Marc Aplin's Blog, page 230

Thief’s Magic by Trudi Canavan

Tyen is a student of history at the influential Academy. When he falls foul of its politics and powers, he finds himself on the run, his fate now inextricably bound to a sentient book who calls herself Vella. Rielle is a socially oppressed young woman from a well-to-do family. When she inadvertently helps the authoritative […]

Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews

I am a huge fan of the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. It is one of the most entertaining urban fantasy series I have read to date. So, when I saw that Clean Sweep was finally being published in its entirety—it was previously posted a snippet at a time on the authors’ website—I knew […]

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

The idea of reviewing a known classic was quite daunting. There’s less to worry about when reviewing a newly released or few months old novel, as there are not yet a legion of fans behind it that have been in love with the story for years and years. So forgive me if I appear slightly […]

The Importance of Multiple Structures

For the last few months I’ve been serving as an advisory editor for short fiction at Strangelet, a new speculative fiction journal based in Boston (first issue September 2014!). Submissions continue to pour in, and it’s fun and serious work separating the mature stories that are ready for publication from the ones that need more […]

SLF Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds Grants

The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) is to offer two new diversity-centered grants: Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds, both intended to foster the creation of speculative fiction work rich in diversity. The $500 Diverse Writers grant is intended to support new and emerging writers from underrepresented and underprivileged groups, such as writers of color, women, queer […]

4 Top Locus Nominated Titles below £4.00 on Kindle

The 2014 Locus Awards were announced yesterday and there were some very excellent books on the list. As I said in the article I wrote up, some categories were harder to pick a possible winner for than others (although I did give it a go!). What I thought would be fun would be to pick […]

Traitor’s Blade (The Greatcoats) by Sebastien de Castell just £1.39 on Kindle!

You may remember a few months back I was raving about Sebastien de Castell’s debut fantasy novel, Traitor’s Blade (Book one in The Greatcoats series). Well, I was checking out the Kindle monthly deals section on Amazon and I’ve just spotted it there for £1.39 if you are based in the UK. In my opinion […]

Fable Anniversary Edition – Video Game Review

In 2004 I was a university student looking for a great new game to play. I bought Fable, and within minutes of playing I had fallen in love with the game. Enchanting, fun, quirky, and unique in its atmosphere and tongue-in-cheek humour, it’s still one of my most fondly remembered games. So you can imagine, […]

2014 Locus Awards Finalists Announced

Awards season has been full of great books (and a few controversial ones) so far, and I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with the Locus Awards list that has just been announced – it’s a nice mixture of familiar and unfamiliar. Below you will find the top 5 books from each category that the Locus […]

Cover Revealed for ‘The World of Ice & Fire’ by George R. R. Martin

It’s not the George R.R. Martin book we’ve all been waiting for, but nonetheless there will be a lot of fans excited for the release of The World of Ice & Fire. This is a large book that will detail the histories that led up to A Game of Thrones. It has been produced by […]