Reviewed by Robert Runté
Khyber is a collection of sword and sorcery stories by Winnipeg author, Chadwick Ginther. The stories all share the setting of the great city of Khyber, though a city with its best days behind it. Think Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork without Lord Vetinari to keep things running smoothly, or D.G. Valdron’s city in the Mermaid’s Tale. Ginther’s protagonists are Red, a young orphaned sword woman, and Needle, a tailor/assassin. I like them a lot. They are vaguely reminiscent of Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, my own personal favourites of the sword and sorcery genre.
Ginther, however, is writing more in the tradition of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian. Lots of fantasy has swords and sorcerers, but unlike Tolkienesque fantasy, the Conan variety often edges a fair distance further into weird horror. Ginther’s stories feature spider gods, rat armies, unstoppable fungus, quests to the isle of the dead, and cannibal cults. If any of that sounds like something out of the 1930s pulp magazine Weird Tales, then Ginther has achieved his goal. His writing has a certain flair that puts him right up there with Robert E. Howard or Lovecraft, or even Fritz Lieber. I look forward to more Red and Needle stories.
The collection also includes 32 maps and images by GMB Chomichuk. These are more arcane than directly illustrative of the stories, but contribute to the atmosphere of ancient mystery and forgotten civilizations.
Which brings us to Shared World by Ball, Chomichuk, Gillespie and Ginter. Khyber became the city at the centre of work by all four authors, a shared universe they each participated in, and to which they now invite other writers to contribute. The Shared World collection duplicates two of Ginther’s stories from the Khyber collection, and introduces two stories by Ball and two collaborations by Chomichuk and Gillespie. Although each of these others’ stories are distinct from Ginther’s, they all fit comfortably within the Weird Tales vibe and all are fine examples of the S&S genre.
Shared World also includes an introduction by the great Mexican-Canadian literary horror writer, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and an afterword by the equally talented S. M. Beiko.
If I had to choose, I would likely recommend picking up Khyber first: if you do not enjoy it, then sword and sorcery is probably not for you. But if you need a break from your regular CanLit reading, or a break from reality, then these collections may fit the bill. They are engaging and accessible narratives, quick reads, and a nice exercise in world building. Horror, yes, but the sort of horror that says, “You may have problems, but at least they aren’t this.” And if you are a writer at all, well, I know I am myself more than a little tempted to try my hand at contributing to the open-ended world of Khyber and its environs.
Both collections are published by Stranger Fiction (Winnipeg).
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