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A Brief Note on the Value of Escapism
I spend a good portion of my day either reading books, writing books, listening to audiobooks, or watching TV shows and films. I occasionally ask myself if this is wasted time: time spent not living my...
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The Book Was Better: Watching vs Reading Fantasy
It’s not uncommon to hear people complain that a film didn’t do justice to the book it was based on. Maybe you’ve even been the person doing the complaining. I know I have. Sometimes a film version of...
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The Battle of the Bookshelves
Okay, it’s not really a battle. But when you look at the two bookshelves in my house – two identical IKEA monstrosities – there’s an obvious difference. The one on the right is stuffed with...
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Lightsabers and Blackouts
We almost look forward to power outages in my house, because we have a tradition. It started a couple of years ago. A thunderstorm plunged large parts of Brisbane into darkness for several hours. We’re...
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The ‘Ye Olde’ in Epic Fantasy: 5 Archaisms Explained
The other day I found myself explaining the word ‘wont’ to someone. Not the contraction ‘won’t’, but rather its apostrophe-less unrelated twin: Wont adjective: accustomed, used, given, inclined. e.g....
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The ‘Ye Olde’ in Epic Fantasy: 6 More Archaisms and Why Authors Use Them
Last week I listed some English archaic forms often seen in epic fantasy novels: things like “here be dragons” and “unsavoury louts they were” and “prithee”. This week I’m continuing with a few more...
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Confessions of an Audiobook Convert
If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be looking forward to mundane things like morning commutes and chopping onions, solely because that meant I could binge on an audiobook… well, I wouldn’t have told...
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The Power of “What If?” Premises in Science Fiction and Fantasy
There’s no doubt that a really good “what if?” scenario – a fascinating premise that envisions a society or world with a pivotal difference to our own – is a big hook for a speculative fiction book or...
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Burning, Starving and Maiming: Nursery Rhymes Without Happily Ever Afters
We all know fairy tales can be a little violent and frightening, despite the fact they seem aimed at children: wolves eating people, children getting poisoned or abandoned by evil stepmothers. However,...
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How the Last 300 Years Have Changed Fairy Tales
In high school I remember having to sit through a Disney cartoon rendition of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1994) for a unit we were doing on fairy tales. It told the usual story – Goldilocks comes...
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Public Declarations of Love: Fantasy Romance vs Romantic Comedy
So I just got back from Germany last week – a trip home that unfortunately involved about 22 hours in a plane. Most of those hours were spent in an awkward half-sleep fostering a sizeable collection of...
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Learning a Fantasy Language? Apparently There’s an App for That
I work part time at an institute that runs classes in a whole range of foreign languages. Real-world languages, that is – like French and Arabic and Japanese. On our feedback forms at the end of each...
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The Danger of Believing in Witches
In a few more days it will be Halloween, and I’d say there will be a good many witches wandering the streets. You know the look – a pointy crooked hat, a black cloak, a long warty nose, maybe even a...
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Sex Scenes in Fantasy Novels: When Do They Work?
Orchid at the Pittsburgh Botanic Gardens Growing up, most of the fantasy novels I read didn’t have sex scenes. Perhaps they had a little romance, maybe some kissing, but nothing I would classify as a...
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History in the Potterverse and Other Magical Worlds
Hogwarts Castle, Wizarding World of Harry Potter (by Jeff Kays Flickr CC BY 2.0) If you’ve read the Harry Potter series, the name Bathilda Bagshot might be familiar to you. You may even recognise her...
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Genre is Not a Dirty Word
Photo by Ian Collins Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0 I’ve encountered quite a few fantasy and science fiction authors – famous and popular ones at that – who, when asked about their decision to write in the genre,...
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What Did Tolkien Think of Fantasy Fiction?
Inside The Hobbit Hole of Bilbo Baggins. Photo by Trey Ratcliff Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 We all know J.R.R. Tolkien wrote fantasy fiction. He was the brilliant mind behind The Hobbit and The Lord of the...
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A Terrible Beauty
Nicola Alter:An interesting post about antique rifles over at mctuggle.com – it seems it wasn’t only sword-smiths that put effort into intricately adorning and crafting their weapons of choice. If...
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A Few Tips on Buying Books as Gifts
Photo by Wilbert de Groot Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 A friend or acquaintance starts to tell you about a book – a wonderful book that you absolutely must read. They describe how this book changed their...
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The Special Effects You Don’t See
Image from the short film The Landing A fleet of space ships swoops into battle, a dragon flexes its wings, a superhero uses their incredible powers… in films and TV shows, these are the kind of scenes...
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