Browsing all articles in Articles.
SFF and Queerness – We Need To Do Better
We’ve just said goodbye to June, month of queer visibility and pride (and gender-nonconforming visibility and pride, too—which many people (but not all) feel belongs under the umbrella of “queer”, and for sake of conciseness, I’m going to group the terms together here), in 2019, and I’m still standing here, yelling into the void about […]
5th Annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off: An Introduction
Hello, to all the followers of the SPFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off) the competition that began with an idle thought in the shadowed recesses of Mark Lawrence’s mind and is now in its fifth year. Some of the previous winners and finalists have been picked up by traditional publishing houses and some authors have turned down […]
What If… – Guest Blog by Tom Lloyd
Writing—It’s all basically the same whatever genre, right? No, of course I don’t believe that! If I did, I’d be trying to make my fortune in romance or something. There are a few reasons why I’m not (much to the disappointment of my friends, family and every person I’ve had to tell, “No, not that […]
Unicorn Mirror: A Compendium of Unicorn Lore
Introduction: The Ethereal Glimpsing of a Unicorn “The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were […]
A Fantasy Geek’s Guide to YouTube: Vampires
Vampires. They’re better than zombies. I’ve demonstrated this conclusively in a previous article. From True Blood to Let the Right One In to V Wars, vampires are all over literature, films and TV and they show no sign off stopping. But let’s talk about vampires as they appear in that little corner of the world […]
On Planning My First Solo Author Event
Planning a book related event is stressful on all accounts, no matter if it’s a simple reading or a large writing conference. Regardless of size, the same questions remain: Will people have a good time? Does the agenda flow smoothly? Will people discover something exciting? Are there enough networking opportunities? What about food and drinks? […]
Blade Skill, Iron Sensing and Hypnosis: Behind the Scenes Look at Shadowblade – Guest Blog by Anna Kashina
Despite being a scientist in my day job, in my writing I tend to gravitate to fantasy. This means, magic rather than technology, supernatural and mystical as opposed to rationally explained. People often ask me why I am not using my science background in my writing, and up until now I have always come up […]
40 Years of The Perfect Organism: Does Alien Hold Up?
Spoiler Warning! This article contains many spoilers! When I was about 15, Aliens had a reputation among my friends as a great film. It was part war movie, part science fiction film: futuristic in a tough, edgy way. After watching it on a battered VHS videocassette and thinking it was excellent, I settled down to […]
As I Learn: Or Why I Stopped Calling Myself A Pantser
Do you already know what type of writer you are? You may call yourself a discovery writer, an outliner or a mixture of both. We traditionally think of discovery writers, gardeners, and pantsers as writers who make up their stories as they go, and outliners, architects, and plotters as writers who pre-construct their plots before […]
Fantasy-Faction Game of Thrones Discussion: Season 8, Episode 2
*Spoilers* Watch through Season 8, Episode 2 before reading! If there’s one thing we should take away from the first two episodes of the season, it’s that we all just devoured with rapt attention what were essentially two hour-long episodes of placid preamble to the battle at Winterfell. With any other, less beloved show we […]
Hell: An Exploration
The nature of the afterlife has fascinated and terrified humanity for tens of thousands of years. What, if anything, waits for us after death? Is there more than one place to go? And what happens if you end up in the wrong place? Mythology tells us that there are many destinations for the wicked or […]
Fantasy-Faction Game of Thrones Discussion: Season 8, Episode 1
*Spoilers* Watch through Season 8, Episode 1 before reading! In March I posted a poll in the Fantasy-Faction Facebook group asking people to name their all-time favorite fantasy serial (either TV or streaming). HBO’s Game of Thrones ran away with the number one spot, garnering almost twice as many votes as the number two series, […]
