August 2, 2010 | Posted by Mark
Although George R. R. Martin‘s A Song of Ice and Fire series are fantasy fiction, and therefore anything goes, there is no denying that it is set within a fairly strong medieval setting. The Knights, titled Ser rather Sir, ride warhorses, joust with lances, feast in castle halls etc. I think one of the strengths [...]
Categories: Book Review - Fantasy, Medieval History | 
Tags: Clash of Kings, Dover Castle, Fantasy, George R. R. Martin, History, Middle Ages, Song of ice & fire | 
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March 31, 2010 | Posted by Mark
The main character of The Easy River to Success is a government minister by the name of Benetus. This character is a Machiavellian type who has used cunning, his way with words and also a bit of magic to gain prominence at court. I really wanted to steer away from the cliche of having a warrior or [...]
Categories: Piero della Vigna, Stupor Mundi, Writing | Tags: Fantasy, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, Machiavellianism, Middle Ages, Pope, Theocracy | View Comments
March 30, 2010 | Posted by Mark
I thought it would be interesting to give some more background on my recently published short story The Easy River to Success. The story was published recently by Planet Magazine and is available there for free viewing. Please go over and take a look. I would be interested to know what you think of the [...]
Categories: Easy River to Success, World building, Writing | Tags: Fantasy, Lord of Light, Online Writing, Planet Magazine, Roger Zelazny, Short story | View Comments
January 4, 2010 | Posted by Mark
With reference to my last post about Devices and Desires, the characters have become a lot clearer and different for me now – the realisation for me happened after about 300 pages. I won’t say how exactly but the main characters slowly seem to accrue more differentiation in their manner, style and motivation. Perhaps the [...]
Categories: Book Review | Tags: Add new tag, Devices and Desires, Engineering, Fantasy | View Comments
December 24, 2009 | Posted by Mark
This looks quite interesting, and the plot is definitely up my street: “14th century crusaders take a woman accused of witchcraft to an abbey where the monks will examine her and determine if her sorcery is the cause of the Black Plague which has decimated Europe.” Video Trailer for Season of the Witch And here: [...]
Categories: Film | Tags: Add new tag, Black Death, Black Plague, Fantasy, George Romero, History, Middle Ages, Witchcraft | View Comments
December 15, 2009 | Posted by Mark
The Bookseller released some statistics today on the top 100 selling authors in the UK market from 2000 to 2009. I have extracted the fantasy authors from their data to put together the following list: 1 Rowling, J K 27,556,478 units, revenue of £215,876,812.77 6 [...]
Categories: Writing | Tags: Art, Fantasy, Fiction, Literature, Science fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Statistics, The Bookseller | View Comments
December 7, 2009 | Posted by Mark
How do you write a good combat scene? I set myself an exercise over the weekend of analysing what works for me as a reader in some of my favourite fantasy books. Tolkien’s Avoidance The weird thing that I found was that in some cases where I thought there would be quite a bit of [...]
Categories: Writing | Tags: Boromir, Fantasy, Logen Ninefingers, Lord of the Rings, Martial arts, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring | View Comments
