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…
Articles
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
Overlord
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…
Mythology in Urban Fantasy
Leo Elijah Cristea
I’ve talked before about creating a mythology using fantasy, and I’ve delved a little into world mythology and folklore through various articles on dragons, demons, fae, and magic, but this…
Worldbuilding: The Nihilistic Architect and the Negligent Gardener
Nick Clark
George RR Martin’s now famous analogy of the architect and the gardener distilled the craft of novel-writing into two distinct creative approaches. I would suggest that this is a particularly…
‘I actually started worldbuilding…’ by Sam Sykes
Sam Sykes
Today we are delighted to welcome one of our favourite authors Sam Sykes (also known as Samus Sykesimus on the Roman Gladiator circuit) to Fantasy-Faction. I don’t really need to…
Gateway to Fantasy: The Legend of Zelda
I was eight years old on August 22, 1987—the day The Legend of Zelda was released in the United States. A month later I turned nine and received a copy…
The Passage Readalong: Chapters 1-5
Hello everyone, Ah… What a week! If this is your first time reading The Passage, then I hope you are enjoying the ride. I think these early chapters may have…
Is Fantasy for Gardeners?
Stephen Deas
At some convention in the distant past on some panel about something or other, someone once asked me whether I was an architect or a gardener. I had really no…
The Endless Journey
Aaron Miles
I recently began reading The Complete Chronicles of Conan Centenary Edition by Robert E. Howard, this weighty tome may well require the strength of a barbarian to lift it, such…