C.S. Hand's Blog: Fantasy Author C. S. Hand, page 11

Here Are 13 Reasons Why Dystopian Books Are Effing Amazing

Do you love reading dystopian books?

The ones packed with characters you wish were real (as long as they were on your side), with love triangles that tear your heart in half, and twisty-turny plots that would keep even the most genetically enhanced super-brain guessing until the final pages?

I’ve assembled the most comprehensive list of why we all keep reading dystopian books backed completely by my own opinion and absolutely no science!

Love Triangles

It is a truth universally acknowled...

9 Books Like the Hunger Games that Will Inspire You to Topple the Dystopia

Are you looking for books like the Hunger Games?

If you enjoyed Katniss Everdeen’s personal struggle narrated in a visceral, unforgiving style then you are going to absolutely love all of these books. All are brimful with zippy plots that set wry, complex individuals (and their doughty companions) squarely against the reigning dystopia and its drooling conformist societies.

Books like the Hunger Games You Need to Read Now Before the Dystopia Seizes Them

But time is not on your side.

With every mo...

Everything That Made You Fall Madly In Love with The Kingkiller Chronicles

Do you remember where you were the first time you opened the first book of the Kingkiller Chronicles?

Do you remember the long nights where you couldn’t stop touching the pages, and the words couldn’t stop touching you?

Did you lose your breath as you finished reading the first page? I know, you passed out again, didn’t you. That is probably going to happen a lot as you read this. So grab some chocolate, adorn yourself in roses and dashing attire, and turn on some fine lute music because I am a...

Drizzt Do’Urden: 9 Things His Enemies Absolutely Hate About Him

“Greetings, Akar Kessell. I am Drizzt Do’Urden, ranger of Gwaeron Windstrom, guardian of Icewind Dale. I have come to kill you.”

image credit: http://helmuttt.deviantart.com/art/Dr...

Drizzt Do’Urden of Icewind Dale

As an insane mage, a blood thirsty goblin, or an ice giant just looking for something to stomp into the cold, hard tundra of Icewind Dale, the last thing you want to face off against is the legendary drow ranger, Drizzt Do’Urden.

The famous dark elf ranger is one of the m...

Drizzt Do’Urden: 9 Things His Enemies Absolutely Hate About Him

“Greetings, Akar Kessell. I am Drizzt Do’Urden, ranger of Gwaeron Windstrom, guardian of Icewind Dale. I have come to kill you.”

image credit: http://helmuttt.deviantart.com/art/Dr...

Drizzt Do’Urden of Icewind Dale

As an insane mage, a blood thirsty goblin, or an ice giant just looking for something to stomp into the cold, hard tundra of Icewind Dale, the last thing you want to face off against is the legendary drow ranger, Drizzt Do’Urden.

The famous dark elf ranger is one of the most...

All the Opening Lines of the Best Fantasy Books

Aside from becoming pure evil, destroying worlds, and corrupting the youth, I’ve always been interested in first lines from the best fantasy books.

After all, it’s the opening line that usually either grabs you as a reader and excites and entices you enough to continue on the journey…or close the book and move on.

Since it is the first of the new year, I figured now would be good time to post a catalog of all the first sentences from the best fantasy novels that have been written over the years...

The Best Dark Fantasy Books for the Aspiring Evil Lord

Are you looking for the best dark fantasy books?

Are you looking for amoral protagonists, anti-heroes, and complexly drawn characters stumbling their way through a world of muted greys (and corpses)?

Are you a dark lord who has plenty of minions and not enough heroes to kill?

Or maybe you are dealing with a particularly plucky band of heroes and have run out of ideas for defeating them?

Consult these top dark fantasy novels and discover how evil gods and goddesses, mercenaries, torturers, and of...

16 Horrifying Thoughts Torn from the Annals of the Black Company

One of the things I love most about dark fantasy books is their cynical wisdom and fearless truth-telling.

You know the kind of book I’m talking about. The kind the world doesn’t want you to read. The kind that smells of “mystery and dark doings, of skullduggery and revenge,” as Croaker might have said.

These are the books you can be intimate with, because both author and reader are yearning to hear what you are not free to ask nor free to tell when the sun is up. And when the human heart is fr...

Top 10 Fantasy Books You Should Read Right Now

Are you looking for the top 10 fantasy books?

With fantasy writers constantly cranking out candidates for the best fantasy novels in the current Golden Age, as readers we are stuck with a plethora of choices and not enough time to read them all.

To my mind, that leaves us with five options.

Develop methods of time travel
Develop pills to extend our lifespan
Create a Clone Farm to harvest organs to extend our lifespan
Ascend to Immortality
Create a Top 10 Fantasy Books List

The first doesn’t really ha...

The Definitive Guide to Being an Anti-Hero

For many people, especially those readers of dark fantasy books, meeting an anti-hero is something they take for granted. After watching us connive and concoct so many schemes, assassinations, and angry revenges, they might even believe they can match the success of our dark knavery.

But what does it take to be an anti-hero? It’s not a lot of hard work, that’s for stupid heroes.

No, to be a genuine anti-hero, one must dedicate oneself to the study of murder, treachery, deceit, and the black tes...