Writer's Digest

2 min read

David Burns says the reason why fantasy is such an old but thriving literary genre is that fantasy stories speak to emotional truths. “A good fantasy story is going to make you feel something and resonate about subjects such as love, family and the n

SFX

1 min read

RELEASED OUT NOW! 344 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Steve Feasey Publisher Bloomsbury A magic sword, an abandoned baby of mysterious origins, and a malevolent sorcerer looking to plunge the world into chaos… Dark Blade ticks off a lot of epic fantas

Writing Magazine

1 min read

The University of Glasgow School of Critical Studies has launched the Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic. The new venture’s inaugural event was a free Zoom lecture on 16 September by fantasy author Ellen Kushner, followed by a discussion panel on f

The Advocate

1 min read

Isaac Fellman, author of The Two Doctors Górski and, under his pretransition first name, The Breath of the Sun, won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror for the latter. An archivist at a queer historical societ

SFX

1 min read

Pick of the paperbacks this time: Adrian Tchaikovsky’s CAGE OF SOULS ( , out now, Head Of Zeus). Set when the sun is dying and less than 100,000 humans survive in the last city, it centres on a rebel confined on an island prison in a predator-filled

SFX

1 min read

Words have mystical power in Jay Posey’s space opera EVERY SKY A GRAVE (out now, Harper Voyager). Set in a future where mankind has mastered the Deep Language of the universe, it centres on an adept sent to a world that’s become corrupted. The world

SFX

1 min read

RELEASED 6 FEBRUARY 352 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author Luke Arnold Publisher Orbit Fans of Black Sails will likely find the name Luke Arnold familiar. He played John Silver in the pirate series, as well as being a mainstay on numerous other

SFX

1 min read

Neal Shusterman’s latest, GAME CHANGER (out now, Walker) centres on a teenage American football player, who’s… oh right, you’ve lost interest before I mention how he bounces into parallel worlds, right? Fair enough. Hannah Mathewson’s debut WITHERWAR

Popshot Magazine

1 min read

ISSUE 25 — FANTASY AUTUMN 2019 There are no limits on fantasy. Yet, in literature it is so heavily steeped in genre it’s impossible not to think of warring kingdoms, dragons, unicorns, witches and other supernatural tropes. Fantasy with a capital F i

SFX

1 min read

Leiber’s father (also Fritz) was a successful actor, most notably playing Franz Lizst in Universal’s Phantom Of The Opera (1943). The book was expanded from The Pale Brown Thing, first published in the Jan/Feb 1977 editions of Fantasy And Science Fic

ImagineFX

1 min read

Author Dian Hanson Publisher Taschen Price £150 Web www.taschen.com Available Now Taschen’s Masterpieces of Fantasy Art showcases imaginative art primarily from the 20th century, in a mammoth, highly produced hardback. Yet this mouth-watering prospec

SFX

1 min read

Miles Cameron switches from fantasy to space opera for ARTIFACT SPACE (out now, Gollancz), which centres on a vast merchant vessel. When on-the-run orphan Marca poses as a midshipman on the Greatship Athens, she gets caught up in a plot to destroy th

SFX

1 min read

MEET THE COMPLIANCE MANAGER BEHIND YA FANTASY NOVEL KINGDOM OF SOULS Tell us about your protagonist. Arrah hails from a powerful family of witchdoctors, but doesn’t have magic of her own. When the Demon King threatens her kingdom, she must trade year

Writing Magazine

1 min read

Various authors and publishers are making books and stories freely available to keep readers entertained during the pandemic. Though the magazine closed down last year, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show has put all 69 issues of the scien

PC Gamer

1 min read

Never thought I’d say it, but it’s lovely to play as a goblin. Too much time wasted in the Warhammer fantasy world means I go in expecting to be a jittering, capering villain, only interested in sticking people with sharp things. But Master of Shado

Writing Magazine

1 min read

US indie Stark Raven Press specialises in fantastic and speculative literature, particularly horror, science fiction, and dark fantasy. They publish novels, collections, and anthologies of fiction, and occasionally non-fiction in print and ebook. Sub

The Writer

13 min read

All fiction is speculative to some extent, posing a “what-if” question, which serves as the premise and drives the plot. But for fantasy author Kij Johnson, winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Award, the specific genre of speculative fiction adds its

The Writer

3 min read

To join the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, a writer needs to sell a work of short fiction for at least $.08 a word – a tall order when so many magazines struggle to pay contributors. Those speculative authors hoping to become SFWA-cert

You South Africa

1 min read

1 What colour is an emerald? 2 In which Italian city do you find this tower that’s famous because it leans over? 3 What’s the name of the witchcraft and wizardry school in the Harry Potter books and movies? 4 This is the flag of which of South

Writing Magazine

1 min read

Kopfkino Media is a brand new US ‘boutique publisher specializing in dark genre fiction’. The editors love horror. Their first project is an anthology, Midnight in the Dying Garden: Fairy Tales for the End of the World, a combination project consisti

The Atlantic

3 min read

Robin Sloan, the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, discusses his new short story for The Atlantic.

Writing Magazine

6 min read

Those wanting to write fantasy short stories find themselves in a unique position. As we explored last month, there is a very lively scene of horror shorts, and the same goes for science-fiction (as we’ll come to next month). However it’s fair to say

SFX

1 min read

RELEASED 9 JUNE Publisher Rebellion Writers Unknown, Alec Worley Artists Blas Gallego, DaNi, Andrea Bulgarelli The original Black Beth story is a real anomaly: a swords and sorcery adventure published 12 years after it was completed, in British horro

Writing Magazine

6 min read

Every genre has its tropes, and fantasy is no different. We’ve explored archetypes in these pages before, which refer much more to recurring characters and character types. Tropes are more general themes and motifs that occur within an area of fictio

SFX

1 min read

RELEASED OUT NOW! 352 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Rebecca Zahabi Publisher Gollancz This is Rebecca Zahabi’s first adult novel after 2020’s YA hit The Game Weavers. The Collarbound has a whiff of YA about it still: young Isha arrives at m

SFX

1 min read

As ever, there’s tons more books we couldn’t fit in. Almost-human wolves and a living ship made of bones are among the delights of Laird Hunt’s dark fairytale in THE HOUSE IN THE DARK OF THE WOODS (out now, One). Alison Littlewood’s MISTLETOE (out no

Literary Hub

3 min read

Writing this column allows me to indulge my passion for fiction—but it also allows me, more specifically, to indulge my passion for fiction in translation. Bear with me for a moment. I know we all have lots of things begging for our time, and while,

Writing Magazine

1 min read

Cast of Wonders is a podcast producing young adult speculative short fiction. Each week it presents short stories in the genres of ‘hard science fiction… urban fantasy, horror, steampunk, superheroes and more.’ The team want stories with ‘deep emotio

Writing Magazine

1 min read

Established in December 2021, Bag of Bones Press aims to ‘champion and publish budding writers of horror and dark fiction who may not have had a traditional or formal education in the literary arts’. Submission calls are open to anyone and everyone T

Guardian Weekly

2 min read

By Alastair Reynolds Reynolds is best known as an author of hard science-based space operas, yet his latest novel begins on board a ship sailing up the coastline of Norway in the early 19th century. The mystery deepens as the same group of people, on