Marc Aplin's Blog, page 143

Hidden Treasures: Azanian Bridges by Nick Wood

Hidden Treasures is a series that reviews small press and digital first SFF. Okay, so this is technically science fiction rather than fantasy. But even if you’re a die-hard fantasy fan, don’t let that put you off. Azanian Bridges will make you think – hard – as all good sci-fi does. Yet at the same […]

Harry Potter Should Have Kissed Some Boys: An Argument For Queer Characters In Main Stream Fantasy

Harry Potter should have kissed some boys. Or Hermione should have kissed some girls. Even just some passing lip-action between any of the main cast would have been sufficient. Even just an obvious and mentioned crush would have been better than the great hunk of nothing we were dealt. Not fantastic for representation of a […]

Dominion Cover Reveal & Extract

A lot of Fantasy-Factioners will have read and enjoyed Peter McLean’s Drake by now. If you’ve not, it’s about an anti-hero named Don Drake who is forced to carry out an assassination to pay his debt to a demon. There is a catch to this transaction though, and very quickly Drake finds himself facing death at […]

Saint’s Blood by Sebastien De Castell

How do you kill a Saint? Falcio, Kest and Brasti are about to find out, because even Tristia’s most powerful Saints are turning up dead and the entire country is convinced it’s a sign that the Gods themselves opposes Aline’s ascension to the throne. Now the Dukes are using the murders as an excuse to […]

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson

Tor’s novella series was started in 2015, with the aim of promoting this shorter medium. The line includes both established authors and those just making their debut, and has included a number of authors from diverse backgrounds. The resulting line is full of interesting and different stories from authors both familiar and new. This column […]

SPFBO 2: Cover Up?

We’ve had a look at the covers to all 30 books on the Fantasy-Faction list for the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off and picked our favourite three. Why did we do this? Because Mark Lawrence asked us to, that’s why. Why he did that…you’ll either know by now or will find out soon! A great cover […]

Foundations of Fantasy: The Epic of Gilgamesh

More than any other genre, fantasy tends to examine ancient epics. Whether it’s the study of archetypes and ectypes, or a historical understanding of narrative itself, or simply a desire to experience myths and legends that have lived for ages, these books remain alive to us. This series of posts will be about some of […]

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, Translated by Ken Liu

The Three-Body Problem is about aliens. It’s also about Revolutionary China, Communism, and human nature. There’s a fair bit of philosophy thrown in, some well-explained math, and a computer game that I really wish was real. It’s a masterpiece of science fiction, and the English-speaking world is lucky to have this brilliant translation. Cixin Liu […]

SPFBO 2: The Self-Pub Strikes Back

Last year’s Self-Published Blog-Off gathered a lot of interest across Twitter, Facebook and forums. At Mark Lawrence’s request, ten influential websites, bloggers and over 250 authors got together and had themselves a competition. Each blog had twenty-five (or so) books on their ‘slush pile’. And the simple task was to pick their favourite and put […]

Languages In Fantasy

Language in fantasy: is it an outdated, often academically-gratuitous addition that bogs down a story and its world, or a clever quirk of setting that adds a sprinkle of the exotic and aids reader immersion? It’s not just relevant in fantasy; science fiction has been known to offer fully-functioning languages to enhance a setting. Think […]