Review: Robert Jordan’s The Fires of Heaven

The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The fifth book in the Wheel of Time series continues the story of Rand al’Thor, The Dragon Reborn and his childhood friend, Mat Cauthon. In the previous book Rand was named the One Who Comes with Dawn, the chief of chiefs by […]

Reader Focus Group Session: 19th May 2011

As a part of my writing process I like to get some test readers to give me their views on what they think about a story, so I asked Janine Maclean, Head of Media Studies at Marsden Heights Community College to recruit a number of her students to help me out. They were given the […]

The Ebook Conspiracy

There is an ebook conspiracy going on out there, I’m sure of it. Engineered by Apple and Amazon (notice that both company names start with A?), they have been quietly kidnapping publishers and brain-washing them before releasing them in front of alarmist journalists to squeal, ‘10% of our sales this year have been ebooks’ or […]

Review: Philip Reeve’s Predator’s Gold

Predator’s Gold by Philip Reeve My rating: 4 of 5 stars Predator’s Gold is the sequel to Philip Reeve’s brilliant sf/fantasy adventure, Mortal Engines. Its set in a post-apocalyptic world in which tractionism has evolved cities into huge mobile polities that prey on smaller towns and villages; quite literally survival of the fittest. In Predator’s […]

Review: Robert Jordan’s Shadow Rising

The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Shadow Rising, the fourth book in the Wheel of Time saga, continues the story of the kids from Emond’s Feild, of the Two Rivers. Rand’al Thor has raised Calandor in his hands and thereby announced to the world that he is the […]

The Origins of Fantasy?

Last weekend, I was driving through the Pennine Moors and switched the radio on to fend off boredom. It was set to Radio 4, because it helps me keep my speed down and I find it intellectually more stimulating than the lame attempts at slapstick by the Radio 1 DJs. A lady was talking about […]

Split-Personality

Writing whilst trying to hold down a full-time job is a lot harder than most give credit to. I speak to a lot of people who think I spend my time in artistic pursuits and faffing around being ‘creative’, composing light and airy prose and dreaming up fantastic concepts. Actually, most of my day is […]

Book Review: Robert Jordan’s The Dragon Reborn

The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Dragon Reborn is a bit of a departure from the previous books in that the narrative doesn’t really follow Rand’al Thor (the main character of the first two books), despite him being ‘the Dragon Reborn’ of the title. Instead, it focuses on […]

Keeping up Appearances

Whilst going through my short story folder, I realised that I haven’t really been pushing much or writing much new stuff. I’ve been so focused on working on my novels that I haven’t given much thought to shorter fiction. Now I recall that David Farland mentioned in a recent post that a writer needs to […]

Review: The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Great Hunt is the second book in the Wheel of Time series, which has a huge following across the globe. The book continues the story of Rand al’Thor and his friends from Two Rivers, with their destinies woven tightly into the fate […]