing to do with versions of tales and with a title that’s a fairly bad pun, isn’t quite the light-hearted escapade it seems. Light-hearted compared to the others in this issue perhaps, but Kawtar has to face real problems, while Zeynep is nastily betrayed. A fine ending to the issue… except…

Kairos: Something… This Way Comes by Jason M Waltz

A non-fiction piece in which the opening line of a Robert E Howard story is taken apart, put back together and proclaimed the greatest. I’m not convinced but I did enjoy the effort, there's plenty to consider in this well-constructed argument.

Read This: An especially strong issue of Swords And Sorcery Magazine.
Don’t Read This: You don’t want swords OR sorcery