I take notice when a writer from another genre takes a stab at sword & sorcery. You had western writers Gordon D. Shirreffs, T. V. Olsen, and Philip Ketchum write interesting historicals that had a sword & sorcery vibe. Ben Haas who wrote the Fargo books as “John Benteen” wrote three sword & sorcery novels.

Enter Matt Hilton. He has been writing thriller novels the fifteen or so years. He has a fairly new collection of sword & sorcery stories, Clashing Blades. Hilton is from Cumberland in Britain. I always think of a passage from Robert E. Howard’s story “The People of the Dark” when I think of Cumberland:

“The country folk were predominantly Celtic; here the Saxon invaders had never prevailed, and the legends reached back, in that long-settled countryside, further than anywhere else in England—back beyond the coming of the Saxons, aye, and incredibly beyond that distant age, beyond the coming of the Romans, to those unbelievably ancient days when the native Britons warred with black-haired Irish pirates.”

The post-Roman Celtic kingdom of Rheged west of the Pennines was absorbed into Northumbria by marriage and not conquest. Shepherds in Cumbria still count using the old Brythonic numbers.

Matt Hilton is a big, strapping Brython who served as a policeman, I believe in the Cumbrian Constabulary before becoming a writer. In addition to thriller novels, he has dabbled a little with westerns.

Clashing Blades contains eight stories over 236 pages (electronic format). He mentions the influence of Robert E. Howard, Lin Carter, and Karl Edward Wagner in the introduction. The inference is some of these stories go back to the 1990s originally written for U.K. markets.

The first four stories feature Korvix, a barbarian from the northern grasslands who acts in the Conan tradition. “D’Nu’s Children” has Korvix losing his horse to a ravenous monster and seeking shelter in the tower of a sorcerer.

“The Fiend in the Bowl” has Korvix on a mission to rescue the daugher of a wealthy merchant from pirates. A sorcerer and Lovecraftian entity are part of the story along with lots of action and some interesting side characters.

“Death Stalks by Moolight” had Korvix making a bad decision and dealing with a witch and her demon sent to destroy a family. This one is good.

“Vengeance of the Gods” has Korvix sent to rescue a girl from a titan. The situation turns out not to be at all what Korvix was told.

The next two stories feature Andra Kendrick, who is law enforcement with a sword. “Black Lightning” is almost an allegory on the modern day fentanyl crisis. Hilton’s law-enforcement background really comes into play with this series.

“Blood, Smoke, and Ashes” has an almost police procedural feel adapted to sword & sorcery.

The two Ludis Kristaps’ stories are set in an alternate WW2 where Hitler got the Spear of Destiny and set loose all sorts of supernatural evil creatures on the world. Kristaps is a Latvian former priest who acts in Solomon Kane fashion dealing with evil.

The first two Korvix stories are written in present tense which takes some getting used to. The Korvix stories should appeal if you are in the mood for something on the line of Thongor-Kothar-Brak. I find the Andra Kendrick stories something unique. The Ludis Kristaps stories are good also.

You can get Clashing Blades in either Kindle form with a couple clicks or in paperback (5.25 x 8 inches) format. Matt Hilton has been writing more Korvix stories so old school sword & sorcery lives on.