Browsing all articles by Leo Elijah Cristea.
Faeries and Folklore – Part One: An Introduction
We’re going to talk about faeries. For the purposes of both my sanity and authenticity, leave any and all notions of Disney’s Tinker Bell at the door. Tinker Bell is a pretty fiction dreamed up in order to invite little girls to dress in frilly gowns that glitter and sparkle in the sun. Faeries are […]
The Truth About -Punk
There is something that really gets me thinking (well, there are many things, really, but this is a big one) about the genre and its tendency to label things, to pigeonhole authors and books into categories with ‘helpful’ titles. In a sense labels can be useful; they can separate and advise. But when they’re misused […]
Love in SFF – From True Love to BFFs
Romance in SFF is one of those things that people either love, hate, or are frankly indifferent about. I’m not one of those; I will eagerly admit that I love romance. Since Valentine’s has just been and gone in a flutter of rose petals, stuffed bears, wine, chocolates and the odd grumbling status update about […]
European Dragons: From the North and East
Our final destination on our worldwide dragon journey is Europe. I know, I know—not very exciting, is it? But wait! Having looked specifically at Chinese dragons last time, it’s only right and proper to give more “Western” dragons a detailed examination. However, the usual image of a dragon—which is, of course, the traditional Western view […]
Fandom and Creativity
Fandom is a funny thing. It’s also a complex thing with practically a life of its own; an organic organism that has taken on a different meaning besides stereotypical lines of nerdy thirty-year-old men queuing up outside comic and bookstores for the latest release or, dressing up like favourite—yet fairly “mainstream”—characters on Halloween. In fact, […]
Grandfathers of Fantasy
The idea of an amiable, bearded grandfather upon whose knee one could settle on a Saturday afternoon, all tired out after a morning spent building model aeroplanes, or trekking in the woods hunting for fish and all manner of adventure besides, is a pretty little notion that makes one all a-glow with warmth and fuzziness. […]
Balancing the Scales – Read More Female Authors in 2014
It still astounds me sometimes that the literary world is not equal, that people are necessarily inclined to undertake a specific effort in reading more books by female authors, that women in the genre are still treated as though they don’t belong. Somewhere along the line, it became a bad thing to be a female […]
Politics in Fantasy
The idea of politics is usually a tricky subject: along with religion, politics is one of those subjects supposedly unfit for healthy (heated?) debate at the dinner table, or when out for a wine or whiskey with friends. It causes arguments, altercations, and is a subject best discussed with like-minded people who won’t order for […]
Being A Reader: The Magic of Books
Books. To some of us they’re a gentle pastime, something to read on the beach or on the daily commute; a lunch break companion or a ritual before bedtime, a chapter at a time. For others, they are like friends, companions that we look to as fondly as if they live and breathe along with […]
The Doors Are Open – SFF Goes Mainstream
Sometimes it’s difficult to imagine that, sitting here in this cafe, I am likely the only person in the building who knows who Peter V. Brett is. Because surely that’s just impossible: Peat is a legend. Moreover, it’s completely at odds with the rotation of my universe that when speaking to even my closest friends, […]
Dragons: Classifications
Last time we considered dragons as a general species, to introduce their role in fantasy fiction, giving introductory examples of their usual staging and appearances in the stories we relish. Whether a giddy groupie or an ardent loather of the (most of the time) bewinged beasts it’s always good to know your dragons: whether to […]
YA Science Fiction and Fantasy – Part Four: The Spotlight
There is such a wealth of YA SFF that sometimes navigating the shelves can be difficult. At the moment, YA is somewhat fashionable, and that’s good, because when something is en vogue, people read it. People reading is good because books are good. But our focus here is on science fiction and fantasy; we’re going […]
