The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
Dragons are one of the most familiar—and overused—tropes in fantasy. These mystical beings intrigue and fascinate all who have heard of them. However, since oral tradition, dragons were either an Eastern or a Western entity. This is strange because if most dragon species can fly, then why could they be found in just two regions […]
Mythological Creatures: A List Without Dragons
Fantasy has a longstanding relationship with dragons, reaching as far back as ancient Mesopotamian art and literature and as recent as Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa and House of Dragons by Jessica Cluess, both released this year. But there are other fantastic mythological creatures just as fearsome and powerful as dragons. Here is […]
Becoming an Author: With Advice from Those Who’ve Done It
Introduction You might have a lot of time on your hands due to 2020’s pandemic and have been meaning to finish that novel you’ve been dreaming about publishing. You might have participated in Camp NaNoWriMo or are in the middle of the official NaNoWriMo now. Or maybe you have never written anything beyond an essay […]
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
Inspiration and influence comes from anything from an ephemeral moment to a persistent belief; from one line in a song to a passage in a story to a scene from a movie. The Birth of a Nation remains as one of the most infamous films ever made. Praised for its cinematography and belittled for its […]
The Origins of Halloween and its Traditions
You might have some fond memories of Halloween growing-up, where you dressed-up as your favorite superhero or mystical entity, to go door-to-door collecting candy. When someone opened the door, you would say, “Trick or Treat,” or the more comical, “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat,” and get tossed a […]
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #6: Our Round One Winner
When we began posting our semi-finalist reviews at the beginning of this week, we didn’t know which book we would be sending on to the finals of the sixth annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. In fact, the deliberations went on until late Thursday evening for our US team members, early Friday morning for the Europeans in […]
Where Shadows Lie by Allegra Pescatore – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Today we review the last book of our thirty-book batch in the sixth annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off with our fourth semi-finalist Where Shadows Lie. How this book stacks up against the other members of our final four will be revealed on Friday, October 30th. The Chosen One is dead. Magic is going haywire. Time is […]
Shadow of a Dead God by Patrick Samphire – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Among the coincidences of topics and titles in the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off, Fantasy-Faction had not only four books with dragon in the title and five titles containing shadow, we also had three that played with noir tropes in a fantasy setting: Blood Under Water (reviewed here), Tales of the Thief-City (another semifinalist; reviewed […]
Shields in Shadow by Andy Peloquin – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Today we present the second of four semi-finalists in the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off. The order of reviews posted this week does not indicate any rank or likelihood of being named the finalist, which will be announced on Friday, October 30th. In a weird, one might even say, fantastical, coincidence, three of the four […]
Tales of the Thief-City by Gareth Lewis – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
We close out the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off with four semifinalists, the highest rated books in our batch. We will share the scores when we name the finalist on Friday, October 30, and the order of the reviews posted this week should not be taken to imply the rankings of our final four. Today […]
The Stone Knife by Anna Stephens – Exclusive Excerpt!
Today on Fantasy-Faction we are thrilled to bring you an excerpt from Anna Stephens’ new series, Songs of the Drowned! For those of you who don’t know, Anna Stephens’ is the author of the highly acclaimed (including by us) Godblind series. The first book in that series, also called Godblind, came out in 2017, with […]
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #6: The Fifth Five Fall + Our Picks for Semi-Finalists
Now is the winter of our discontent… All right, it’s not winter, and whether contented or not with today’s outcome, the nine authors still in the Fantasy-Faction batch can stop biting their nails, for today they learn their fate—or at least whether they’ve made the semifinalist cut. Once again, the experience of art is subjective, […]
