Nether Light by Shaun Paul Stevens – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
Take a journey through a world punished by a dark, imprisoned magic. A world where children are given poison. A world where your talent is decided by the state. A world where reality is breaking down. When refugee Guyen washes up in the land of his enemy, he knows he will fight, but soon finds […]
God of Gnomes by Demi Harper
“eSports meets Civilization” I never understood the appeal of eSports, and my every attempt to read LitRPG could be described by Thomas Hobbes: brutish, nasty, and short (the attempts were not solitary, since the other LitRPG books I tried to read were otherwise popular). Enter God of Gnomes, by Demi Harper (aka, Laura Hughes), which […]
Last Memoria by Rachel Emma Shaw – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
Sarilla has learnt one thing from stealing memories. Everybody lies. There’s nothing Sarilla hates more than stealing memories, but the king forces her to, just so he can keep his subjects in line. She wants to escape to where nobody knows what she is or what she can do, but her plans go awry when […]
The Memory of Souls by Jenn Lyons
Epic stories—especially epic fantasy (the term “saga” is used for science fiction)—are known for their long narration. Epic fantasy stories consist of a slew of characters, layered and complex plots and subplots, and A LOT of worldbuilding—which often includes family trees and timelines of historical events. In the midst of these factors is the recollection […]
Oh, That Shotgun Sky by Sarah Chorn
The other night I caught the Cohen Brothers’ remake of True Grit. When I saw it in the theater, I thought it a profound meditation on the price of freedom—that fabled freedom of the Old West, which comes at such a high cost that most of us would choose the safety and strictures of “civilization.” […]
On Writing Flash Fiction
December was a really fun month for us nerds here at Fantasy-Faction. In October 2020, we had a call for microfiction submissions from our existing pool of contributing writers as a present for all of you. And as one of the writers who submitted a piece—“The Clockwork Bee”—it was a lot of fun! This wasn’t […]
Infernal by Mark de Jager
A man called Stratus wakes up paralysed in the middle of nowhere. He has no memory of how he got there or of anything else, except his first name. Vultures are preparing to eat his unmoving body. Stratus is ‘rescued’ by a group of soldiers, led by a Deacon who heals him with magic. His […]
The Children of D’Hara by Terry Goodkind – Excerpt
Last year we lost one of epic fantasy’s biggest names, Terry Goodkind. Goodkind appeared on the scene in 1994 with the first book in his world-famous Sword of Truth series, Wizard’s First Rule. Since then, the series has been translated into 20 languages and sold 26 million copies. The Children of D’Hara series picks up […]
Scarlett the Fantasy-Faction Dragon Gets a Makeover
If you’ve been with us for a while you will probably recognize our site mascot Scarlett the dragon. If you’ve not met her before, here she is in all her original glory! She has been with us from the early days of Fantasy-Faction. And since we are ten this year, I thought she might like […]
Darkness Forged by Matt Larkin – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
Vengeance is wrought. Darkness is forged. The greatest crafts on Midgard come from the dvergar realm of Nidavellir. Volund, a gifted smith and once apprentice to the dvergar, escaped their dark realm to find solace in the arms of a Valkyrie. Nine years of respite. And then she was gone. What would you do to […]
The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
It was the name that first attracted me to this book. An angel associated with a pagan symbol of death and mysticism; the possibilities set my mind racing. Then, I learned that Addison was the same author who wrote the highly inventive, characterful, and absorbing fantasy novel, The Goblin Emperor. I was pretty much sold. […]
Black Stone Heart by Michael R. Fletcher – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
A broken man, Khraen awakens alone and lost. His stone heart has been shattered, littered across the world. With each piece, he regains some small shard of the man he once was. He follows the trail, fragment by fragment, remembering his terrible past. There was a woman. There was a sword. There was an end […]
