Browsing all articles by Richard Marpole.
A Newbie’s First SFF Con: AKA BristolCon Confidential
I didn’t intend to write this article. I didn’t prepare for it, make any notes for it or believe that I was going to be submitting anything but reviews to Fantasy-Faction for the next few months. It all started when a fellow Factioner, the author and editor Steven Poore, asked me a question. At the […]
The Midderlands – OSR Setting Mega Review
This review includes The Midderlands, The Midderlands Expanded and the Midderlands GM Screen created by Glynn Seal, Edwin Nagy and Mark Nolan of MonkeyBlood Design. Disclaimer: I bought a copy of The Midderlands but received review copies of The Midderlands Expanded and the Midderlands GM Screen. The Midderlands is an indie Old School Renaissance tabletop […]
Darkly Dreaming by Chloe Hammond
This is a book about vampires, about becoming one and subsequently coping with the changes that being a fatal predator of the night brings (i.e. expect a high body-count). It’s also about the healing power of friendship, about marrying the wrong person, regrets, living life through fantasies and all the different ways that human beings […]
Cabaret of Monsters by Tansy Rayner Roberts
I read this novella after trying out Kickstarter for the first time to back Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Creature Court bundle. I’m a sucker for an original setting, so when the world of the Creature Court was described as a Romanesque, Roaring 20s style city where shapeshifters engage in a nightly battle with the sky, I […]
A Fantasy Geek’s Guide to YouTube: Weapons and Warfare
YouTube is an app, a website, and a cultural phenomenon. It’s also a vast and barely-explored wilderness full of content that ranges from dynamic to dire. Whatever your interests are, there’s probably at least one channel out there for you. Still, managing to dig out the channels that cater to your own SFF needs can […]
A Fantasy Geek’s Guide to YouTube: RPG Let’s Plays Part Two – Honourable Mentions
YouTube is an app, a website and a cultural phenomenon. It’s also a vast and barely-explored wilderness full of content that ranges from dynamic to dire. Whatever your interests are, there’s probably at least one channel out there for you. Still, managing to dig out the channels that cater to your own SFF needs can […]
A Fantasy Geek’s Guide to YouTube: RPG Let’s Plays Part One – Spotlight
YouTube is an app, a website, and a cultural phenomenon. It’s also a vast and barely-explored wilderness full of content that ranges from dynamic to dire. Whatever your interests are, there’s probably at least one channel out there for you. Still, managing to dig out the channels that cater to your own SFF needs can […]
A Fantasy Geek’s Guide to YouTube: RPG Reviews
YouTube is an app, a website and a cultural phenomenon. It’s also a vast and only partially explored wilderness full of content that ranges from dynamic to dire. Whatever your interests are, there’s probably at least one channel out there for you. But managing to dig out the channels that cater to your own SFF […]
A Fantasy Geek’s Guide to YouTube: Mythology
YouTube is an app, a website and a cultural phenomenon. It’s also a vast and only partially explored wilderness full of content that ranges from dynamic to dire. Whatever your interests are, there’s probably at least one channel out there for you. But managing to dig out the channels that cater to your own SFF […]
In Defence of a Zombie-Free Apocalypse – Part Two: The Rest!
And we’re back. Last time we explored how vampires, werewolves, and ghosts have so much more potential to create an exciting Apocalypse scenario than just rehashing all those rotten old zombie tropes. Now it’s time to look at a bunch of the less obvious creatures to see if they’d be any good at bringing down […]
In Defence of a Zombie-Free Apocalypse – Part One: Vampires, Werewolves, and Ghosts
Zombies are awful. They look disgusting and they smell worse. Their eating habits are appalling. Their conversational skills leave a lot to be desired. People keep trying to explain them through science when they’re clearly beings of magic. (Note how they keep on walking around endlessly even though their metabolism has clearly stopped working and […]
Deadhouse Landing by Ian C. Esslemont
Spoiler Warning: This review contains minor and very general spoilers for the Path of Ascendancy series. But then this is a prequel series so the spoilers here are no worse than the ones you’d get from reading the blurbs of books from earlier Malazan series. Ian C. Esslemont is the co-creator, alongside Steven Erikson, of […]
