Spectre
Warning! This post contains spoilers for the new James Bond movie. If you don’t want to learn about any plot surprises, do not read on. Read more…
Blizzcon 2015
I am just back from Blizzcon, brainstunned with jetlag, so this will probably be pretty incoherent. I was there to help promote Illidan, my upcoming World of Warcraft novel, due in March 2016. Number one son, Dan, came along. Having accompanied me through the depths of Black Temple and across the wastes of Outland while I was doing my research for the book, it seemed only right that he brave the depths of Anaheim Convention Center with me. We flew into LAX on Wednesday evening and spent Thursday wandering around, locating the convention centre and basking in the blue skies Read more…
First Impressions: Blogo
I am testing a new blogging application called, appropriately enough, Blogo today. It’s a very nice looking piece of Mac software that comes very highly recommended (by Apple no less). I was intrigued enough to take it for a test drive on my MacBook and what you’re reading is the result. Blogo is as easy to install as any other bit of Mac software. You can download a trial version from the developer’s site (which is what I have done) or directly from the app store. Once you’ve installed it, you find yourself looking at a traditional OSX layout. There Read more…
The Wizard of Lemuria
The fantasy community has always had a schizophrenic response to Lin Carter. Mention his stint as the editor of the justly renowned Ballantine Adult Fantasy series and you’ll hear plaudits (from readers of a certain generation at least.) Carter was the man responsible for bringing a bunch of neglected classics back into print. He had a hand in kickstarting the great fantasy boom of the 1960s. Mention his own fantasy writing, on the other hand, and you’ll be greeted with much shaking of heads. It has to be said that the head-shaking is, for the most part, justified. The overwhelming Read more…
A Wizard of Earthsea
I read Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea again recently when I was on holiday. I have read it every few years since I first came across it in the children’s section of Stranraer public library at the end of the 1960s. I encountered it in my first surge of enthusiasm for SF and Fantasy. Indeed it was probably responsible for it. I am convinced it is one of the enduring classics of 20th Century fantasy. It has stood the test of time and repeated rereading. No matter what decade of my life I have read it in, I Read more…
Shadow of the Demon Lord
Not only have I backed this tremendous looking Kickstarter RPG Project, I have agreed to write a short story for it. If you interested in dark fantasy and, guess what, I am, I recommend you take a look at it. Here are some more details lifted directly from the Kickstarter page. Shadow of the Demon Lord is a roleplaying game of dark fantasy—a genre that weaves elements of horror into a fantasy world. In the game, you create and play characters struggling to survive in a land sliding toward oblivion, a place infested by demons, roaming mobs of undead, strange Read more…