Browsing all articles tagged with historical fiction.
Dark River by Rym Kechacha
It’s hard not to feel that the road is a kind of scar across the land, and the forest is like the new pink tissue forming beneath the old wound, knitting the body back together after being rent apart. Shante thinks of the faint lilac scar across her belly form the C-section giving birth to […]
Miles Cameron Interview – The Fall of Dragons
Five years ago The Red Knight came into the world to high acclaim. This year The Traitor Son Cycle concluded with The Fall of Dragons. We at Fantasy-Faction have been following this series since the beginning and are lucky enough to have here today author, re-enactor, outdoors expert, and weapons specialist Miles Cameron to tell us […]
Interview with Bernard Cornwell
As a longstanding fan of the writing of Bernard Cornwell, I was delighted when he agreed to answer some interview questions. The profile of his writing has been raised most recently by the television adaptation of The Last Kingdom and its scandalously irreligious hero Uhtred. However, his output of historical fiction is truly prolific, drawing […]
Murder by Sarah Pinborough
Years after the horrors of Jack the Ripper and the Torso Killer which terrorised London, not everyone has forgotten about the Upir. Doctor Thomas Bond might have found some peace after Upir stopped lurking in the shadows and started enjoying life in the company of Juliana Harrington, but he is aware that Upir’s terrors are […]
Irregularity edited by Jared Shurin
I recently began some writing projects into what I thought was a thus far unexplored genre: historical science fiction. Steampunk touches on this but is largely attached to the Victorian era and seems to be more about the spectacle than about the science, and speculative fiction, while an accurate title, is rather broad for my […]
The Scourge by Roberto Calas
The zombie apocalypse is already here. Popular culture is overrun with the brainless, flesh-eating revenants. Shambling through the streets of cities throughout the fictional world, terrorizing the countryside from Georgia to Great Britain, zombies have permeated pop culture on a level on par with hobbits, vampires and schools for wizards. For my money, The Walking […]
Historical Research with Miles Cameron and Anthony Ryan
The fantasy genre has always been happily aware of its deep connection to history. Pull a book at random from the fantasy section of your bookstore and you’re sure to find something that jogs your high school memories of Scandinavian Vikings (The Blade Itself), the Napoleonic Wars (The Thousand Names), The Wars of the Roses […]
Alamut by Vladimir Bartol (Translated by Michael Biggins)
‘Nothing is true, everything is permitted.’ – The Supreme Ismaili Motto Alamut is an impenetrable fortress which houses a small Ismaili army ruled by the enigmatic Hasan ibn Sabbah. He is a charismatic yet elusive master. The subjects of Hasan ibn Sabbah, also called Sayyiduna, are in awe of their master on many different levels–some […]
Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel is a foray into the scarcely read world of prehistoric fantasy. It is a raw story, stripped of knights and kingdoms, cities and armies. Instead of these tropes, the story focuses intensely on human relationships and quests of necessity, for food and fire and an old kind of honor that […]
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Please be aware that this review contains spoilers. Doomsday Book is widely regarded as an SF classic, the first book in the acclaimed Oxford Time Travel series. First published in 1992, the book is set in 2054, when scientists at Oxford University are beginning to unravel the secrets of time travel. An error in the […]
The Alchemist of Souls by Anne Lyle
When Tudor explorers returned from the New World, they brought back with them a name out of half forgotten Viking legend – Skayling’s – and following in those explorers wake came red sailed ships, native American goods, and a Skrayling ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I court. Mal Catlyn, a down on his luck sword for […]
Historical Fantasy vs. Historical Fiction
It has been almost eight years since I’ve been on stage — twelve since I’ve been in a major role — and yet I still have the Actor’s Nightmare at least once a month. It’s always the same: it’s opening night, and I realize that I haven’t even looked at my lines yet, much less […]
