The Chaotic Champion – Part One: Introducing the Champion
Nyki Blatchley
The honest, hardworking peasants of a village are being harassed by bandits and decide they’ve had enough. They can’t actually do anything about it themselves, so they hire a group…
The SFF Weekly Round-Up 31/01/2013
Paul Wiseall
Welcome back to the Fantasy-Faction weekly round-up of all the best SFF news, fun and nonsense from around the web. To brighten your day this week we have everything from…
Fortress Frontier by Myke Cole
Eric Christensen
Editor’s Note: This review contains spoilers for Control Point. If you have yet to read the first book please read with caution. Control Point, the first book in the Shadow…
Writing Rules and Fantasy: Stories Need Conflict
Victoria Hooper
This is the fourth in a series of articles about common writing rules and how they apply to fantasy writing. Here are the earlier articles in the series: – Show,…
The Creatures in the Shadows: West Africa
James Calbraith
Elves, trolls, dwarves, goblins… There’s no denying that the Western fantasy is strongly entrenched in a Northern European mindscape: those ancient myths of the Celtic and Germanic people that inspired…
Sci-Fi Book Club – February 2013: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Lisa Taylor
The Sci-Fi Book will be reading in February is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. “Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of twentieth-century literature set in a bleak,…
Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger
Liz Fellshot Ambrose
For some people the formula for young adult steampunk seems simple. Step 1: Find some classic science fiction from the mid to late 1800’s. Step 2: Add a “plucky” heroine.…
Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin
Idlewilder
“What kind of story you tryin’ to tell me?” he said gruffly. “A vampire story,” said York with a sly smile. “Surely you’ve heard them before…” Fevre Dream is the…
Fantasy Book Club – February 2013: The Black Company by Glen Cook
February marks the first month of our new themed and subgenre based book club selections. Since we did a very different steampunk book for December and vampires in January, I…
The Painted Man by Peter V. Brett
Alex Shepherd
With the impending release of Peter V. Brett’s The Daylight War, the latest installment of his Demon Cycle, I thought the time was ripe to have a look back at…
A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Xiagan
The Wheel of Time, started over 22 years ago, is finally finished. And its last book holds everything that was promised. Even if you’ve only been following what’s happening in…
Catching Up With Myke Cole – Part Two
Welcome back to our interview with Myke Cole, author of the military fantasy series, Shadow Ops. If you missed part one you can read it here. And now back to…