Like the trees and wildflowers themselves, which must spend time dormant only to return to vibrant life once again in an endless cycle, the adventures of Kellan Oakes, druid-raised private investigator, go on and on and on. The most recent installment in the saga of the man with roots in both the modern world and the Deep Woods is entitled “Abandonment and Possession” and is included in the anthology Sidearm & Sorcery, Volume Three – available now!

There is more exciting Kellan Oakes news yet to come, so be sure to check in regularly here at the blog for future announcements!

I’m pleased to announce that my short story “Abandonment and Possession” has been accepted to appear in Sidearm & Sorcery Volume Three, coming later this year. The contract has been signed, so let the word go out! This will be the eleventh Kellan Oakes story I’ve had published, bringing us yet another step closer to the inevitable Kellan Oakes Omnibus! Of course I’m always pleased to announce a short story sale, particularly when it extends the long chain of Kellan Oakes’s adventures, but this instance is particularly gratifying for another reason.

I’ve brought it up many times before, but at the risk of wearing the anecdote out, my career as a published short story writer begins with a piece of short experimental fiction in an anthology titled How the West Was Weird v. 2. A small group of writers, some of whom I knew through various internet fandom spaces, brought How the West Was Weird into the world, and when they decided to proceed with a second volume, their goal was to make something even bigger and better. So one of those acquaintances reached out to me, and in a stroke of great luck I already had a story in reserve that fit the weird west theme. I sent “The Demon Wrestler” to the editor, he accepted it, and the story saw print.

When discussion inevitably turned to a potential third volume in the How the West Was Weird series, I was looped in from the beginning. I wrote a new story from scratch, and once again earned a place in the anthology’s table of contents. That proved to be the final installment, but by then I had gotten into a more productive writing routine, earned another acceptance at a completely different publisher, and indicated my interest in a different series with the How the West Was Weird publisher. That series was the PulpWork Holiday Specials, my first contribution to which was the very first Kellan Oakes story, so not only is this my origin story for short fiction publishing in general, it’s more or less the druid private eye’s instigation point as well.

My one regret, if that’s even the right word, was always that the stars hadn’t aligned for me to be a part of the first volume of How the West Was Weird. If I had been, I could have appeared in every volume of the trilogy, and that would have been a nice accomplishment in and of itself. Human beings love patterns, repetitions, and things that come in threes, and I’m no exception to the allure.

So my happiness at the latest Kellan Oakes story finding a home is all the greater because it marks my first complete anthology trilogy, lo these thirteen or so years after I chanced sideways into a volume two. I should add that I have no insight into the S&S publisher’s intentions for the series. There may be a Volume Four someday, or more, and I will happily continue writing and submitting Kellan Oakes stories for as long as the opportunity presents itself. But for now, I’m deeply content to have a footprint in the first three volumes, come what may.

Sidearm & Sorcery Volume Two is out now! Get your copy here, and if you still haven’t acquired a copy of Volume One, it remains available as well, right here.

I wrote a post a while back, in anticipation of Volume One, in which I tried to define the sword and sorcery genre in order to explain how the premise of the book was S&S through the lens of urban fantasy. That holds true enough, but I recently ran across an elaboration on the subject of sword and sorcery which felt especially relevant in light of Volume Two.

In the above-mentioned post I talked about the protagonists and antagonists of sword and sorcery stories, but not the stakes. If the formula pits skilled but not supernatural heroes against more powerful, supernatural villains, does that make Lord of the Rings a sword and sorcery story? Gandalf is a wizard and Aragorn is a member of the long-lived Dunedain, but Frodo and Sam are the ultimate everyman characters. However, Lord of the Rings is high fantasy because Frodo and Sam go on a quest to destroy the most powerful weapon in the world, to prevent a diabolical evil force from conquering the entire world, and coincidentally help restore a royal dynasty and bring about the end of one age and dawning of another.

Sword and sorcery has far less to do with the fate of all existence or the preservation of life as we know it, or global politics, or the sweep of history. The S&S protagonist fights against the odds for mere survival, and the stories unfold on a smaller, more personal scale. Whether the hero carries the day or succumbs, the larger world will continue on its own trajectory, unbothered.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both high fantasy and sword and sorcery, and just about every other speculative subgenre out there. But I was struck by this observation about the lower stakes of S&S in particular when considering my own story, “Personal Mythologies”, which has a distinct lack of capital-E Evil and reality-shattering consequences. I might have attributed this solely to my conception of Kellan Oakes as a low-key, somewhat lazy individual who often gets caught up in the weird, but as it turns out it’s perfectly appropriate for a sidearm and sorcery protagonist.

Having just signed the contract this morning, I am please to announce the following trio of good news items: Sidearm & Sorcery is returning this year for Volume Two, I will have another story in the anthology, and that story is a new adventure of everyone’s favorite druid-by-blood, slacker-by-choice private eye, Kellan Oakes.

“Personal Mythologies” finds Kellan on a case with an unexpectedly intimate connection to his younger years, hence the heavily literary reference I indulged in for the title of this post. I’ve written Kellan Oakes stories set earlier in his life before, but this one is much more about the ripple effects of the choices he once made, and how the past has gut-wrenching ways of catching up with us.

More info to come when a release date is announced for Sidearm & Sorcery, Volume Two. For now I will leave you with the following image, a tantalizing hint as to what “Personal Mythologies” has in store …

Please forgive the terrible pun, but I couldn’t resist once again combining references to both Conan the Barbarian, and his pseudo-historical setting in the Hyborian Age, and my own creation Kellan Oakes, born the son of a druid priestess and raised amidst her pseudo-mystical arboreal culture. The latest Kellan Oakes adventure, “The Undying Past”, is now available in the new anthology Sidearm & Sorcery!

The book is full of all-original stories, which means Conan himself does not appear, but there is a thematic connection, which I explained in depth in a previous blog post and won’t rehash here.

As for announcing the release itself, technically this book came out in the waning days of 2021, at least in Kindle format. But it is now available in both e-book and paperback formats, so don’t delay – get your copy today!