Marc Aplin's Blog, page 181
May 22, 2015
Writing Contest Winner: Religion
December. The darkest month with the longest night of the year. Harsh and cold days and mankind struggling in winter’s iron grip. Separated through walls of snow from others, one feels tiny and alone. What better time to remember that there are gods looking out for you? Gods, who may help you through these hard […]
Bloomsbury Reveal First ‘Harry’ image for upcoming Harry Potter Illustrated Edition Re-Releases…
Bloomsbury Books have revealed the first picture of their ‘new’ Harry Potter. Unlike some of the other images they’ve released that will feature in the upcoming Illustrated Editions of the Harry Potter books, this image by Jim Kay can’t be called a complete reimagining. It certainly looks and feels very similar to the artwork in/on […]
May 21, 2015
Genres: Stirring The Pot
I was a reader for decades before I began to really work at becoming a writer. Ever since I was a boy I read anything I could get my hands on, history and science and poetry and every kind of fiction, Wuthering Heights to The Thirty Nine Steps, Kemlo of the Space Lanes to Dr […]
May 20, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road
George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road is an absolute cinematic tour de force and the only ones in disagreement are a small group of men who found the women in this movie too strong for their sensitive ego’s and, well….those that require a complex narrative or are less than entertained by epic car chases. For […]
May 19, 2015
Robert A. Heinlein: More Fantasy than Meets the Eye
Robert A. Heinlein is known as the dean of science fiction, and was the first Grand Master of the genre. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke are collectively known as the ‘Big Three’ of science fiction. Just the other day, I saw someone mention in a blog that they had read a science fiction […]
Waterborne Exile Cover Reveal & Preview
It’s no secret that Angry Robot Books are amongst Fantasy-Faction’s favourite SFF publishers here in the UK. Having been lucky enough to meet a number of their team at conventions and through the interwebs I know that each and every one of them are true genre fans. And, because they are true genre fans, they […]
May 18, 2015
“The Witcher: Sword Of Destiny” Extract
The Witcher is far more than the title/class of a character in an SFF Book in its native Poland. In its country of origin, the series of novels and short stories by writer Andrzej Sapkowski has the kind of cult following that The Lord of The Rings has over here in Britain. Indeed, the growing […]
May 16, 2015
Writing Contest Winner: Joker Month
We had a lot great contest themes this year and I know that some people didn’t manage to finish their stories on time for some of the contests or didn’t take part for other reasons, so this month I decided to revisit the themes we already had. November (because of NaNoWriMo) is a special month […]
May 15, 2015
Self-Published Fantasy Redux: Riyria. Revelation.
My favorite fantasy books of 2015 have been self-published. For a guy that wrote “Self-Published Fantasy and Me” for this very website, that is quite an admission. And while I don’t for one moment regret that previous article, I do admit to one colossal miscalculation. I should have read Michael J. Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations years […]
May 14, 2015
A Look At Points Of View
What point of view to write from is one of the most significant decisions a writer can make about their work, yet with so many aspects of writing craft to consider, characterisation, plotting, pacing, it often gets regulated to the background after a quick, early decision. Giving a little thought to what point of view […]
