Foundations of Fantasy: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Ryan Howse
More than any other genre, fantasy tends to examine ancient epics. Whether it’s the study of archetypes and ectypes, or a historical understanding of narrative itself, or simply a desire…
Articles
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #2: The Self-Pub Strikes Back
Geoff Matthews
Last year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off gathered a lot of interest across Twitter, Facebook and forums. At Mark Lawrence’s request, ten influential websites, bloggers and over 250 authors got together and…
Languages In Fantasy
Leo Elijah Cristea
Language in fantasy: is it an outdated, often academically-gratuitous addition that bogs down a story and its world, or a clever quirk of setting that adds a sprinkle of the…
Fantasy Medicine – Part One: Healthcare, Magical and Mundane
B. Pine
Fantasy, whether epic, high, or sword-and-sorcery, would not be very exciting if the characters were as susceptible to death and disability as we are in the real world. The truth…
Using Scrivener To Store Your Research & Notes
Adrian Faulkner
If you enjoy writing, it’s quite possible that you’ve heard of Scrivener. The writing software, available for both Mac and PC, is a firm favourite for both published and unpublished…
Angry Robot signs Eric Fischl
Overlord
We keep a close eye on Angry Robot’s latest signings here at Fantasy-Faction HQ. This is because we know that when Angry Robot snap an author up, there’s two things…
Excerpt from ‘Wrong Place, Wrong Time’ – A short story from Sharp Ends by Joe Abercrombie
There are very few authors that Fantasy-Faction forum users and Facebook group members talk about more than Joe Abercrombie. There are many reasons for this, but in addition to truly…
Monthly Short Story Winner: Fairy Tales
Xiagan
Some are funny and silly. Some are dark and strange. But all of them have a morale, a (more or less fixed) narrative, and rules. This month’s short story contest…
Fantasy and the Collector Mentality
Zachary A. Matzo
Raise your hand if own more than one copy of Lord of the Rings. I own four: the ebooks, my first mass market paperbacks from when I was 7 or…
Diverse Fantasy Is Better Fantasy
Eric Christensen
I recently I submitted a story to my writing group for critique. It was a secondary-world fantasy set in a pre-industrial port city. Of all the comments I received, the…
Berserkers In Fantasy
Nicola Alter
In fantasy, we see a lot of magicians, shape-shifters, werewolves and all manner of humanoid characters with supernatural qualities. One type of powerful character that crops up more rarely, however,…
Small Press Fantasy Titles On Our Radar: April 2016 Edition
Welcome to the second edition of the Small Press version of Fantasy-Faction’s popular ON OUR RADAR feature. This is the post in which we show readers all the Small Press…