Marc Aplin's Blog, page 154

Most Anticipated Fantasy Novels of 2016: Publishers’ Choice

Can you believe it… It’s 2016 already! And you know what that means, right? It’s time for another one of Fantasy-Faction’s most popular posts of the year: “Most Anticipated Fantasy Novels of 2016: Publishers’ Choice”. If you are new to Fantasy-Faction, the Publishers’ Choice article is where we spend a few weeks going to each Publishing […]

Peter V. Brett confirms more books

I recommend you only read this post if you have finished The Skull Throne. There will also be a review of the first chapter of Peter V. Brett’s The Core. Peter V. Brett has published a blog post today that will delight his fans. I recommend you check the whole blog post out, it outlines […]

Top 10 SFF Films of 2015

I don’t think 2015 was quite the year for cinema we were hoping. There were a number of SFF titles that didn’t quite live up to expectations and a few more that absolutely bombed. That said, it wasn’t all bad… there were a number of surprisingly deep, moving and powerful movies that bulk up this year’s […]

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

“Well, we’ve managed to get ourselves locked into the most secure prison in the world. We’re either geniuses or the dumbest sons of bitches to ever breathe air.” Fantasy-Faction recently named Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows the 24th-best fantasy book of 2015. Not to criticize Marc Aplin and the rest of the Fantasy-Faction team, but […]

Fallout 4: Of Dogs and Desk Fans

It’s been a few a days since I left…since I escaped the vault. The world has changed and I’m saying that as the reigning master of understatement. It’s been destroyed, ripped up, torn apart, burned to crisp and reborn into a twisted parody of its past. And it’s not funny. Somewhere. Out there. My son. […]

‘The Winds of Winter’ months away from being finished… if the writing goes well.

Yesterday fans were disappointed when George R.R. Martin’s promised New Year’s post was lost. Martin used his Live Journal site to explain that the post – which many thought would contain an update on The Winds Of Winter release date – disappeared when the author experienced some kind of software error. Many fans took to Reddit and Facebook […]

Fantasy-Faction’s Best Fantasy Books of 2015

It’s getting harder and harder to be a well-read and up-to-date reviewer in Fantasy these days. It’s also getting incredibly difficult to order the best of the year lists. I know that complaining that too many good books are being released probably isn’t an argument I will get much support for, but wow oh wow were there […]

Black Butler I & II / Kuroshitsuji – Anime Review

Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) can be a somewhat confusing franchise for those new to the material. First, it was a manga, written and drawn by Yana Toboso. The manga was then adapted into an anime – which has now seen three incarnations itself. It is also a musical, and a live-action movie. I’ll be discussing the […]

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu

“There’s never going to be an end to suffering if ‘he deserves it’ is all the justification people need for inflicting pain.” Ken Liu is known in the SFF community for writing wonderful short stories like ‘The Paper Menagerie’, which uses an inventive, fantastical plot to tell a moving story about living between cultures. The […]

In The Mix: Fantasy and Other Genres

Fantasy is a genre that assimilates elements of other genres, whilst still remaining, for the most part, a genre not often thought of as having a great number of “crossovers” and hybrids. Strictly speaking, this is changing with the natural evolution of the genre. SFF as a whole is growing more diverse and this results […]