Category: fantasy

A Trade in Betrayals at MileHiCon!

 Yesterday I finally had a chance to hold a copy of A Trade in Betrayals in my hands! I'll be down at MileHiCon in Denver this weekend for its release. I have a few panels I'm on, and I'll be hanging out at Guardbridge Books' vendor table a bunch...

A Fantasy World That’s All Grown Up

There’s a very clear traditional idea of what a fantasy world is supposed to be like. It has warriors riding horses and wielding swords and axes. It doesn’t have them travelling on planes and operating computers. It just doesn’t. But why not? After all, our world has had all...

"A Benthic Myth of the Deep Sea" in The Pink Hydra!

 A short flash fiction story of mine, "A Benthic Myth of the Deep Sea," recently came out in The Pink Hydra. Lots of other stories and poems in that issue, as well, so plenty of excellent things to read.It's a stealing-fire-from-the-gods story. Wi......

Who Wants to Live Forever?

About forty years ago, I wrote a short story exploring the idea of immortality. The main character (a kind of everyman — or everywoman in this case) does a favour to a supernatural being who, in gratitude, offers to make her immortal. As she’s a bit unsure what to...

Hanging Out With the Kids — Recent YA Fantasy TV

In general, the best stories don’t have an upper age limit, and this fact has been traditionally recognised in fantasy more than most genres. The Hobbit, the Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials — they were all published as children’s books, and the all-ages phenomenon of Harry Potter put...

What’s in a Surname?

It used to be simple enough. Fantasy names were Conan the Barbarian, Elric of Melniboné, Aragorn son of Arathorn. That even applied to sophisticated SF races: Vulcans and Klingons made do with a single name each, for instance. No self-respecting fantasy character would have such a thing as a...

My Writing Goals for 2024

New Year is a terrible time for resolutions. We make them because we feel under pressure to do so, not because we really want to. We “ought” to go on that diet or join the gym, and the commitment quickly runs out because it comes from outside. Far better...

Merry inbetweeny-mas!

Hey, how’s it going? I hope I find you suitably baked in your post-Christmas befuddlement. Schrödinger’s cat (Spoiler, Neo was alive, after all) See you later, 2023 2023 may have been all about AI and Covid recriminations, but we’re all about hum......