Howard Andrew Jones (19 July 1968–16 January 2025) was a beloved sword-and-sorcery editor, reader, scholar, and writer, known for works such as the Ring-Sworn trilogy and the Chronicles of Hanuvar series. In 2016, the Black Gate: Adventures in Fantasy Literature website won a World Fantasy Award, which the winner, John O’Neill, attributes almost entirely to Howard’s efforts over the previous eight years. Jones loved sword-and-sorcery, historical fiction, and adventure pulp, and spent the last twenty-five years helping it to thrive.

His first published books were eight volumes of stories by historical fiction writer Harold Lamb. Jones encountered Lamb’s work in high school and became a fan as well as an expert, working to reprint his stories after learning most were uncollected and no longer in print. Jones considered Lamb to be the unsung grandfather of modern sword-and-sorcery and heroic fiction and was glad to bring attention to his work.

The Lamb books brought Jones into genre editing. Long-time friend and collaborator John O’Neill recounts, “The Harold Lamb stories led to his first job at a magazine, editing the late lamented Flashing Swords ezine from 2006-2007. I was enormously impressed with his talent for spotting, recruiting, and especially nurturing talent, and in 2007 I brought him on board as Managing Editor of Black Gate. The print version of Black Gate folded in 2011, but by 2017 he was back in the editor’s chair, when Joseph Goodman hired him to launch Tales from the Magician’s Skull. He edited the magazine for seven joyous years, until it was sold in 2024. Howard enjoyed writing, but I think he loved being an editor. He was uniquely gifted at finding and encouraging new writers, and his detailed feedback—even in his rejections—was legendary. More than a few successful fantasy writers today owe their start to Howard. He is sorely missed.”

Jones’ first publication of his own work was the Hanuvar story “A Stone’s Throw” that appeared in the second issue of Glyph magazine in Summer 2000. He continued to write short stories and then novels, his first the historical fantasy The Desert of Souls in 2011. Jones went on to publish twelve novels, including four in the Pathfinder Tales world, and his current series, for which he had at least five books on contract, and published three: Lord of a Shattered Land, The City of Marble and Blood, and Shadow of the Smoking Mountain. In 2021, Jones was nominated for The Venarium Award for Emerging Scholar by The Robert E. Howard Foundation.

Author S.E. Lindberg says of Jones, “Howard’s Skull’s persona resonated since it was the antithesis of him. Whereas the villainous champion of the titular magazine spitefully called his readers ‘mortal dogs’ and regularly ‘immolated’ his interns, the man behind the mask was known to be overly gracious, coaching aspiring, mature, and professional writers in myriad conventions, editing, blogs… for decades! He mentored tirelessly even as his body failed. A week before he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he improvised a personalized ‘Hey Jude’ song at Gen Con Writers Symposium to inspire me on the piano beside the green room, and the lyrics motivate/haunt me continuously. How did he exude so much vitality? His Hanuvar character embodies Howard more accurately, a veteran striving to save his shattered family and reunite his community (refreshing compared to the flood of immoral, vengeful protagonists available). Howard could strike a friendship up in minutes, and combined with his passion for storytelling, [this] makes him one to be remembered as much as for his heroes as for his own heroism. Howard was the quintessential role model. I imagine him inspiring us now in our time of mourning: ‘Behold, mortal readers, do your morning stretches, carry on, and realize the stories inside you. Swords together!’”

Editor and author Sean CW Korsgaard adds, “The impact Howard Andrew Jones had, as an author and editor, will be felt for years to come. He was a champion of sword-and-sorcery at the subgenre’s lowest point, and an architect and leader of its ongoing renaissance. Scores of new fantasy authors cut their teeth or perfected their craft under his watchful eye, and he was a tireless advocate of the classics. And as a writer in his own right, he was an incredible talent, his Chronicles of Hanuvar alone is a generational work of the fantasy genre. But he was so much more than that—he was among the kindest, most generous people working in speculative fiction, a figure whom all that knew him called a friend. He was a role model and inspiration as a writer, an editor, an academic, a husband, a father, a friend.”

Author Martha Wells remembers, “Howard was a wonderful person, a good friend, and a great writer. He wanted sword-and-sorcery to be inclusive, and he did his best to make everyone feel welcome there.”

Howard Andrew Jones lived 56 years.