Elements of Fantasy: Brownies
Janie Bill
Hidden in the forgotten rooms of a house and in cluttered corners are little supernatural children who perform chores in exchange for food and treats. Even though they are personable…
fantasy
The Shores of Spain by J. Kathleen Cheney
Jo Niederhoff
J. Kathleen Cheney’s trilogy about an alternate Portugal secretly populated by sereia (better known as sirens), selkies, and otter people comes to a conclusion in The Shores of Spain. The…
The Ciftci Case: Is Gollum Good or Evil?
Richard Bray
Almost 80 years after Gollum appeared in The Hobbit, and 60 years after Frodo first suggests that it may have been better if Bilbo had killed Gollum when he first…
Unquenchable Fire by Rachel Pollack
Jonathan Thornton
“By its own reality, ecstasy makes people see that suffering is real. And without purpose. Ecstasy is a light that illuminates pain.” In Unquenchable Fire (1988), Rachel Pollack imagines an…
The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman
Lucy Hounsom
I loved Cogman’s first novel, which introduced us to the Library, a vast repository of books collected from multiple alternate worlds. Irene is one of its agents, posted to a…
In Defence of the Chosen One
Victoria Hooper
One of fantasy’s most commonly mocked tropes is the chosen one. This makes sense; it’s also one of fantasy’s most recurring tropes, and there are a lot of very good…
The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher
Stephen Rhodes
The Aeronaut’s Windlass is the latest offering from the talented Jim Butcher. I have been a fan of Butcher’s work for a long time, as I’m sure many of you…
Grandmothers of Fantasy
Nyki Blatchley
It’s often said that, until the past two or three decades, both fantasy and SF were completely male-dominated genres. To a large extent this is true, but not entirely. For…
The Seat of Magic by J. Kathleen Cheney
The Golden City was a wonderful historical fantasy murder mystery set in an alternate Portugal where selkies and sirens (called sereia) secretly roam the streets and magic can be used…
Fantasy-Faction Turns Five!
Jennie Ivins
Fantasy-Faction began as Marc Aplin’s way to geek out about the fantasy books he’d discovered way back in 2010. His first adventure into the world of fantasy was The Way…
Signal To Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
And that was that. You don’t get to rewind your life like a tape and splice it back together, pretending it never knotted and tore, when it did and you…
Cold Iron by Stina Leicht
“Perfection lacks opportunity for growth. Learn the value of error, especially the errors of others. Do not equate good luck with virtue, and do not indulge in superiority. Above all,…