This campaign funds BLUE FIRE by Molly Tanzer, an officially licensed stand-alone novella starring the first lady of Sword & Sorcery, Jirel of Joiry!
Cover art by Saša Đurđević
This traditionally printed book will hold approx. 35,000 words of fiction, a full page of fantasy cartography, and one full page B&W illustration.
The book is written, edited, and raring to go! The crowdfund is for compensating the creatives involved, and covering production costs like printing & shipping.
Available in…
Accessible Digital and
Portable Mass-Market Paperback
The paperback will be perfect-bound, sized at 6.75in x 4.12in.
We like a book that fits easily in your pocket!
Book enhancement stretch goals include spray color edging and double art.
When taken care of, our perfect-bound softcovers are beautiful objects which can be enjoyed for years to come!
And you'll want that, because this the first everbook-length story starring...
JIREL OF JOIRY was the first Sword & Sorcery heroine, created by legendary Weird Tales regular, C.L. Moore.
Jirel is the proud, tough, arrogant and beautiful ruler of her own domain, Joiry; somewhere in late medieval France.
Like Alice in Wonderland with a big f***ing sword, Jirel has compelling adventures in bizarre dream-logic realms, balancing a rich emotional life with terrifying struggles against dark forces!
Treat all supernatural beings with respect, but keep aloof from them— then you may be called wise. —Confucius
JIREL is mighty. JIREL is brave. JIREL...is not known for her wisdom.
BLUE FIRE begins with Jirel fighting a foe her sword cannot smite: a terrible illness nobody can explain, let alone heal. Her search for a cure takes her many miles across many worlds, encountering friends and foes familiar and frightening!
Molly really gets into the mind of Jirel of Joiry when she writes!
Molly Tanzer has already written three brand new Jirel of Joiry adventures, published in New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine, priming her for writing Jirel's greatest adventure yet. She has also written a great many marvelous books, and co-edited anthologies including Swords v. Chthulu.
LEFT: Saša Đurđević, RIGHT: Art from "Jirel and the Mirror of Truth", by Saprophial. You don't have to have read any prior Jirel stories to enjoy the novella, but if you've read that one you'll recognize a familiar friend...
Saša has already drawn our fiery cover, while Caster Jones will create a new piece of fantasy cartography, and Saprophial will grace us with a new full page B&W illustration placed right before page one, welcoming you into the story.
Caster's map for LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND by Howard Andrew Jones
Our pledges for digital & paperback formats of the book are straightforward enough, but keep an eye out for...
GIMME ALL YOUR JIREL The paperback & digital of BLUE FIRE plus the three issues of New Edge Sword & Sorcery that each contain a new 12,000 word Jirel of Joiry story by Molly Tanzer! These are issues 3, 5, and 9.
These add up to 36,000 words of new Jirel, basically a second novella, to say nothing of all the other stories and articles in each issue.
GIMME ALL YOUR... The other "Gimme All Your..." pledges are a great way to collect all of our titles in one easy purchase, and save money on shipping compared to getting them piecemeal over time.
PATRON At this level, you are officially a patron of our little publishing company, helping give us a boost so we can do bigger, better things!
You'll get the novella in paperback & digital (ePub + PDF) formats, as well as physical & digital copies of everything else we publish in the next 12 months, from June 2026 to June 2027.
Does becoming a Patron make you look this intimidating? Only one way to find out!
This stretch goal will unlock a second full page illustration by Saprophial.
2) SPRAY COLOR EDGES ($11,111)
In the classic S&S paperback style, the edges of this book will be painted a single, vibrant color. Backers will get to vote on which!
3) INTL SHIPPING DISCOUNT ($12,300)
This stretch goal covers reducing shipping costs for all backers outside the United States: $5 USD off for Canadian backers, and $10 USD off for anyone outside of North America.
ALL BACKERS at the physical tiers will receive a bookplate sticker signed by Molly Tanzer!
FIRST 48 HOUR BACKERS will receive a 4x6 inch postcard featuring the unobstructed cover art.
The back is formatted to comply with USPS standards. You can actually mail this sucker!
RETURNING BACKERS will receive a double-sided bookmark featuring the cover art and a quote from the book.
ADD-ONS
New Edge Sword & Sorcery: Sold at a crowdfund-exclusive discount, issues 1 through 10 of New Edge Sword & Sorcery are available in digital and 2 through 10 in softcover formats.
Mass-Market Paperbacks:It's the format you want, the format you need!
Rainbow Metal Battle-Axe Pin: These 1.5 inch pins of the New Edge Sword & sorcery battle-axe are made with soft enamel using anodized rainbow plating on a zinc alloy base metal.
The rainbow effect is randomized, making each pin unique!
Please take note of the estimated shipping charges, and understand shipping charges may change between the crowdfund and fulfillment.
During the fulfillment process, BackerKit will calculate any shipping that may be required when you fill out your delivery address.
Shipping costs will not be assessed and billed until then! You are only being charged for your pledge amount at this time. We hope this helps to keep the cost of shipping down due to current fluctuations in domestic and international shipping costs.
Brackenbury Books, BackerKit, and our fulfillment partners are not responsible for any VAT, duty, or customs charges any packages may incur.
Don't forget: If we make our International Shipping Discount stretch goal, then all orders from Canada will get $5 USD off their shipping, and all orders outside North America (”International”) will get $10 USD off their shipping!
DID YOU BACK "NEW EDGE SWORD & SORCERY 2026"?
If so, your copy of BLUE FIRE will be shipped with your issues of the magazine, saving you money on shipping by keeping it all together as one package.
TIMELINE
Our goal is release BLUE FIRE on November 4th, and so fulfillment will begin on that day as well.
Given the book is otherwise finished and will be ready for the printers as soon as the interior art is done, and that the printers themselves are located in the same state as our fulfillment center, we feel very confident about achieving this goal.
Thanks to everything we learned publishing our past books and magazine issues, we're confident about producing Blue Fire in a timely manner, and at the high level of quality our readers have come to expect.
We've successfully funded seven campaigns across two crowdfunding platforms, with our first six fulfilled and the other one on track to be fulfilled later this year. Our editor & publisher has also successfully crowdfunded a webseries in the past, another project which requires collaboration between a large team of creatives while keeping within budget and on schedule.
To further mitigate risk we’ve brought on a crowdfunding & fulfillment professional, Sara McHenry (https://www.saramchenry.com), who did excellent work for us with our previous issues. Since 2013, she’s helped her clients raise over $3.5 million in crowdfunding money for their creative projects. Her specialties include setting budgets and timelines, structuring reward tiers, working with vendors, shipping logistics, and motivating the unmotivated creator.
Should any challenges arise with things we have no control over, such as supply chain issues, our backers will receive timely, detailed updates on the situation.
