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 […]

Big Fat Thank You

This is a post dedicated to my long-term subscribers. I was just reviewing my blog stats and realised that many of you have been following me for over a decade. That’s an impressive commitment. Thank you and may the Almighty bless you and guide you. For those of you who have joined more recently, thank […]

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 […]

The Miraculous Resurgence of Books

Clearly, books are not dead. Nor has the book apocalypse (bookopalypse?) taken place as predicted when ebooks started popping as PDFs, ePubs and .Mobi files. If anything, book sales are experiencing a healthy upswing again. The only people that seem to be reading ebooks is Gen-Xers like me. According to Nielsen Book Data (2022), 80% […]

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 […]

The AI Writer

I watched this video highlighed by the ALCS on writing generated by an AI and it freaked me out. The video features the award-winning poet, Laura Mucha, as she reads out two poems about global warming. One poem has been written by her and the other by AI. She challenges the viewer to figure out […]

Shawwal 2024 Reflections

What’s a Shawwal? Shawwal is the Islamic month that follows Ramadan. It’s a month of consolidation and reflection on Ramadan. Therefore, I thought it would be an idea to share a reflection on this month as it comes to an end. EiD Ul Fitr 2024 Whilst most people (Muslims included) probably don’t know the name […]

Ramadan 2024 Reflection

The month of Ramadan is nearly done. Tonight is the 29th night and tomorrow may be the last day of Ramadan. Only God knows who amongst us will be alive to see the next Ramadan. I want to take this moment to reflect on what I have achieved, what my regrets are and the change […]

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 […]