If Salt Lake’s Fantasy Con is a sign of things to come, than fantasy fans can look forward to good times. In his book Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing, David Farland speculates that the fantasy genre sells as much as six times as many books at science fiction. Over the years, especially since the […]
The Wonder of Short Stories: Writers of the Future Volume 30
2014-07-02 · by ·
The thing about I like about short stories is that you don’t have to commit much to get a certain amount of satisfaction. Any novel worth reading will spend a certain portion of time introducing conflict, stringing together a plot, creating characters and relationships, and, if were in science fiction or fantasy, building a […]
Seeds of Rebelion: Brandon Mull and the C.S.Lewis tradition
2014-06-08 · by ·
Brandon Mull doesn’t get enough credit. A few weeks ago, I attended a forum at the Salt Lake CominCon FanXperience for authors Brandon Sanderson and Brandon Mull. Both are a local (to Utah) authors, both are BYU grads, both write fantasy, both are New York Times bestselling authors, and both are at about the same […]
Book Review | All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
2014-06-02 · by ·
It’s over so fast, I almost flipped back a few pages to see if I had missed a chapter. But no, I hadn’t missed anything. All You Need Is Kill sits you down, straps you in, and ignites a rocket strapped to your chair, and before you know it, you’ve finished, breathless and heart-stopping, palms […]
Review | Brotherhood of the Wolf by David Farland
2014-05-25 · by ·
Raj Ahtan has fled from Gaborn Val Orden, the prophesied and ascendant Earth King. Tricked on the field of battle by a ruse, Ahtan is far from vanquished. Bolstered by the strength, speed, stamina, charisma, and beauty of thousands of men, he moves to strike at where Gaborn is weakest, to tear down the kingdoms […]
Hatin’ on Shakespeare, Joyce, Steinbeck, Twain…
2014-05-22 · by ·
There’s just no accounting for taste. Early on in my relationship with My Better-half, we had our first fight over whether one needed to read the classics. It was a doozy. We were attending a reading of a popular author that she liked. “I used to be you,” the author said to an English major in the […]
Classic Authors Ripping on Other Classic Authors
2014-05-19 · by ·
We’ve all been stung by criticism. And the last thing a writer wants to read is sharply voiced critiques of their carefully crafted prose. But even the great writers of the modern classics–you know, folks like Jane Austin, Mark Twain, William Faulkner–were criticized by their peers. Including other great writers. A couple of my favorite sharply […]
Book Review | The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding
2014-05-18 · by ·
Mix together the swashbuckling of The Pirates of the Caribbean, a shade of fast shooting action and espionage–on horseback–of Michael Garrison’s The Wild Wild West, and a bit of the personalities from Ocean’s 11 (pick 1960 or 2001–it doesn’t matter), and drop them all in a world with demons, magic, curses, and airships. That […]
Book Review | The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 by William Manchester
2014-05-08 · by ·
There are few political leaders that have captured my imagination like Winston Churchill does. William Manchester not only tells the story of what is perhaps Britain’s greatest prime minister, he does it in fantastic detail. I’ve read complaints that Manchester uses perhaps too much detail, but I could not have enjoyed it more. Manchester paints […]
Hugo Nominee Book Review | Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
2014-04-29 · by ·
Before I opened Ancillary Justice and started reading, I had heard rumors that it was something quite different from anything I had ever read. I remember reading a review late last year, and the reviewer promised that the effect was nothing short of mind-blowing. And perhaps it is. To be sure, within a few pages […]
