‘Shared World’ – Ball, Chomichuk, Gillespie, Ginther (Stranger Fiction)

 

Page Count: 142 Pages

There are a few things that will guarantee that I pick up a book, for a further inspection, and… A number of those things are on the cover of this book :o) I literally had no choice in the matter, I had to pick the book and take a look. The blurb pretty much sold it to me…

A home to reavers and rakes, sorcerers and slayers, undead kings and undying things – expanding a page at a time in the stories added by its authors.

In the once lands, a lineage of sorcerous wayfinders work to keep godlike monstrosities locked behind the crumbling walls of cursed cities, by allowing the vengeful ghosts of forest gods to inhabit their living flesh.

In the wild wastes, tribes of cannibal huntresses fight to balance the old ways and new in a struggle to keep their culture alive by trading in death.

In the sprawling city of Khyber, ambitions dance on sword edges while clans of thieves and reavers clutch at power.

Welcome to… Shared World.

Yep, I was sold. ‘Shared World’ came home with me and I read it over the weekend. And…

One of the things that I love about ‘Sword & Sorcery’ is when it gives you a feeling of that time of ‘pre-history’ before the settings’ scholars set pen to parchment (or in the case of the more evil types, pen to suspiciously familiar cured skins…) Conan trod the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet but at the same time, walked through the ruins of empires far older, and long forgotten. Clark Ashton Smith and Karl Edward Wagner went a little further into that past, and set their tales there, but at the same time, hinted at ages that were even older. And I know, there are many more examples but I have a full day looming so brevity is the keyword here ;o)

What we have here is the line where ‘Sword & Sorcery’ and Horror realise that they were neighbours the whole time, a past that hides horrors beyond our comprehension, and I’m always happy to spend a little time in the locale. ‘Shared World’ may not be in quite the same league, as the aforementioned, but it plays the same game and plays it very well. I will definitely be keeping a close eye on the setting and if you’re a fan of Sword & Sorcery with a darker edge, I’d say that you should be doing the same.

Jonathan Ball, GMB Comichuk, James Gillespie and Chadwick Ginther combine their tales to create a world that is on the brink of, well… any number of things and that’s where these tales take on a life of their own. The potential for expansion is limitless, both in the open map and in the ambitions of our players. Some will seek to take land and power for themselves and in this world, such behaviour is encouraged, expected in fact. If you don’t take, you will be taken; if not by other tribes, definitely by the remnants of older times...

What I found more interesting though were the stories where certain tribes understand that in order to survive, and thrive, knowledge must be consolidated and passed on. It’s a long term approach that offers hints of where this Shared World could go; particularly in terms of how the hybrid of Sword & Sorcery and Horror could evolve.

Either way, all four authors take this potential for storytelling and recognise it in tales of otherworldly encounters and people realising their precarious state in an unforgiving world. Add a little derring do and what you get with ‘Shared World’ is a setting that is in its early stages but is still producing stories that hum with energy and kept me engaged.
In a world that is full of sleeping gods, there is a danger that each story can run along familiar lines but while this does happen to an extent, each author uses location and cast to good effect, making each tale stand on its own legs and in its own right.

I’d be hard pressed to choose a favourite tale, each has its own specfic merits. Jonathan Ball’s tales of the cannibal Draxas, and Comichuk & Gillespie’s tales of the Vani are a perfect blend of Sword & Sorcery and Horror but also show some really deft worldbuilding in terms of tribal structure, traditions and so on.
Chadwick Ginther’s ‘When the Gods send you Rats’ and ‘Red’ are more straightforward ‘otherworldly encounters in the dark’ but are no less engaging with crisp plotting that not only holds your attention but also serves as an ideal introduction to the city of Khyber and all its politics.

‘Shared World’ is very much ‘Dark Sword & Sorcery’ so it goes without saying that what you get out of it will very much depend on what you were looking for in the first place. ‘Dark Sword & Sorcery’ was just what I was after though and I wasn’t disappointed here. I’ll be searching out more from this Shared World…