Marc Aplin's Blog, page 172
July 23, 2015
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Sword & Sorcery tale snapped up by Tor.com
Good news Tchaikovsky fans! Adrian has had a novel-length sword and sorcery tale snapped up by Tor. com. We’re pretty excited about this and with Tor.com too. Essentially, this future-thinking and future-feeling idea of focusing on the publishing of work digitally through the web could well be how almost all fiction is published in the […]
July 22, 2015
Unicorns! edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
My regular readers know that I’ve recently revisited some old-school fantasy by re-reading the Thieves’ World books. And one of the anthologies in the shared-universe fantasy series was called Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn, in reference to a pub by that name that served as a focal point of activity in the legendary city of […]
The history in your fantasy
My third book, titled Ruin, is published in the UK on 16th July. Now, that may not mean much to a lot of you guys, but to me, it’s OUTRAGEOUS! I began writing back in 2002 as a hobby, and to see my first series be picked up by Tor UK and now reaching its […]
July 20, 2015
The Book Of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe
“We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and […]
July 19, 2015
A New Hope for the Star Wars Extended Universe
A few days ago, I took 25 years’ worth of Star Wars novels off my bookshelf, put them in boxes, and tucked them away. I couldn’t look at them anymore. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t productive. It was a sad moment for me, but it was necessary. The Star Wars Extended Universe as I knew […]
July 18, 2015
Lights, Camera, Action!
The cornerstone of almost all great fantasy books is the action scenes held within them. This is also one of the skills that many authors of today have trouble with. A good action scene will draw readers in and immerse them in the author’s world. It will grip them so tight that the pages will […]
July 17, 2015
How To Liven Up Your Story
Character A goes to location B, takes action C, and achieves event D. This sentence might have the minimal elements of a plot but it’s not a story. A story grabs you, pulls you in. A story has ups and downs, a plot that twists and turns, it has surprises and drama, it has action […]
July 16, 2015
Dinosaurs are coming!
“It’s like a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones.” says George R. R. Martin. Got your interest? I should hope so! Get ready for Knights in full armour astride not horses but rampaging T-Rexes with the release of Victor Milan’s The Dinosaur Lords. Although the Fantasy-Faction review team is still tearing their way through […]
July 15, 2015
Slavery in Fantasy
The subject of slavery became a hot topic on the forum for a few days in June and July. It began with a forum user’s quandary: On one hand us modern folk consider slavery abhorrent, but on the other I’m not aware of a single ancient society that didn’t practice it. So in any semi-realistic […]
July 14, 2015
The Hunter’s Kind by Rebecca Levene
The Hunter’s Kind is a clever and multi-layered book, which builds magnificently on Smiler’s Fair, the first in The Hollow Gods series. Levene made a name for herself as a new generation fantasy writer, pulling up old tropes like weeds and planting the fresh, bright and compelling ideas that this genre needs to flourish. If […]
