A Couple of Heists from ‘Swords & Larceny’

Yesterday was a busy one… I had a few things to get done, at work, and one of those was my Mid-Year Review; not something that I ever really look forward to but this one had the added ‘plot twist’ of having been on sick leave for a large chunk of that review period. I got through it though, now it’s a straight shot to August and my End of Year Review :o)

And then, being all optimistic at the moment, I thought I’d sit down and read ‘Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?’ last night. It’s not even two hundred pages, I thought to myself, it shouldn’t take that long to read… should it? Dear reader, I managed about a quarter of the book before taking a break; there’s a lot going on here and I was in the mood for something a bit more light-hearted.

Which led me to my copy of ‘Swords & Larceny’, a book that has been sat on my shelves since September, threatening to be read but never quite managing it. Have some blurb,


FIND THE MARK

The dragon’s hoard. The dwarves’ hidden mine. The mage’s secret library overflowing with enchanted relics. The world is brimming with treasures—if you’re bold enough to claim them.

PLAN THE JOB

Waltzing in with a broadsword and demanding the crown jewels? That’s a fast track to the dungeon. A true master thief needs a strategy—one with style, cunning, and just the right amount of risk.

ASSEMBLE THE TEAM

It is dangerous to go alone. You’ll need the best in the business—whether they be fae tricksters, goblin lockpickers, elven illusionists, or human masterminds.

PULL OFF THE HEIST

But even the most flawless plans have a way of unraveling. When the stakes are high and the odds are stacked, only the cleverest and most daring will make it out with the prize.

Cover art like we see here always promises some fun and that was what I needed last night. ‘Swords & Larceny’ is also an anthology and I was after that kind of thing too, just a couple of short stories to nibble at. I’ll be dipping in and out of this collection over the next few weeks; to start things off, I went for…

‘Just a Bit of Smoke’ – Jim Zub

Page Count: 12 Pages

In which a jewel heist must be rescued, before it has even begun, as a spell of climbing loses its efficacy at precisely the wrong moment…

Talk about opening your story with a cliffhanger… Well, there’s certainly a lot of hanging happening here and the story is immediately all kinds tense for it. I won’t spoil how it pans out, lets just say that Zub perfectly captures the chaos of a perfectly planned heist where absolutely nothing goes to plan. It’s a good job that the horse knows what it’s doing…You know those ‘heist moments’ in ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Amongst Thieves’? That’s exactly what we get here and it’s a lot of fun.

Jim Zub is doing sterling work on ‘Conan’ right now but if he ever fancies taking a break and giving us a few more tales of Avya and Brund, I wouldn’t complain.

‘The Mistress of Spiders and the Hooded Crow’ – Bill Willingham

Page Count: 7 Pages

In which an exiled Baron, and his followers, are rescued from certain death, or are they…?

‘The Mistress of Spiders’ is only seven pages long (I told you that I was after short reads last night…) so there’s not an awful lot to say about it without giving the game away, and Willingham delivers a strong payoff that you should see for yourself. Lets just say that Willingham wears his inspiration proudly and delivers the kind of heist that a certain well known outlaw would have been proud of.

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