{"id":16451,"date":"2022-03-01T19:09:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T00:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=16451"},"modified":"2022-03-01T19:09:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T00:09:55","slug":"renegade-swords-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=16451","title":{"rendered":"‘Renegade Swords III’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This is not a review, but a promotion. <\/strong>I have a story in the recently released anthology, Renegade Swords III.<\/a><\/em> I was approached by the compiler, who paid me a small fee for rights to the story. It was originally published long, long ago in Weird Tales<\/em> (I was delighted to get into Weird Tales<\/em>, once upon a time the home of Robert E. Howard\u2019s Conan).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story is called \u201cMagic\u2019s Price.\u201d It\u2019s about a wizard, berserkers, and a bereaved husband. I know nothing about the other stories, or the authors. But my story alone makes the book worth having. It goes without saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had a melancholy reading experience today<\/strong>. I picked up a bargain e-book, and it started out really well. The prose was excellent, and I liked the characters. I was interested in them. The story drew me in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I came up against the Agenda (or, as you may prefer to put it, my bigotry). The central problem of the story involved a homosexual being blackmailed, back in the early 1950s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I always cringe when they bring in \u201cgay\u201d themes. Aside from my beliefs on sexual morality, male homosexuality gives me the willies. I think that\u2019s true for all \u201cstraight\u201d (what we used to call normal) men, if they haven\u2019t been brainwashed. But I could put up with it as a realistic plot element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, that wasn\u2019t enough for the author. He had to make it an issue. Had to preach repeatedly on the importance of normalizing homosexuality, of bringing it into the mainstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, sadly, I put the book aside unfinished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was good enough that I think I ought to at least mention it here: Murder by the Book, <\/a><\/em>by Eric Brown. As I mentioned, the writing was very good. You might enjoy it, if you\u2019re more enlightened than I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not a review, but a promotion. I have a story in the recently released anthology, Renegade Swords III. I was approached by the compiler, who paid me a small fee for rights to the story. It was originally published long, long ago in Weird Tales (I was delighted to get into Weird Tales, … Continue reading ‘Renegade Swords III’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,13],"tags":[4088,4087,4089,4086,2572],"class_list":["post-16451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reading","tag-eric-brown","tag-magics-price","tag-murder-by-the-book","tag-renegade-swords-iii","tag-short-stories"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16452,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16451\/revisions\/16452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}