Hidden Realms of Muslim Fantasy

The mind stills. The body relaxes. The spirit rises up, tethered to its mortal shell with a gossamer tendril. Free to wander the spiritual realm but tentatively connected to the physical world. The aim is to lose oneself in the awe of the Almighty. In my last post, I looked at the bestiary available to […]

Clash of Mythologies

The troll hefts its makeshift club and advances cautiously towards the glowing blue figure. He roars a challenge at the strange creature to show his dominance. But the blue figure is uncowed. She just smiles as she hovers above the ground and raises a single hand. The earth rumbles in response. In my last post, […]

When Folk Tales Collide

Western fantasy fiction is heavily influenced by Greco-Roman and Norse mythologies. From pantheons of fickle deities to mischievous fae folk, from great dragons to tunnel crawling wyrms. Over the decades, since fantasy’s emergence as a genre, more and more European folklore has made its way into fantasy fiction. Orcs, goblins, elves, dwarfs, etc., are well […]

Ink and Algorithms: AI vs. Human Writing

I wanted to test the mettle of AI, so as an experiment I fed Microsoft Copilot the blurb from my novel, The Changeling King. Here is the original prompt complete with the text of my blurb: Write me a chapter of a fantasy story using this blurb: At the height of the Age of the […]

The Influence of AI on Writing: Current Trends and Future Impact

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while now, but wanted to allow my thoughts on the matter to crystalise a little bit before committing words to digital paper. AI is here. Its been here for a while now but its finally becoming common place in the public domain. Understandably, its making some […]

A Man of Focus

This is my yearly excuse piece on why I haven’t written any new fiction in ages. Same excuse as last year, I’m still working on my PhD. Its started to dray a little bit, and there are plenty of distractions around for me to happily procrastinate with. I need to be more like the guy […]

Ramadan 2024 WK4

In the previous weeks, I have looked at my daily routines during Ramadan, the social and communal elements, and then at the physical benefits of fasting for 30 days. This week, I want to focus on spirituality. Spirituality is difficult to quantify or qualify as its intangible and speaks of an inner life. Nobody can […]

Ramadan 2024 Wk1

The first week of Ramadan 2024 is nearly done. My days have been pretty hectic with very little downtime. I start the morning at 4am to eat breakfast (Sehri) before first light. Usually, breakfast consists of a few dates (Palestinian Medjoul are my current go to dates), a cinnamon bagel and a cup of coffee. […]

We Are Living in a Dystopian World

There was a time when we used to read dystopian fiction as if it was a crystal ball that could reveal potential pitfalls of a future gone wrong. There are the classics like George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, as well as newer […]

Gaza

I woke up last night around 3am, gripped by a nameless fear. Unbidden the following words entered my mind: When the missiles stop fallingAnd the tanks stop rollingWhen the fathers stops callingAnd the mothers stop wailingWhen the orphans realise nobody’s comingAnd the last building stops crumblingThe sound that is most deafeningIs the silence were once […]