"Weichsel gathers fantasy tales that accept that worlds filled with mighty-thewed heroes and unspeakable horrors are not magically free of passionate sex and unpleasant death.

This anthology collects twelve tales of fantasy, each of which shows all of the events of the story rather than drawing a veil over the parts sometimes deemed inappropriate, along with thirteen equally uncensored illustrations by Apolonster.

‘The Gateway of Pleasure’ by Jim Lee. A warrior on patrol discovers a noblewoman has strayed across the border from an enemy kingdom and into danger. Lee weaves in enough south Asian words and concepts to evoke the sense of medieval Vietnam and its mythology without burying the reader in jargon or explanation.

‘Shaven Beards’ by Ross Baxter. Two mercenaries are hired by a dwarven noble to ensure an alchemist doesn’t spread the secret of explosives and to recover the dwarf who went missing while on the same job. Baxter takes pulp and fantasy tropes, such as the beardedness of dwarves, into the region that is usually left to imagination, creating a fast-paced adventure that also pokes fun at the desire to appear young and virile.

‘The Snow Princess’ by Pip Pinkerton. When a moment of bliss reveals that her magical powers were actually the first signs of an ancestral curse, a princess escapes into the wilderness pursued by her lover. Weaving the classic tale of a princess being revealed as the thing her father hates most with the structure of a porn film, Pinkerton presents the reader with multiple scenes that show how ice powers, yetis, and other wintery tropes indulge in sex and violence.

‘Vermina’s Creature’ by Bitter Karella. A sorceress’ lackey exposes themselves to ridicule and degredation to protect the mistress they adore. Karella presents the fantasy trope of a mighty warrior braving the fortress of an evil witchqueen from the perspective of the witchqueen’s reviled toady, explaining without justifying why someone would choose evil.

‘The Baron with a Thousand Cats’ by Gary Every. Unwilling to surrender his bride to the baron on their wedding night, a young cobbler plots a daring scheme to end the noble’s tyranny forever. Blending a traditional folktale with complex characterisation, Every evokes the clear roles of a ballad without letting his characters be confined by the tropes.

‘Windblades’ by C.L. Werner. A samurai investigating the deaths of several members of his clan’s duelling school at the same geisha house is ambushed by demons at his most vulnerable moment. Werner leans into the brutality implicit in the Japanese myth of blade-handed weasels, creating a tale that has more than a veneer of setting but focuses more on fast-paced action and visceral horror than mystery or politics.

‘Flesh and Ink’ by Rebecca Buchanan. A mercenary is sent to investigate the apparent murders of priestesses of the goddess of pleasure by holy ascetics. Mixing the experience of immediate events with light and plausible exposition, Buchanan weaves a tale of intrigue and action in a world where great devotion to a god brings physical changes.

‘Confessions of a Wicked Harpastum Player’ by J. Manfred Weichsel and Alexande Joyner. A young sportswoman faces torture over accusations she has committed witchcraft and sexual assault. Weichsel leans into the ostensible disjunction between classic swords-and-sorcery and college sports, making the absurdity a feature of rather than a distraction from his tale of self-righteousness battling selfishness.

‘Kai-zur the Godless’ by David Carter. A young warrior, fresh from a battle to drive evil from the land, encounters a young woman who captures his love like no other but struggles to escape the clutch her fellow survivors have on his lust. Opening ostensibly with the classic tale of a barbarian hero seducing an innocent maiden and then exposing the shallow cruelty of such acts, Carter weaves his protagonist’s moral struggle against his own vices with a physical struggle against the surviving remnant of the evil he drove back.

‘Abduction from the Seraglio’ by David J. West. When a barbarian hero is paid to rescue a nobleman’s beloved from a despotic ruler, carrying off the wrong woman proves to be only the first problem he must overcome. West tilts a classic sword-and-sorcery plot slightly toward the humorous, adding farcical obstacles to his hero’s efforts to defeat burly guards and evil magics without allowing the tale to slide into parody.

‘The Harem of Al’Azeri’ by Jasiah Witkofsky. A thief’s attempt to escape an aggrieved father proves less than perfect, leading to an escalating chain of confrontations. Combining dramatic action and a grandiloquent narrator, Witkofsky both humour and tension to a tale of a bad night in a brothel.

‘He Who Sows’ by Austin Worley. An impoverished academic and her gladiator friend infiltrate a sacred ziggurat during a pleasure festival to steal the sacred phallus of a god. Worley skirts close to pornography without crossing the line, delivering a tense sword-and-sorcery heist that also features a great deal of sex.

Weichsel’s stated aim in selecting the contents of this anthology is to collect short stories that, while not actively seeking to be erotic or gruesome for the sake of it, are not constrained by the boundaries of broad acceptability that mainstream markets impose. Although some stories have the more graphic aspects at the centre of the plot whereas others display them in how the characters act during the time the plot takes place—meaning some could be told without needing to be graphic—all of the contributions are fully realised stories that do not shy away from showing events in graphic detail rather than threads of narrative that exist for the sake of linking scenes of sex or violence. As such, readers are likely to consider Weischel succeeds in meeting the first half of his criteria, that of stories that are not actively constrained

While some of the stories, due to the direction of their plot, contain no sex, even those that most immediately seem to have earned their place for their body horror often feature sex as well; thus, whether a reader considers the stories are too scandalous for mainstream publication is likely to vary depending on whether they live in a nation that is puritanical about full-frontal nudity in media than about graphic violence.

However, although sex and body horror are arguably the two clearest “scandalous” traits, neither Weichsel nor the contributors consider swords-and-sorcery a sacred cow, meaning that highlighting the absurdities of pulp plots might take third slot.

The stories are united by the swords-and-sorcery tropes of heroes who meet challenges with their own might and will rather than status or authority, and personal rather than epic stakes; however the tone varies from the serious to the farcical. While each story sustains its tone well, in suggestion if not proof of the aphorism that all sex is ridiculous and great sex is doubly so, some readers might find the most serious descriptions of sexual activity sit less well than those which have a deliberate air of the comical.

In addition to an introduction setting forth his intent with the collection, Weichsel provides a brief introduction to each story. These vary from a relatively restrained statement of the contributor’s previous publications and a brief seed of the story, to full-throated declaration that readers are sure to agree the following story would never appear in an ordinary publication. Depending on a reader’s preferences, these barker-esque declarations of the indescribable salaciousness within might support the message that things shouldn’t be taken too seriously or leave a story feeling flat when it fails to meet the hype.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection immensely. I recommend it to readers seeking fantasy that includes the earthier side of human experience without being defined solely by that.

I received an advanced copy from the publisher with a request for a fair review."

"An entertaining tale very loosely based on old testament stories but with an adult theme. Great fun "