Marc Aplin's Blog, page 152
January 25, 2016
Secret Mistborn Novella – 2 weeks!
A few weeks ago Amazon accidentally leaked the last few pages of The Bands of Mourning. Within these final pages was a Postscript from the author. It read: “To tide you over until Oathbringer, I have just released a special digital-only novella that is intended to be read after The Bands of Mourning, though it […]
The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
The Bands of Mourning is the third and penultimate book in Brandon Sanderson’s Wax and Wayne series. For those unfamiliar with the concept, these titles are set generations after the events of Sanderson’s breakout Mistborn trilogy, with the characters who saved the world within those books now serving as anything from long-dead legends to shadowy figures operating […]
Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
Bands of Mourning is the third and penultimate book in Brandon Sanderson’s Wax and Wayne series. For those unfamiliar with the concept, these titles are set generations after the events of Sanderson’s breakout Mistborn trilogy, with the characters who saved the world within those books now serving as anything from long-dead legends to shadowy figures operating in […]
January 24, 2016
Will a Small Press add value? 6 things to consider.
If you are a self-published author, there are times where you will feel overwhelmed. Not only do you have to write your book, but you need to arrange for it to be edited, find and direct a cover artist, arrange methods for your manuscript to be printed and/or formatted as an ebook, decide upon how to distribute it, […]
January 23, 2016
This Census-Taker by China Miéville
Before you start reading China Miéville’s new novella, This Census-Taker, you should ask yourself how you feel about movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, The Thing, Total Recall, The Shining, Shane, American Psycho, or Inception. In other words, how do you feel about ambiguity in your story? How do you feel about […]
January 20, 2016
The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore
My first experience with magical realism is quite possibly something I’ve already forgotten. I read a great deal when I was younger (and still do, though I don’t have as much time to be as undiscriminating as I was then), and part of that reading involved short stories which were very strange and not at […]
January 19, 2016
Richard Ford’s New Titan Deal
Richard Ford has been a long-time Fantasy-Faction favourite. Whether the mad, crazy, enjoyable rush that was Kultus or the Grimdark Epic Saeelhaven (a trilogy that began with Herald of the Storm), Richard’s writing is always dark, immersive and laden with humour. Now, I do realise that with the release date set for early-2017 we’re still about a year away, but […]
January 18, 2016
All The Birds In The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
“One day the Singularity would elevate humans to cybernetic superbeings, and maybe then people would say what they meant. “Probably not, though.” All The Birds In The Sky (2016) by Charlie Jane Anders is a wondrous coming of age tale about a witch and a mad scientist, separated childhood friends who find themselves drawn to […]
SFF Invades New York Times
Anyone working in the Marketing Department of a Science Fiction or Fantasy Publisher will tell you how difficult it is to get one of the mainstream Newspapers or Magazines to review SFF titles. Non-Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction and Crime Fiction take up the prime real estate with regular appearances by the more popular or controversial Romance and Chick-Lit titles […]
January 17, 2016
The Creatures in the Shadows: West Africa
Elves, trolls, dwarves, goblins… There’s no denying that the Western fantasy is strongly entrenched in a Northern European mindscape: those ancient myths of the Celtic and Germanic people that inspired Tolkien and his epigones. Writing about elves and dwarves is always a safe bet; when an author wants to be original and adventurous, they might […]
