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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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Changing Face(s) of Fantasy – Guest Blog by Adam Dalton
It’s obviously blasphemy to criticise Tolkien, even indirectly, but for me his work is more important in historico-cultural terms than modern literary terms. Before you send me a load of hate mail, yes, yes, I fully accept that current fantasy writers inherit greatly from him and couldn’t write what they did if it weren’t for […]
Spotlight on Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets – Guest Post by David Thomas Moore
So, hey. I’m David Thomas Moore, commissioning editor at that there Abaddon Books and editor of Abaddon’s first ever anthology, Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets. And your Marc has asked my smartypants PR Coordinator† Lydia to ask me to do some sort of guest blog thing about it. Which was nice. As you can […]
What’s Your Favorite Fantasy Sword?
Everyone loves Excalibur; I mean it’s the sword of swords! One land, one King! And all that jazz. I could sit here and talk about all the times I drew what I thought Excalibur looked like on my folders in middle school, but who really knows what that mythological sword was shaped like. What is […]
Winner of the March 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 about one a fortnight. Today we will be looking at the winner from our March 2014 contest. Grimdark. If you […]
Patrick Rothfuss’s ‘The Slow Regard of Silent Things’ cover reveal
Our good friends over at Gollancz have finally released the cover for Patrick Rothfuss’s brand new novella, The Slow Regard of Silent Things. Fantasy-Faction covered just what this story is in quite some detail a few months back, but to summarise it is a short, sweet story about fan favourite Auri. Although we’ve said ‘short’ […]
World Fantasy Award Nominations
Today, I and Fantasy-Faction got nominated for a World Fantasy Award. This is a huge deal for me personally and for the community that we have built here, at Fantasy-Faction. To see our name alongside George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Jonathan Oliver, K.J. Parker, Neil Gaiman, Helen Wecker, Gene Wolfe and so many more stars and […]
