Monster vs Mariner: The Gothic Novel

In 1765, when Horace Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto during the Romantic period, the Gothic novel became acceptable writing material. Early depictions of the genre saw the use of stereotypical settings, usually an eerie castle or mansion on a wind-swept moor, where mysterious and macabre incidents occurred especially on stormy nights. It was also […]

Cyborgs and Cyberbodies

Descartes (1637) statement, ‘I think, therefore I am,’ defined human subjectivity in a way none had before him. According to the pioneers of logic, the term ‘human’ was defined by the following logical equation: Animal + Speech = a speaking animal = human. According to Descartes statement, speech is not enough and indeed with the […]

Originally posted on Fabulous Realms:
There is perhaps no fantasy creature that is as awesome, iconic and ubiquitous as the dragon, which is as popular in mythology as it is in fiction. In fantasy novel terms, perhaps the earliest fictional depiction of a dragon appeared in The Hobbit, J R R Tolkien’s 1937 prelude to…

The Tingle

I know what you’re thinking. What on earth is the tingle? If you read my recent post on phases you’ll know that I’m currently in academic gear (driving analogy, not clothing). But over the last few days I’ve started to experience a not too unfamiliar sensation that tells me I should be doing something, almost […]

Phases

I think people go through a cycle of phases, of doing things that they love, but really going at it for a while before lapsing for a while. Take me for example. I’ve been working my behind off for the last month on writing my Masters dissertation and have done no other writing whatsoever. Even […]

Live Again

After a couple of weeks of trying to transition from the old site, which still exists in the ether, I have finally managed to configure the trollking web address to the blog site and set up my email using Google Apps. So hopefully you can continue to visit for book reviews and news about my […]

Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Knife of Never Letting Go. The cover is a clue to what this book is going to be like. The typography wouldn’t look out-of-place on a horror movie and looks like it was written with the tip of a knife, […]

Book Review: A Kingdom Besieged

A Kingdom Besieged by Raymond E. Feist My rating: 4 of 5 stars With Kingdom Besieged, we are returned to Midkemia and back to where the saga began; Crydee. Though this is a new trilogy (?) it picks up threads from the previous Midkemian volumes and makes full use of their history and lore. The […]

www.trollking.co.uk

The armchair detectives amongst you will have noticed that the blog is now carrying the website address. There is a perfectly good explanantion for that, which I don’t want to bore you with, but here it is in three words “Microsoft” “Got” “Greedy”. Well, that’s the main reason. The other reason is that whilst the […]

Book Review: Teddy Jacob’s Wicked Hunger

Wicked Hungry by Teddy Jacobs My rating: 2 of 5 stars Wicked Hungry is about a boy (Stanley) coming to terms with a sport’s injury that has taken away his ability to compete as a runner. The need to run gets worse as full moon draws near and a terrible gnawing hunger that his vegan […]