Marc Aplin's Blog, page 167
August 30, 2015
The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker
Time flies: It’s thirty years since Clive Barker’s first novel, The Damnation Game, was published. A tale of Faustian proportions, it – along with his short story collections The Books of Blood – changed the face of horror fiction at the time. Barker’s writing was full of vital energy and visceral imagery that was a […]
Authors & Stories Announced for Warrior Women edited by Paula Guran
We love our Science Fiction and Fantasy anthologies here at Fantasy-Faction and although the title ‘Warrior Women‘ for Paula Guran’s upcoming collection had us a little concerned, we’ve been able to breathe a sigh of relief today upon the release of more details about it. We thought there was a good chance we were about […]
August 29, 2015
Magic: The Gathering – A Fantasy Lover’s Perspective
There are lots of games out there for fans of fantasy, both video and table-top. Dungeons & Dragons is probably the most well-known table top fantasy game, but Wizards of the Coast also publishes Magic: The Gathering, a trading card game that also belongs in the fantasy genre. But I noticed that there isn’t a […]
August 28, 2015
Gender and Stereotyping in Fantasy – Part Two: Switching Roles
In the first part of this series we began to explore a couple of points, not least of all the idea that we are creating a new kind of gender mould with our misguided insistence as to what constitutes a “strong female character”. This has two consequences: female characters are still just as stereotyped as […]
August 27, 2015
Robert Holdstock: Mythago Wood and Lavondyss
A fire is burning in Bird Spirit Land. My bones smoulder. I must journey there. Forests are naturally places of mystery and wonder. Full of life and growth, they are generative, symbolic of growth and fertility. Yet they also represent nature untamed, a landscape ungoverned by human husbandry, a labyrinth into the darker aspect of […]
August 26, 2015
Fantasy Influences: Ancient Greek Mythology – Part One
When we think of typical fantasy, we tend to imagine a setting influenced by western medieval ideas, complete with knights, horses, longswords and dragons. However, there are much deeper, older roots to the magic, monsters, tropes and archetypes that dominate the fantasy genre. Classical, Celtic, and Norse mythology, among others, have all had a huge […]
MTV’s Shannara Characters Revealed
MTV have released cast photos of their upcoming “The Shannara Chronicles” series that will be based primarily on Terry Brooks’s The Elfstones of Shannara (book 2 in the Shannara series and hailed as one of Brooks’s best works). MTV describe the series as ‘a story of three young teens destined to complete a heroic quest thousands of […]
August 25, 2015
The Price of Faith by Rob J. Hayes
With The Price of Faith, the third and final book in Rob J. Hayes’ The Ties that Bind series, Hayes once again returns to the central plot established in the first book, but brings a new interest in establishing interesting settings to continue the steady evolution we’ve seen throughout his young writing career. In The […]
August 24, 2015
New Joe Abercrombie book announced!
So, Joe Abercrombie’s Young Adult trilogy has now finished. Although 5 years ago we’d never have entertained the idea that Joe would go down the YA route we were so damned impressed with the result that we didn’t bug him – even once – about when the next First Law novel would be coming. It […]
2015 Hugo Awards: No Dogs Allowed?
On Saturday night, the winners of the 2015 Hugo Awards (and the not-a-Hugo John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer) were announced as part of the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention, in Spokane, Washington. Congratulations to all the winners for picking up one of the most prestigious awards in the genre world! Of course, […]
