So, this happened. The Booker prize was shared between two authors despite rules being in place to prevent that from happening. One writer happens to be a black woman and advocate of diverse voices in writing and the other is a middle class, white female and Bestselling author (Margaret Atwood). You don’t have to be […]

The Washington Post recently published this article on an English science fiction novel from the early days of science fiction emerging as a genre. The article poses the question, was this the first cyborg? Some may say that the Hebrew golums were the first, however, they are powered by black magic and therefore fall into […]

My own take on this is that Hermione was written white, originally cast white based on Rowling’s advice to the casting director. The casting of a black actress in the The Cursed Child may either be down to open mindedness or may be put down to Rowling’s obsession of going back and changing facts retrospectively […]

The new fantasy/steam Amazon Prime show has just dropped, starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne. It is set in a post World War 1 styled fantasy world, where the Fae have gotten caught between two warring human empires; the Pact and the Burgues. The Fae sided with the Burgues, but were betrayed when the Burgues […]

In my previous post I suggested that the rise of women writers may be considered problematic by some. But it’s not just women writers that are rubbing the old guard up the wrong way. It’s also writers of colour. Minority voices in fiction, despite being the overwhelming majority in the world. See the post below […]

There is a growing narrative around women and fiction writing which seems to ignore (as usual) fantasy genre writing. Women writers have been producing influential fantasy and sf fiction for a long time that hasn’t been overtly genderised. I’m picturing the dragon emblazoned covers of Melanie Rawn, the awesome War of Light and Shadows by […]

It’s seems women are dominating fantasy and sf, which isn’t a bad thing, but one has to question why? One would hope that it is purely on merit, but could there be other forces at play? It is difficult to argue that for the last couple of years men just haven’t been good enough to […]

It’s good to see that the Hugo award continues to honour and celebrate diverse voices in science fiction and fantasy. Malay Mail: Malaysian author Zen Cho bags Hugo sci-fi award for best novelette. https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2019/08/19/malaysian-author-zen-cho-bags-hugo-sci-fi-award-for-best-novelette/1782128

Here is a fantastic article that rang very true to my own childhood. My reading back then included the Narnia books, Chronicles of Prydain, Fighting Fantasy, Choose your own adventure, Famous Five, Tintin and Asterix. Check it out here: The Guardian: I found all my childhood heroes in fantasy novels. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/06/i-found-all-my-childhood-heroes-in-fantasy-novels