Marc Aplin's Blog, page 180
May 5, 2015
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
A curiously told tale, not driven by words but by pictures; a unique selling point, and probably the reason why Ransom Rigg’s debut novel dominated the New York Times Bestseller list for a year. This is the story of a moody rich kid from contemporary Florida who is pulled into a mystery of creepy 1940s […]
The City Stained Red by Sam Sykes
If you’ve read Tome of the Undergates you will know roughly what to expect when you pick up a book by Sam Sykes. You take a step away from today’s ‘gritty’ fantasy, that type of fantasy that looks to be ‘like real life, but different’ – i.e. low magic, a couple of beasts that aren’t […]
May 4, 2015
Skinwalker by Faith Hunter
I am obviously late to the party having just started this series, but I can certainly understand the enthusiastic following. If this first novel is any indication of what’s to come, you can count me as another Faith Hunter fan. Jane Yellowrock is of Native American descent—Cherokee, specifically. She makes a living by hunting rogue vampires […]
May 3, 2015
Fear The Old Blood: A look at the narrative of Bloodborne
It has been several days since I completed From Software’s latest title Bloodborne. Despite this, my mind is still filled with the reverberating echoes of the games cosmic narrative. A vision of beings man was not meant to see, the distant sound of crying from a child never granted life, and the ever present illumination […]
May 2, 2015
Writing Contest Winner: Fantasy Clichés
We’ve been getting such good feedback for the short stories our members have submitted in our Monthly Short Story Competition that we have decided to post them on the main site at a rate of one a week. The task this time was to write a story containing the most clichéd fantasy tropes manageable. Nearly […]
If Mark Lawrence rewrote Frozen…
Is Frozen too cute and cuddly for you? Feel cheated by Disney’s lack of blood and horror? Think it would be for the best if Mark Lawrence, Joe Abercrombie, George R.R. Martin or Robin Hobb gave it a bit of a rewrite? Well, I was browsing Facebook today when I came across a really talented artist, M.J.Hiblen, […]
May 1, 2015
The Death House by Sarah Pinborough
With a title like The Death House, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was one of those gory shlock horrors written towards the end of the twentieth century. Unusually for this site, it’s not a fantasy novel, either. What it is, though, is something remarkable. Author Sarah Pinborough has set her story in an unspecified […]
Extract from HIDDEN HUNTRESS
Some of you guys will already be familiar with STOLEN SONGBIRD, the first in the ‘Malediction Trilogy’ by Danielle L Jensen; others may not be for a number of reasons: the book has been in limited supply recently due to the fall of Strange Chemistry (Danielle’s former publisher) and previously marketed as Young Adult. Thankfully for fans, the […]
April 30, 2015
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen
Before I get started, this isn’t the sort of review that folks are used to here, given that the book in question is meant for little kids. However it should be noted that little kids find can find the fantastical in everything and books geared towards them tend to reflect that. There’s less concern with […]
April 28, 2015
Second Olympus by K. A. Stewart
Dozens of authors have tried their hands at variations on Greek gods-themed storylines over the years—so much so that these stories often start to feel a bit stale—which is why I was thrilled with K.A. Stewart’s wholly fresh spin on it in SECOND OLYMPUS. Let’s look at the plot first. Here’s the jacket blurb. The […]
