Sword and Sorceress XV [Paperback]

Marion Zimmer Bradley (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Sword and Sorceress | Publication Date: January 1, 1998

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress series has always featured the best in contemporary women's fantasy, and this outstanding new volume carries on the tradition! These original stories of brave, talented, and heroic women will take readers through enchanted realms of the imagination into danger both physical and mystical, where the only way to survive is through the power of sword and spell.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: DAW; First Edition edition (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886777682
• ISBN-13: 978-0886777685
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #896,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Writing is a beautiful escape for me - while I take crafting a story, poem or non-fiction book seriously, writing is also a controlled environment where things can make sense, or can be as I would wish them to be. My life is pretty crazy! I work as a choir director, voice teacher and occasional performer (music is my college degree). I have two special needs kids (one with moderate/severe autism, and one with HLHS - a major congenital heart defect) and a website that I created to help parents of special-needs and medically fragile kids (www.thecompletecaregiver.com). I hope one day, in addition to serving parent-caregivers, to create jobs for people with autism in my Asheville, NC community, if the business end of my Complete Caregiver work comes through. I also am working to spread the help my site and book can give as far and wide as I can, through speaking engagements, and working with physicians, medical and therapeutic professionals, families and parents. My children have given me inspiration to reach out to others in our community of families with medically fragile and developmentally disabled kids. My book "The Complete Caregiver Journal Workbook" is an effort to help simplify the complexity of medical information, caregiving needs and self-care from an organizational and stress management point of view. I keep it in my purse all the time, as I never know when I'll need it! The "fantasy" writing I do is also a labor or love - fantasy and science fiction being my favorite genre's, with mysteries following a close third. I was honored to be included twice in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword & Sorceress anthology. The story "Oaths" in volume XV, was my first attempt at publication, so it has a special place in my heart as the story that affirmed me as a writer. I still have stories and novels waiting to be finished, with characters that pop into my head as if impatient to move on from where I left them ("Oops! I guess I did leave you alone in that motel room surrounded by supernatural enemies...um...Sorry..."). I hope to finish more of these tales in the years to come, writing in the cracks of life where the inspiration seeps in and meets time, effort and whatever ability I can bring to the process.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Great Book--A Classic Series, November 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sword and Sorceress XV (Paperback)

Reading this book, I found it difficult to put down. I really enjoy a good short story, and I rarely find a book in which I like ALL the short stories. An Excellent read!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good collection, possibly the best of a fine series., April 10, 2000

By 

James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sword and Sorceress XV (Paperback)

The Sword And Sorceress series is a series of collections of short stories, of traditional "sword and sorcery" style, but with women as main protagonists. Marion Zimmer Bradley always explains in her introductions that she began the series because in traditional sword and sorcery, what female characters are to be found are invariably "bad conduct prizes" for the (male) main characters.

It's a fine series, and this volume may just be the best; there was not a bad story in the lot, although I wasn't really taken with "Shimmering Scythe", by Vera Nazarian, and had serious doubts about the ending of "A Matter Of Names", by Cynthia Ward. But I WAS very taken by "Oaths", by Lynn Morgan Rosser, perhaps the best of a very good lot, and there were also a number of stories that continued the exploits of characters found in previous volumes, all of which were a pleasure, a renewal of old friendships: "The Sick Rose", by Dorothy Heydt, continues the adventures of Cynthia, the witch of Syracuse; "Skin Deep" by Heather Rose Jones, continues the stories of Laaki, Asholi, and Eysla the skin-changers; "Spring Snow", by Diana Paxson, the adventures of Bera, apprentice Norse wisewoman; and "The Dragon's Horde", by Elisabeth Waters and Raul S. Reyes, the adventures of Princess Rowena and the dragon. If you've enjoyed any of the other collections in this series, you are more than very likely to enjoy this one; if you're not familiar with the series, this is as good an introduction as any.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent stories-don't worry about genders., April 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sword and Sorceress XV (Paperback)

This is a great compilation of stories. Period. It's nice to see good writing with main characters as women, but it is the overall quality of the writing that has drawn me back to series, not the theme of it.