Marc Aplin's Blog, page 133

Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #2: Getting Close To The End…

The Fantasy-Faction SPFBO team are on the verge of announcing their top seven books! But first, here are a final set of five that didn’t quite make the cut. It was really hard to say goodbye to some of these; maybe on another day, with another set of reviewers, they would have made it through. […]

Force Grey: Giant Hunters – YouTube Show Review

I haven’t played Dungeons & Dragons since my teenage years, and there are days when I miss it. Computer games took over, life got in the way; work, family, children and all the things that we think (and are) important just ate up my time. Luckily for me, I’ve got a group of friends who […]

Monthly Short Story Winner: Flash Fiction

Postcard Fiction. Short, Short Stories. Micro Fiction. 500 words or less. This month, that’s all our entrants got. Wikipedia says that flash fiction ‘often contains the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications, and resolution.’ It adds that ‘the limited word length often forces some of these elements to remain unwritten – that is, […]

Teresa Frohock Interview

Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Teresa Frohock, author of several ground breaking fantasy novels and novellas including The Broken Road, Miserere, and the recently completed trilogy of Los Nefilim novellas (In Midnight’s Silence, Without Light or Guide, and The Second Death). Can you tell us a little bit about when you first got […]

Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #2: Farewell To Another Five

Writing fiction is like painting Rorschach cards: everyone sees (and feels) something different when looking at what you’ve created. Every review is subjective. And as AFE and GR have observed in previous rounds, each of the following books have something positive to recommend them. All five samples have been read by 3-4 members of the […]

Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima

Flamecaster, by Cinda Williams Chima, is the first of a brand new series set in the same world of the acclaimed Seven Realms quartet, where we leave behind Han and Raisa in lieu of the next generation of Seven Realms heroes: their children and those they meet along the way on their new adventure. Things […]

Tropes and Clichés in Epic Fantasy: Is It Time To Move On?

I just finished Diana Jones’s The Tough Guide to Fantasyland first published twenty years ago, but still accurately satirical in the shots it takes at the more recognisable “issues” in fantasy fiction. Tropes of plot, style and substance are all scythed down in a humorous harvesting of fantasy’s most memorable clichés, from the impeccably behaved […]

Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #2: Another Five Fall

Hot on the heels of the last update, here are another five books to which we are sadly saying goodbye. Again, these books all have something to recommend them – it’s simply that the reviewing team collectively preferred other books. Just as Geoff said in his update, a lot of it comes down to personal […]

Syncing Scrivener Files Between Computers Using Dropbox

One of the simple joys of writing is the fact that it can be done anywhere. All you need is pen and paper. Some writers prefer the structure of a fixed location – a writing shed or office – whilst others like to mix it up and break the routine, perhaps visiting a coffee shop […]

Monthly Short Story Winner: Multiple Points of View

Multiple points of view can be tricky to write in full length novels. They are even harder in short stories. This month our entrants had to write a story containing more than one point of view. Short stories do not often have multiply POVs and it was quite challenging for our writers to fit more […]