Sword Stone Table Old Legends, New Voices

From the vast lore surrounding King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table, comes an anthology of gender-bent, race-bent, LGBTQIA+ inclusive retellings.

Featuring stories by: Alexander Chee • Preeti Chhibber • Roshani Chokshi • Sive Doyle • Maria Dahvana Headley • Ausma Zehanat Khan • Daniel M. Lavery • Ken Liu • Sarah MacLean • Silvia Moreno-Garcia • Jessica Plummer • Anthony Rapp • Waubgeshig Rice • Alex Segura • Nisi Shawl • S. Zainab Williams

Here you’ll find the Lady of the Lake reimagined as an albino Ugandan sorceress and the Lady of Shalott as a wealthy, isolated woman in futuristic Mexico City; you'll see Excalibur rediscovered as a baseball bat that grants a washed-up minor leaguer a fresh shot at glory and as a lost ceremonial drum that returns to a young First Nations boy the power and the dignity of his people. There are stories set in Gilded Age Chicago, '80s New York, twenty-first century Singapore, and space; there are lesbian lady knights, Arthur and Merlin reborn in the modern era for a second chance at saving the world and falling in love—even a coffee shop AU.
 
Brave, bold, and groundbreaking, the stories in Sword Stone Table will bring fresh life to beloved myths and give long-time fans a chance to finally see themselves in their favorite legends.

SWAPNA KRISHNA is a space, technology, and pop culture writer and journalist. Her work has been published at Engadget, The Verge, Polygon, StarTrek.com, StarWars.com, The A.V. Club, and more. You can find her on Twitter at @skrishna.

JENN NORTHINGTON is a former bookseller and a current reviewer, podcaster, and editor with Riot New Media Group. She's a lifelong book nerd and can be found primarily on Instagram at @iamjennIRL.

Introduction by Swapna Krishna & Jenn Northington
 
ONCE
Ausma Zehanat Khan, “The Once and Future Qadi”
Roshani Chokshi, “Passing Fair and Young”
Daniel M. Lavery, “How, after Long Fighting, Galehaut Was Overcome by Lancelot Yet Was Not Slain and Made Great Speed to Yield to Friendship; Or, Galehaut, the Knight of the Forfeit”
Nisi Shawl, “I Being Young and Foolish”
Sarah MacLean, “The Bladesmith Queen”
Sive Doyle, “Do, By All Due Means”
 
PRESENT
Maria Dahvana Headley, “Mayday”
Waubgeshig Rice, “Heartbeat”
Anthony Rapp. “Jack and Brad and the Magician”
S. Zainab Williams. “The Quay Stone”
Alex Segura, “Black Diamond”
Jessica Plummer, “Flat White”
Preeti Chhibber, “Once (Them) & Future (Us)”
 
FUTURE
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, “A Shadow in Amber”
Ken Liu, “White Hempen Sleeves”
Alexander Chee, Little Green Men”

Acknowledgments
About the Editors
About the Contributors
Permissions Acknowledgments