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 […]

AI IMAGES: ADAM, KAREN, SULTAN and VASCH

As promised, here are some more AI generated images of characters from The Changeling King. These again were generated using Copilot by entering brief descriptions of each character.

Ghost of Tsushima

Fan art based on Sucker Punches awesome video game, by my daughter, the artist calling herself batpro100.

Book Review: The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

In a backwater town, a man with a hidden past spends his days running a well-kept inn. But then a traveller known as The Chronicler comes upon him one night and recognises him for who he really is; Kvothe, the Kingkiller. The book (and the series) opens with Kvothe passing himself off as a humble […]

Book Review: Rage of the Old Gods, by Tyler Edwards

My rating: 3 of 5 stars Gamers and movie-goers are probably now going to be familiar with mechs and giant robots, especially in content from the sf genre. Think Pacific Rim and Transformers, or Armoured Core and Zone of Enders. But how many times have you come across giant robots trying to wipe out humanity […]

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 […]

Book Review: Mockingjay (Hunger Games)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars Mockingjay is the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy. I started reading this trilogy back in September 2011 and have had this final part sitting on my kindle for nearly eight months. Its not that I didn’t want to read it right away. I wanted to draw out […]