Marc Aplin's Blog, page 208

Final Fantasy XV Trailer… Oh. Wow.

I think it’s safe to say Final Fantasy was at it’s peak before it hit double digits. Around that time the series was well known as one of the finest Japanese RPGs on the market. Even those who’d never heard of Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire and other long, turn based games couldn’t deny being […]

Worldbuilding A Religion – Part Three: How Religion Shapes Characters

In Part Two, we learned how religion can affect society and culture as a whole. But you can’t have either of those things without the individual people who comprise them, and many times it only takes one person to change everything. During a recent (recent as in, er, the past two years, maybe?) political event […]

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

Max Gladstone’s Three Parts Dead is fantasy of a different flavor. Instead of taking our world and adding magic (such as Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files or Myke Cole’s Shadow Ops), this is a world born of magic that has progressed to a point that mirrors our modern age. It’s a story of magical corporations and […]

MAGIC, MONSTERS AND MAYHEM

Regular readers of Fantasy-Faction will remember the review of Edward Cox’s The Relic Guild we posted a few weeks back. We labelled it ‘a formidable debut from an author with huge potential’ and spoke extensively about the author’s dual narrative structure and decision to write a single story split across three books. Well, Fantasy-Faction decided […]

Le Guin to be presented Lifetime Achievement Award

The National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards, will this year have Neil Gaiman present Ursula K. Le Guin their 27th lifetime achievement award, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, at a ceremony in November. In their Press Release, the NBF explains their reasons for choosing the 84 year old to […]

Resistance by Samit Basu

This review contains spoilers for Turbulence. Read with caution if you have yet to finish the first book. Resistance is the sequel to the brilliant superhero novel Turbulence, in which the passengers on a flight from London to Delhi develop superpowers. Resistance is set eleven years in the future after a ‘second wave’ of powers […]

The Slow Regard Of Silent Things Preview

If you listened to our The Slow Regard of Silent Things interview with Patrick Rothfuss last month, you will remember that Pat spoke about his nervousness and excitement in narrating his own work for the very first time. Well, Audible have decided they are not going to make us wait until October 28th 2014 to listen […]

Building A World: Basic Concepts

If you search this site you will find a variety of articles that encourage you to think about how you are going to build your stories fantasy world. You can learn about culture, science, religion, races, beasts, vegetation and, yes, landscapes. But how do these things fit in to the whole world? How did it […]

Fantasy and Science Fiction in Anime and Manga – Part One: Historical and Epic Fantasy

Books, movies, video games are all widely known platforms for science fiction and fantasy. Anime and manga, on the converse, are a less known medium for the genre. Japanese mangaka—manga artists—use elements and themes taken from fantasy and science fiction regularly in their work; it is harder to find a series that does not have […]

Thieves’ Quarry by D. B. Jackson

Ethan Kaille is a thieftaker in pre-Revolutionary Boston, working outside the law to apprehend thieves and recover stolen property. For the most part he deals with small-time theft, things that will get him a few pounds as a reward and keep him away from the notice of Sephira Pryce, Boston’s other thieftaker, a woman whose […]