Unlike the other issues with their focus on fiction, most of this one is short essays on sword-and-sorcery from widely-read people who know their stuff.

"You can’t pick your ancestors, the people whose parts were cobbled together to make you. But you can pick your influences, decide what part of the literary tradition you’re going to extend into the future. It could be Bob, your beta-reader in Dubuque who never gets tired of Firefly references. But it could also be the Monkey King, or Väinämöinen, or the Deer Woman. Bob won’t mind." - James Enge