Gnori the Bold Joins WBW Expanded
- John R. Fultz
- 32 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Gnori the Bold. The Hammerfist. Slayer of Giants. Breaker of Chains. General of the Skaeric Legions. Looter of Arakesha. The Man Who Killed a Thousand Wizards. Hero of Drammagon and Old Shard. And that ain't the half of it...
Later this summer, Flying Wizard Press re-releases my most popular story collection as the WORLDS BEYOND WORLDS Expanded Edition. This revised GIANT-SIZED! edition adds five new tales which comprise the complete saga of Gnori the Bold, effectively doubling the size of the volume.
The expansion also features a brand-new cover by the great Brian LeBlanc, [Feast your eyes, true believers!] who also did the masterful cover of the original 2021 edition. Brian's original WBW cover featured a scene inspired by the book's opening story, "Chivaine." The WBW Expanded Edition cover focuses instead on Gnori the Bold and scenes from his five-story epic.
Gnori, Son of Gnorn, first appeared in the smash-hit BOOK OF BLADES Volume 1 anthology with a story called "The Blood of Old Shard." Gnori is about fifty years old in that first tale, an aging mercenary whose storied career and supernatural gifts have made him a living legend. Given a single chance for peace after a lifetime of war, Gnori leaps at it, but a savage world has other plans for him.
For his second literary outing, Gnori hopped over to Jason Waltz's thunderous sword-and-sorcery anthology NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD in a tale called "Evil World." It takes us back to Gnori's origins a half-century earlier, when the Earth Giants rose up to cast down Old Shard and wallow in its ruins. This is how a Slayer of Giants is born.
The third Gnori tale, "She Drinks Blood," appeared in BOOK OF BLADES Volume 3; it is a dark coming-of-age tale featuring the origin of Anca the First, called the Vampire Queen of Aymeer. Gnori is about 26 years old in this one, a roaming sellsword hired to rescue a princess abducted by a ruthless blood cult. This heroic act brings only tragedy and creates a lifelong nemesis.
The fourth Gnori tale, "The Skulls of Our Fathers," follows the present-day Gnori as he returns to the land of his birth for the first time in thirty years. The rapacious Earth Giants have risen again from the Underworld, so the people of Old Shard call upon their expatriate giant-slayer.
The fifth and concluding tale of Gnori the Bold is "Lay Down Your Sword, Lay Down Your Life." I'm currently in the process of writing it. It will likely be the longest of all the Gnori stories, a climactic novella that brings the saga to its close. But I don't want to say too much about that climax or the contents of the story. Not yet. No spoilers here...
The WORLDS BEYOND WORLDS Expanded Edition also features all eleven stories from the (out-of-print) first edition:
“Chivaine”
“Yael of the Strings”
“Ten Thousand Drops of Holy Blood”
“Strange Days in Old Yandrissa”
“The Gnomes of Carrick County”
“The Thirteen Texts of Arthyria”
“Daughter of the Elk Goddess”
“The Penitence of the Blade”
“Where the White Lotus Grows”
“Oorg”
“Tears of the Elohim”
If all goes as planned, the WBW Expanded Edition will be on sale before summer's end.
Peace & Broadswords,
John
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