Marc Aplin's Blog, page 170
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, […]
August 22, 2015
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 […]
August 21, 2015
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 […]
August 19, 2015
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 […]
August 18, 2015
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 […]
