The Frozen Citadel E-Book

Richard Blakemore

• Herausgeber: Pegasus Pulp Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Before Kurval became King of Azakoria, he plied his trade as a wandering mercenary and sword for hire.

Kurval and his friend and fellow mercenary Tsabo are planning to take up service at the citadel of Harjula in the frozen north of the kingdom of Simola. But when they finally reach the citadel, they find it deserted, its inhabitants in the thrall of dark magic…

The new sword and sorcery adventure by two-time Hugo finalist Cora Buhlert and her occasional alter ego, 1930s pulp writer Richard Blakemore. This is a short story of 5900 words or approx. 22 print pages in the Kurval sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

Leseprobe

The Frozen Citadel

by Richard Blakemore

Bremen, Germany

Copyright © 2021 by Cora Buhlert

All rights reserved.

Cover image by © Tithi Luadthong via Dreamstime

Cover design by Cora Buhlert

Pegasus Pulp Publications

Mittelstraße 12

28816 Stuhr

Germany

www.pegasus-pulp.com

Introduction

by Cora Buhlert

Nowadays, pulp fiction writer Richard Blakemore (1900 — 1994) is best remembered for creating the Silencer, a masked vigilante in the style of the Shadow or the Spider, during the hero pulp boom of the 1930s.

Furthermore, Richard Blakemore is also remembered, because he may or may not have been the real life Silencer, who stalked the streets of Depression era New York City, fighting crime, protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty just like his pulp counterpart.

The mystery surrounding the Silencer has long overshadowed Richard Blakemore’s other works. For like most pulp writers, Blakemore was extremely prolific and wrote dozens of stories in a variety of genres for Jakob Levonsky’s pulp publishing empire. Blakemore’s work spans the full range of the pulps, from crime stories via westerns, war and adventure stories via romance to science fiction and fantasy. Indeed, the sheer amount of stories Richard Blakemore wrote during the 1930s refutes the theory that he was the Silencer, for when would he have found the time?

Of the many non-Silencer stories Richard Blakemore wrote, the most interesting are his forays into the genre now known as sword and sorcery.

Richard Blakemore was an acknowledged fan of Weird Tales and particularly admired the works of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and C.L. Moore. And so, when Jakob Levonsky started up his own Weird Tales competitor called Tales of the Bizarre, Blakemore immediately jumped at the chance to write for the magazine and created Thurvok, a warrior hero in the mould of Conan, Kull and Bran Mak Morn.

Thurvok first appeared in the story “The Valley of the Man Vultures” in the first issue of Tales of the Bizarre in 1936 and quickly became a regular feature of the magazine. Pegasus Pulp Publishing has recently brought the adventures of Thurvok and his companions back into print.

However, the Thurvok series is not the only contribution that Richard Blakemore made to the budding sword and sorcery genre. For in the July 1937 issue of Tales of the Bizarre, Richard Blakemore introduced a new character called Kurval in the novelette “King’s Justice”.

Kurval is a somewhat older and wiser character than Thurvok and his friends. He is described as a barbarian from beyond the sea who has seized the throne of the kingdom of Azakoria after slaying the previous king.

Whereas the Thurvok stories are characterised by banter, adventures, swordplay and battles with monsters, the Kurval tales are more serious and mostly deal with Kurval’s struggles to be a good and just king, even as he finds himself faced with subjects who don’t respect him as well as with would-be plotters and assassins. Though Kurval does fight monsters, too, on occasion.

When asked why he chose to create a new sword and sorcery hero in Kurval and didn’t just go the Conan route and make Thurvok into a king, Richard Blakemore answered, “I had an idea for a story — the story that eventually became ‘King’s Justice’ — that simply didn’t fit into the framework of the Thurvok series. For Thurvok is quite happy being a wandering sellsword, thank you very much, and Meldom, much as I like him, should not be placed in any position of authority. And so I created a new character. Initially, I intended for Kurval to appear only in that one story. But I liked him and so I continued to use him for stories which didn’t fit Thurvok and friends.”

When the reader is introduced to Kurval in “King’s Justice,” he is already King of Azakoria. However, Blakemore later went back and wrote a couple of prequels which feature Kurval before he became king. “The Frozen Citadel” is one of these prequels, since it’s set during the time Kurval spent as a wandering mercenary chasing his royal destiny.

As in the earlier story “The Wolf of Rajala,” the opening of “The Frozen Citadel” finds Kurval plying his trade as a mercenary in the northern kingdom of Simola, en route to take up a post at the citadel of Harjula.

Uncommon for the Kurval series, “The Frozen Citadel” is a fairly straightforward “slay the monster” story. However, it is also notable for introducing Kurval’s friend and fellow mercenary Tsabo, who will go on to become a recurring character in the series. Tsabo is also — unusual, but not unheard of during the pulp era — a black man.