Sword-and-sorcery is the modern descendant of the hero myth.As a genre, sword-and-sorcery is urgent and visceral: one hero, one blade, carving a decisive path through vivid, hostile worlds crowded with magic and monsters.In *Arcane Arts and Cold Steel*, David C. Smith teaches how to write sword-and-sorcery by breaking it down into its working parts. Drawing on nearly a century of fiction—from the foundations laid by Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, to the gritty reinventions of Karl Edward Wag...