Rogues edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
G.R.R.M. states in his introduction that’s the “Rogues is not meant to be a fantasy anthology” but I picked it up for the authors that I knew from being a fantasy reader, and I believe most readers will, so that’s where I will focus. The character type is so ingrained in the fantasy genre and […]
Women Write Fantasy…
There have always been serious issues revolving around gender parity and sexism in the fantasy community. Whether this is the depiction of women – as little more than damsels in distress waiting for the fella to rescue her – or the fact that many bookshops and even publishers seem reluctant to fully invest in the […]
Myke Cole’s ‘Gemini Cell’ Cover Revealed
Fantasy-Faction has been lucky enough to do a number of the UK cover reveals for Myke Cole’s Shadow Ops novels. I must admit that in August last year, when we shared with the world the cover of Breach Zone, I thought there wasn’t any way Myke’s covers would be getting any better. Larry Rostant got […]
Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson
A ticket to ascendant adventure costs no more than the Toll of the Hounds, but do you have the courage to pay it? Toll the Hounds, book eight of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, is an extraordinarily good read because it gives us what we want, in spades! We get old friends and new, […]
Winner of the April 2014 Writing Contest
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. Today we will be looking at the winner from our April 2014 contest. This time for our […]
Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews
In this seventh installment of the popular Kate Daniels urban fantasy series, we have come to a crossroads. Kate has spent her entire life trying to hide her powers and live under the radar of her father, Roland, a god-like being whose envy of his offsprings’ potential power has left him with one remaining descendent—Kate—because […]
Robin Hobb’s new US covers (complete contrast to UK)
Wow, it seems that we’ve done a lot of posts on Robin Hobb’s cover art lately! That said, I’m not complaining… a big problem that the publishing industry has is that they tend to concentrate too much on the new up and coming titles whilst forgetting the ones that – we think – are still […]
Fantasy and Studio Ghibli – Part Two: The Search for Identity
In the first part of this series, I took a look at the earlier Ghibli films – Nausicaä, Princess Mononoke and Laputa – and examined the ways in which they explored the eternal struggle between nature and mankind. In this second part, I’m moving on to films which utilise symbols and motifs typical of the […]
Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson
When I had decided to give Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson a read, I had gone in with certain expectations. Seeing the head of a powerful Minotaur next to an attractive, serious looking woman holding a dagger in each had on the cover, you’d be forgiven if you thought you were picking up a fantasy […]
Marc Simonetti brings Discworld to life!
I’ve raved a fair bit about Marc Simonetti on Fantasy-Faction before. In case you missed those posts, he’s a French artist who has been in high demand by a number of high-profile SFF publishers as of late. What impresses me most about Simonetti’s cover work is that everything he produces absolutely nails the tone of […]
Trees in Fantasy – Part Two: Trees as Characters
In the first part of this series we looked at trees as symbolism in fantasy literature. We discussed the role of individual trees in mythologies and creation stories around the world, deforestation as a representation of the declining age of nature, and trees as a symbol of natural magic. As we have seen so far, […]
The Joe Abercrombie YA Experiment is a success!
We all love Joe Abercrombie here at Fantasy-Faction, but when we heard that Lord Grimdark was to give writing a Young Adult novel a shot we couldn’t help but react with the ‘OMG Cat’ face (that one to your right). How could an author known as the modern master of Grimdark Fantasy hope to convince […]
