Browsing all articles tagged with dark fantasy.
COVEN QUEEN by Jeramy Goble – Cover Reveal
I was so thrilled to finish my “family-friendly,” metaphysical, space-fantasy trilogy, The Akallian Tales, last year. But, towards the end, I struggled to focus a bit. A new idea kept poking at my brain, trying to steal my attention. I’d read books one and two of A Song of Ice and Fire previously, and had just […]
Fallen Gods by James A. Moore – Cover Reveal & Giveaway
At the beginning of 2017, Angry Robot released the first in a new series by James A. Moore: The Tides of War. The first book, The Last Sacrifice, came out to much acclaim with people like Seanan McGuire calling it, “Gripping, horrific, and unique…well worth your time.” If this dark gem of sword and sorcery […]
Blackwing by Ed McDonald
Ed McDonald’s debut is an impressive tour-de-force of imaginative worldbuilding, gritty characterisation and absorbing writing. Ryhalt Galharrow’s story comes with the intimacy of a first-person point of view. McDonald gives his protagonist a voice as distinctive and world weary as Daniel Polansky’s Warden from The Low Town trilogy. Like the Warden, Galharrow is a soldier […]
The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith-Spark
As I recall, the first rumours I heard of the book that became The Court of Broken Knives was seeing the author’s lament on social media that an agent had found it too brutal, too gory, too grimdark to contemplate representing it. Nonetheless – as has happened to so many authors – one agent’s poison […]
Anna Stephens Interview
Today we are talking with Anna Stephens, a UK-based writer of epic-y, gritty, grimdark-y fantasy. Her debut novel, Godblind, was released by Harper Voyager on June 15, 2017, with the sequels penciled in for 2018 and 2019. Hello Anna, thanks for joining me here today. I always start my interviews differently, sometimes with easy questions, […]
Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb
Robin Hobb’s genius isn’t flashy. The world she has created is fully articulated, complete with complex characters and histories, detailed magical systems, and fully realized political intricacies, yet she rarely is mentioned alongside Brandon Sanderson and others recognized as fantasy’s greatest world-builders. Her prose isn’t particularly flashy in the same way as writers such as […]
The Black Guard by A. J. Smith
The Black Guard has been described as “Martin meets Lovecraft,” and doesn’t disappoint on either count. With bleak personal stories of loss and hardship, wars between rival nations and a plot to resurrect a dead god, the novel is packed with action and intrigue. The book is not without its flaws, there are moments where […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Nightmares
Everybody knows about nightmares, so I felt that in this case an introduction wasn’t necessary. Rules: 1. This must be prose or poetry. 2. A nightmare or nightmares must be a central part of the story 3. Prose must be 500-1500 words long. 4. Poetry must be 100-500 words long. 5. You will be disqualified […]
Skullsworn by Brian Staveley
Skullsworn is a standalone novel set in the world established by The Chronicles of the Unhewn but set before the events of that trilogy. It follows one of the Chronicle’s deadliest characters and a huge fan favourite Pyrre Lakatur in an origin type story that allows us to bear witness to her final trial before […]
They Mostly Come Out At Night by Benedict Patrick
You may recognise this book. You should recognise this book. At least, you should if you’ve been following the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off and/or are part of Fantasy-Faction’s social media circles. I myself have been desperately enamoured with Benedict Patrick’s debut novel since I first laid eyes on its cover last year. Jenny Zemanek did such […]
The Mirror’s Truth by Michael R. Fletcher
Sequel to Michael R. Fletcher’s grimdark masterpiece Beyond Redemption, The Mirror’s Truth, continues the tale of the deranged characters with new additions to the cast. The story opens with a bloody scene and Bedeckt re-emerges with a new companion called Zukunft. After abandoning his friends in the Afterdeath and escaping back to the living world […]
Red Sister by Mark Lawrence – US Cover Reveal
When Fantasy-Faction started out it was just a tiny review site with a forum full of readers and writers with too much free time on their hands. One of the writers who would hang out and chat fantasy with us was Mark Lawrence. We watched as his career took off and followed him fondly from […]
