Like most dedicated readers I have a groaning TBR pile, literal and figurative, that I don’t anticipate ever getting to the bottom of. I don’t worry so much about it; while I sometimes despair I will never read every book I want to in my lifetime, I do like the TBR because it gives me something to look forward to, and adds urgency to finishing my current book so that I can get on with the next.

But, the TBR pile does prevent me from hopping on board with reviews of the latest books and periodicals. It takes an event of significance to move a newly purchased title to its top, and that was the case when I received my copy of Schuyler Hernstrom’s Thune’s Vision at the beginning of June.

After ripping open the package and glorying in the gorgeous cover art, I put down whatever else I was reading and plowed through its 175 pages in two sessions. And loved every minute. I gushed about Thune’s Vision a bit on the latest episode of Rogues in the House in their Bazaar of the Bizarre segment, but now that I have time and can give it some thought, I thought I’d offer up proper review.

The short review: This volume can stand alongside most sword-and-sorcery/sword-and-planet published during the heyday of the 1960s and ‘70s. That’s about the highest praise I can give it.

Hernstrom is a new writer of note, and one that we who love this type of thing sorely need. His excellence cannot be boiled down to a single pithy line, but here are a few things I enjoy about his writing:

Denseness of ideas and imagery. One of the things that attracts me to good sword-and-sorcery/sword-and-planet—and what elevates it above most high fantasy—is world-building with short deft strokes and suggestion, instead of turgid pages of infodump and needless description. Hernstrom channels the likes of Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard by introducing us to believable and often alien landscapes in short stories, some fewer than 10 pages. His imagination is fertile and deep.
A compelling prose style that both harkens strongly to the likes of Jack Vance, but is also unique. Hernstrom adds a few fine poetic turns to his stories, but it’s never florid or arch, and is modern and approachable.
Dangerousness of vision. There are unexpected violent turns, brutality, an uncompromising hardness to these stories. Usually something to make you think, without being didactic or overtly political. For example, you will find commentary on the futility of violence but also its ineluctable nature (we’re a violent species), and of the need to balance the masculine and feminine in us, and the danger of letting one side dominate and the other wither. The grimness and harshness is broken by occasional moments of levity, either dark humor in the style of Vance, or playfulness in the dialogue of his two most notable protagonists, Mortu and Kyrus.

The new Pilum Press volume Thune’s Vision is a 175-page collection of eight short stories. Five of these appeared in a first printing of Thune’s Vision, published in 2016. Three are new to this collection. Pilum Press launched a Kickstarter to generate some hype and cover printing costs in March. 125 pledges (self included) totaling $6,675 surpassed its modest goal of $5,000 and I got my hardcover right on time.

For this version Hernstrom supplements five reprinted short stories with three original tales, including “The Palace of the Androgyne,” “Alien Mercy” and “Servants of the War God.” The last is a tale of Mortu and Kyrus, a roguish pair that are a bit of an homage to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but also unique and original: Kyrus is a philosopher trapped in a monkey’s body, Mortu a motorcycle riding warrior of the wastelands, owing as much to Mad Max as a barbarian of the cold Northern wastes.

These are not just sword-and-sorcery. Some stories are perhaps classified as hard-edged planetary romance or post-apocalyptic SF. My expectations were subverted, in a good way.

I liked just about every story in the volume, but a few more than others. The only one that failed to resonate was “Alien Mercy.” Even with this one I did appreciate the depiction of hollowed out mills and suburban ruin, and the threat of nuclear annihilation that I felt as a kid growing up in the early 1980s, mixed with a more modern climate crisis angle. The story is very well-written, and feels like something between Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury, but I thought it didn’t quite accomplish what it set out to do. IMO, of course.

The rest of this collection is pretty uniformly great. My favorites were “The Challenger’s Garland,” “Athan and the Priestess,” and “The Saga of Adalwolf.”

“The Challenger’s Garland” is wonderful, in every way. Perhaps a bit telegraphed at the end, but it doesn’t matter: the execution is what matters, and this story pulls you immediately and viscerally into a weird, strange world where two warriors who have never lost a duel are drawn together in an inevitable, mythic clash. A great opener.

“Athan and the Priestess” sends a warlord through a mysterious ensorcelled barrier to a land ruled by women, on a mission of conquest. To get there he needs to enlist the magical aid of a sea witch, a beautiful but duplicitous being that Hernstrom brings to life, vividly: “Athan stepped back with a start as he watched a woman rise from the water. Her skin was smooth and blue white, the pristine hue of the freshly drowned. Water flowed from her black hair which reached past her waist, locks interwoven with kelp and seashells, laying across her heavy hips and breast.” The women of Ullin in their decaying paradise know nothing of war, but Athan’s people, rude raiders of the steppe, know naught of peace. The clash results in something memorable.

“The Saga of Adalwolf,” the longest story, channels the Northern Thing which I love so much. It is grim as all hell, a classic story of revenge with all the futility and ruin that comes with an inability to say, ”enough.” It’s also a warning of the dangers of pride and ignoring fate and the will of the gods and their favors. Odin makes an appearance, and shield walls, and ravens, and great victories and catastrophic defeats, all the stuff I’m drawn to like a magnet. As soon as I read the epigraph to the story, channeling REH and Icelandic Saga, I knew it was going to be awesome:

Fear is the heat of the forge, the beating of the hammer. If the iron is good then a good blade may come of it. If the iron is poor then something brittle and useless will be born and broken soon after. When you face men across the field of battle, then we will see what kind of iron you are made of. You have my blood in you. Trust in it, and bring no shame upon our tribe. And be wary. Victory will test your iron in ways defeat cannot. Remember your brothers, your kin, your fealty to the gods.

So, go ahead and buy and read Thune’s Vision, which will be made broadly available today, and rejoice that we have such a splendid voice to carry on all that we love about S&S, S&P, and the Weird tale.

Brian Murphy is the author of Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery (Pulp Hero Press, 2020). Learn more about his life and work on his website, The Silver Key. He previously reviewed Hernstrom’s The Eye of Sounnu for DMR Books, here.