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sChris Fox begins a new series, The Magitech Chronicles. * * * * * Enslaved and Forced to Fight Dragons Aran awakens in chains with no memory. He’s conscripted into the Confederate Marines as a Tech Mage, given a spellrifle, then hurled into the war with the […]
Independent authors would do well to take a page from Darkest of Dreams, a collection of short stories written by four different authors. The prospect of writing a 100,000 word novel, which provides around 300 pages of entertainment, requires a serious time commitment. To say nothing of the costs associated with investing in editing, proofreading, and […]
Russell Newquist begins his Prodigal Son urban fantasy series with War Demons. * * * * * When he came home, so did they… Driven by vengeance, Michael Alexander enlisted in the Army the day after 9/11. Five years later, disillusioned and broken by the horrors he […]
Why Middle Earth is Foreign to Fantasy Role-Playing
Tuesday , 19, September 2017 Appendix N 14 CommentsMost people lack the capacity to comprehend anything Gary Gygax said about his influences in the development of the Dungeons & Dragons game. The reason for this is that most people’s concept of fantasy goes something like this: In the beginning, there was The Lord of the Rings. From this great work sprang all that […]
Castalia House is pleased to announce that TITHE TO TARTARUS, the sixth volume of John C. Wright’s wonderful Moth & Cobweb dodecology, is now available for purchase. * * * * * Inflicted with amnesia, Yumiko Ume Moth has managed to discover the identity of the lost love whom […]
SENSOR SWEEP: No-fooling Morality, Unironic Drama, Raw Animal Emotion, and One Note Pipes
Monday , 18, September 2017 Sensor Sweep 8 CommentsScience Fiction (Not a Blog) A Sadness — “The Hugo voters knew what they were doing when they gave Pournelle that first Campbell; he went on to have an amazing career, both on his own and in collaboration with other writers, particularly Larry Niven. With INFERNO, LUCIFER’S HAMMER, FOOTFALL, and (especially) MOTE IN GOD’S EYE, the […]
This was our first game so we were overwhelmed by the number of options at the beginning. The sixth event to come out was a propaganda card, so those opening turns mostly involved us trading “Op + Special” moves with very little impact on the relative scores. In this phase, we behaved as if resources […]
An excerpt from Mojo Mori’s debut novel: A faint sound made the man freeze, his heart racing. Holding his breath, he listened intently. Utter silence prevailed for several moments. Then his ears detected furtive sounds—the soft, irregular noises of a living creature creeping through the grove nearby. The man rose to a crouch, laying his hand […]
Forgotten Sword and Sorcery Artists: Jack Gaughan
Sunday , 17, September 2017 Uncategorized 2 CommentsJack Gaughan (1930 – 1985) was a ubiquitous illustrator for both science fiction paperbacks and magazine covers in the 1960 and 70s. He appears to have been Donald Wollheim’s main artist at Ace Books in the 1960s and a prominent artist for D.A.W. Books in the 1970s. Gaughan was right up there alongside Frank Frazetta […]
You Don’t Need to Know Science to Write Science Fiction…But it Helps!
Saturday , 16, September 2017 Authors, Fiction 9 CommentsContrary to the genre’s title, most authors writing science fiction know less about science than a curious twelve year-old. Even more surprisingly, one can still write good, even great SF with this impediment! And I note this as a professional scientist who loves “hard science” works. While this might seem like great news for the […]
Today’s guest post is the second of the Comics Revolution series written by David Lille about the gatekeeper of the comics market and solutions to the problems it causes. David & Liz Lillie create the Dreamkeepers graphic novel series. You can follow them on a variety of social media platforms including Gab. * * * * * […]
Beauty Isn’t Dead, Though Not for Lack of Trying
Monday , 18, September 2017 Jasyn Jones Comment 21 CommentsWhen did “fun” become a four-letter word? When did “excitement” become something to sneer at? When did pleasing the audience become despised as the font of all evil? (Don’t answer. I don’t care. That’s not the point.) Entertainment—now follow me here, because the argument gets a little labyrinthine—entertainment is meant to ENTERTAIN. It’s meant to […]