Fictional Violence vs Reality

Depictions of violence are a staple of genre fiction. This can serve a number of purposes, least of all the glorification of violence. War in The Lord of the Rings was a reflection of the trauma experienced by Tolkien in the trenches. Abercrombie shows the fruitlessness of the cycle of violence in his First Law […]

Magic, Faith and Fiction

Introduction Fantasy fiction has long been linked to the mystical, the unknown, and the extraordinary. This genre contains a unique strand of storytelling. It draws from rich cultural and spiritual traditions. This is known as Muslim fantasy fiction. Combining elements of magic, faith, and folklore, these stories explore new dimensions of the fantastical through a […]

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, […]

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 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% […]

Book Reviews – New Policy and Reviewing Template

I’ve been reviewing books for two years now and have been approached for reviews by indie authors, publicists and even a few named authors. In my day job I’m a Chief Exec of a not-for-profit organisation, and as a matter of course, I tend to review my organisational policies every year. So why not carry […]

Book Review: Shawn Mihalik’s Flute Player

My rating: 2 of 5 stars The Flute Player is a whimsical fairytale set during the bombing of France during WWII. The story is split between a hospital and a village situated in a magical land that exists between reality and dreams. A young lady has had an accident and lies in a coma, whilst […]

Review: Containment

Containment is hard science fiction. In fact some may even say that its more science than fiction. Much of this novel reads like a science textbook from the future. The cover features a futuristic city scape which has little to do with the actual storyline. The story follows young Arik’s coming of age and induction […]

Legacy

My son turned 4 this week. I bought him a World War Hulk action figure (he’s a big Hulk fan). He played with it all day and went to sleep clutching it in his hand. But as my children get older, so do I (33 at the time of writing this post). Only a […]

Review: Will Hill’s Department 19

Department 19 by Will Hill My rating: 4 of 5 stars Department 19, a covert government agency, was set up by Van Helsing and the small group of men who survived the destruction of Dracula. A fresh spate of killings across Western Europe alerted them to the fact that Dracula had made three other vampires, […]