Marc Aplin's Blog, page 148
March 16, 2016
City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett
The first question I expect you to ask about City of Blades is: ‘Does it live up to the Locus, World Fantasy, British Fantasy and GoodReads Choice Award nominated City of Stairs?’ Well, that’s a good question, my friends… Allow me to answer it with an emphatic YES and quickly follow it up with the promise that it truly is […]
March 15, 2016
Down Station by Simon Morden
I made the mistake of reading the first few chapters of Down Station on the Tube…which in Morden’s world is consumed by a terrible fire, along with the rest of London. Apart from regular, nervous checks on how many stops I had until Paddington, I was absolutely glued to the opening pages. The author paints […]
March 14, 2016
Trying Out Science Fiction: A Guide for Fantasy Purists
Are you a reader who sticks purely to fantasy and looks suspiciously at the science fiction side of the shelf in the bookstore? Perhaps you’ve thought about trying out some sci-fi, but the prospect of spaceships and alien races just doesn’t seem appealing. Or you have tried some and been turned off. You might still […]
March 12, 2016
Monthly Short Story Winner: Plot Twists
Plot twists are often a specialty of short stories and you find them there more often than in other forms of writing. The most famous examples I can think of aren’t in literature, though. I guess most of you have seen one or more of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies: The Sixth Sense, The Village, Signs, […]
March 11, 2016
Hidden Treasures: Los Nefilim by T. Frohock
Part of a series that reviews small press and digital first fantasy works. “Time stood still and soft, like the moments embedded in midnight’s silence.” Frohock’s trilogy of Los Nefilim novellas has gained a small but enthusiastic following that was enough to get the first volume, In Midnight’s Silence, voted onto Fantasy-Faction’s Best of 2015 […]
Chinese Mistborn Cover
We’ve featured work from Jian Guo before when we highlighted his incredible Chinese covers for Book of the New Sun and The Lord of The Rings. It seems China liked their dose of classic English-language fantasy and crave some more, this time something more modern in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn. Yet again, Guo’s talents have been called […]
March 10, 2016
Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop
If you are familiar with the Black Jewels trilogy by the same author, you know Bishop’s talent for great character-driven plots and excellent worldbuilding. Her latest series, The Others, is even better. I can honestly say that this is one of the best in urban fantasy today. Marked in Flesh is the fourth book in […]
March 9, 2016
What a Difference an Editor Makes.
Marc Aplin, Fantasy-Faction’s own Overlord, wrote persuasively and eloquently a few months ago about the absolute necessity of editing for self-published authors. “The worst thing I see is when an author truly believes they don’t need an editor, that they can do all the refining of the manuscript themselves. They go right ahead and publish […]
March 8, 2016
Calamity by Brandon Sanderson
This review contains some spoilers for Steelheart and Firefight. Read with caution if you have yet to finish the first two books. “Life was so unfair. You couldn’t both destroy everything around you and live like a king.” With each book in his Reckoners series, Brandon Sanderson has peeled back a layer of the world […]
March 7, 2016
Heroines on the Edge
Lalla Paul, the main character of The Ship, isn’t born a heroine. It might be the end of the world, what with the military government periodically bombing the hell out of unregistered citizens, but she still lives with her parents in a flat in London, has enough to eat and is taken to the British […]
