Marc Aplin's Blog, page 164
September 30, 2015
Angry Robot want your Manuscripts… Again!
In 2011, a genre writer came across the Angry Robot Open Submission window and sent in the manuscript he’d been working on. He made a friend via the AbsoluteWrite forums who had done the same and the two of them shared e-mails and Skype conversations about how painful the wait was and how high/low their […]
September 28, 2015
Fantastical Biology – Part Nine: Fantasy Insects
Insects represent more than half of all known living organisms on our world. They’re found in nearly all environments, even in the ocean. And yet, it’s so rare to see them in fantasy fiction, even if it’s just swatting away an annoying fly. This just means there’s lots of room for insects to crawl into […]
September 27, 2015
Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
If you’d asked me ten years ago what I thought of fantasy, I’d have told you I wasn’t a fan anymore. That’s changed now (thanks to Abercrombie and Lynch), but at the time I’d grown weary of reading about the young man in a menial job who turns out to be the Only One capable […]
The Traitor: A Quiz
Dear Fantasy Faction, Hi! I’m Seth, author of The Traitor Baru Cormorant (or The Traitor in the UK), an epic geopolitical revenge fantasy about a brilliant and ruthless young woman’s mission to tear down an empire — by becoming the imperial throne’s most trusted agent. Baru’s gift and curse is her understanding of power. She […]
September 25, 2015
Thinking About Food In Fantasy
Food is an essential part of life, but it’s also so much more than just sustenance – food is power and politics, culture and setting, pleasure and identity. Food will give readers clues about the society and era they are reading about, and food can draw them closer to the characters, too. Food is a […]
Laura Lam’s DARK CIRCUS getting a Re-Release + New Covers!
A few years back, whilst morning the loss of Strange Chemistry, we wondered to ourselves what would become of Laura Lam’s Dark Circus series. Laura Lam was surely one of Strange Chemistry’s success stories, her series picked up 5* reviews left, right and centre and had the kind of truly loyal fan-base that every author desires. Naturally […]
Review: Dreamland by Robert L. Anderson
I’ve made a real effort to widen my Young Adult reading over the last year or so. Mostly this is the result of multiple conversations I had with authors at the Young Adult Literary Convention. Whilst speaking with authors about what the Young Adult genre actually is the majority of them couldn’t really give me an answer […]
September 23, 2015
The Riddle-Master’s Game by Patricia A. McKillip – Series Review
“Who is the Star-Bearer and what will he loose that is bound? What will one star call out of silence, one star out of darkness, and one star out of death? Who will come in the time’s ending and what will he bring? Who will sound the earth’s harp, silent since the Beginning? Who will […]
September 22, 2015
Dead Man’s Reach by D. B. Jackson
The ending of a series is almost always rather sad, but sometimes it is necessary. There are those series that seem to go on for far too long, and what was once wonderful becomes drab and seemingly endless. Then there are those that are cut off before their time, for one reason or another. However, […]
‘The Faithful and the Fallen’ Read Along – Introduction
Fellow fans of the fantastical written word, welcome! On Monday the 21st of September I began a read along of my favourite series, The Faithful and the Fallen. Anyone who has spent more than two minutes in my company will have no doubt heard me bellowing the brilliance of this series. Ordinarily I can finish a […]
