Marc Aplin's Blog, page 168

Hugo 2015 Award Winners

Tonight the winners of the 2015 Hugo Awards were announced, along with the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Congratulations to all the winners! And if you are interested in how close the race was this year, you can check out the voting stats here. Best Novel The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken […]

I Never Planned To Be A Novelist…

I never planned on becoming a novelist, it’s just something I sort of fell into. I have no training as a creative writing and I had never tried my hand at fiction before the little bubble of the Warden’s voice sprung into my head early one morning while I was drinking my fourth cup of […]

The Clockwork Crown by Beth Cato

The Clockwork Dagger amazed me with the rich world Beth Cato created of Caskentia, devoted to the worship of a woman turned into a mystical tree, and Tamarania, more reverential toward science and logic than to any religion. It drew me in with Octavia Leander, a healer more than capable of looking after herself in […]

Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner

What songs do you sing to them in Elfland? There, where all songs are true, and all stories history… I have seen lovers walking in those glades, with gentle hands and shining faces, their feet light upon the grass, where little flowers shone in the shadows as though the lovers trod the starry firmament. And […]

Does Size Matter In Epic Fantasy?

This year I decided to do something crazy—compete in an online writing contest called Pitch Wars. Run by the wonderful Brenda Drake, this is where unpublished writers query a selection of ‘mentors’ (published writers, agents, editors, etc.), for the chance to get some professional help on their manuscripts one-on-one, before pitching the polished work to […]

Killing Pretty by Richard Kadrey

Seven books in, Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series continues to have its hooks in me. Killing Pretty—the latest entry—was released at the end of July and I plowed through it in a mere two days. The further adventures of James Stark and his merry band of supernatural misfits have become annual appointment reading, on par […]

When The Dust Settles

While attending this year’s Nine Worlds convention I went to a session titled “How To Win The 21st Century,” which talked about games as a dominant cultural medium. This and many other talks at the convention highlighted the growing power and popularity of entertainment forms that had previously been regulated to “things geeks did.” Now […]

Writing Fight Scenes – What an Editor Wants to See

1. NOT JUST FIGHTING An action scene is a scene, right, where action is happening, right, hence the name “action scene”. As opposed to a “sitting down having a cup of tea and a nice chat” scene. It doesn’t just mean fighting. It can also mean running, climbing, swimming, wrestling, having sex etc. If it’s […]

September’s Newsletter

Dear Fantasy Factioner, Another incredible month here at Fantasy-Faction HQ. We’ve not only had our usual array of awesome articles and reviews, but also a noteworthy discussion on Self-Publishing that set Twitter ablaze. Oh, and you may remember that last month I invited you to join our Facebook Group that we’d just started… Well, as […]

Demon Road by Derek Landy

Derek Landy’s new novel is just as exciting, just as break-neck and just as addictive as his wildly successful Skulduggery Pleasant series. I tore through those books because I loved the characters and in Demon Road, we have a brand new set, some of whom will seem reassuringly familiar to Skulduggery fans. Amber is sixteen, […]