Marc Aplin's Blog, page 163
October 8, 2015
Looking For Jake & Other Stories by China Miéville
Looking for Jake and Other Stories is China Miéville’s first collection of short stories, published in 2005. It’s an imaginative, thoughtful, political and highly original collection of work, a melding of fantasy, science-fiction and horror. Miéville nails this intricate balance, a subgenre some have termed New Weird and even professed him its ‘god-father.’ Miéville mostly […]
Interview with Zen Cho
We’re excited to welcome Zen Cho to Fantasy-Faction today to talk about her debut Fantasy Novel, Sorcerer To The Crown, forthcoming sequels and her life as a writer. Once you’ve checked the interview out, be sure to follow Zen on Twitter and add her book to your to-be-read list on Goodreads — You can’t sit an interview without […]
October 6, 2015
Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King
Onto book 5 of The Dark Tower series and King brings us back to the ka-tet we know and love. After the hectic craziness of The Waste Lands and the foundation-shaking revelations of Wizard and Glass, King decides to calm things down a bit with this entry into the series. The book concerns itself with […]
October 5, 2015
Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley
Last year, in my review of Kameron Hurley’s THE MIRROR EMPIRE, I called that book different, difficult, wildly inventive, risky, and provocative. EMPIRE ASCENDANT levels up on all counts. In classic book two fashion, EMPIRE ASCENDANT introduces new threads, existing threads are twisted, earlier actions have consequences, and the bad guys are on the march. […]
October 4, 2015
Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley
I was a little surprised how much I liked this book. A race of birds? Songbirds that fly in and out of people’s lungs? Sky vessels and squallwhales? There’s plenty of quirkiness to go around, and while it might catch some readers off guard, I found it utterly charming and entrancing! The worldbuilding was fresh […]
October 3, 2015
Preparing For NaNoWriMo
How can it be less than a month until November? It seems like only yesterday that it was summer and yet November conjures images of cold nights, frosty mornings, fireworks and most importantly, NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month has long been a fixed event in writers’ diaries as professional and amateur alike gather for a […]
October 2, 2015
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids by Michael McClung
At 210 pages, The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids isn’t trying to be the next bookshelf-bending epic fantasy that changes the way you think about the genre. Instead, it’s a straight-forward adventure noir featuring a touch of action, a bit of mystery and a wealth of interesting characters. Told in the first-person perspective of […]
What I learnt from Mark Lawrence’s SPFBO
About a month back, after fighting our way through 27 novels as our contribution to Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, we were able to announce our ‘champion’, Priest (Ratcatchers #1) by Matthew Colville. I’d like to spend a little time today talking about what I’ve learnt during this process so far, in relation to the state of Self-Published Fantasy Novels, and offer […]
October 1, 2015
Kingkiller Chronicles Movie, TV Show & Video Game…? YES PLEASE! :-)
It was announced today that a deal had been made for the rights to Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles. Those who keep up-to-date with SFF book/movie news will know that this isn’t actually the first time that the Kingkiller rights have been snapped up – in fact, 20th Century Fox even ‘confirmed’ a TV series at […]
September 30, 2015
Magic-Price by C. L. Schneider
Like most people who frequent the pages of Fantasy-Faction, I read a lot. I have many favourite authors who have released several books or even several series. Being a writer myself, I have also started to delve into independent authors work. One such author is C. L. Schneider, who approached me and suggested I try […]
