I picked up this book a while back because I’m a huge Bernard Cornwell fan and have always been interested in Stonehenge. It was not my favorite Cornwell novel, but that’s probably because of its Bronze Age setting (I really prefer Cornwell’s books set in the Middle Ages). To be clear, however, Stonehenge did not…
It took far longer than I expected to get around to reading Bernard Cornwell’s Death of Kings. I hoped to skim through the other five books in The Saxon Tales series before reading the sixth book, but that never came to pass. Eventually, I just dove into the novel, and I’m glad I did since…
I recently re-read J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit for the first time in probably ten years. Once I got past the older and awkward narrative viewpoint (in Tolkien’s defense, the omniscient point-of-view was in vogue back in 1937, especially for what was considered a children’s book), I was reminded of how rich and wonderful the story…
This week I finished reading Devil’s Lair by David Wisehart, a historical fantasy novel that’s part grail quest, and part return to Dante’s Inferno. It’s an engaging read, and my full review follows this image of the book’s cover. Part Grail Quest, Part Return to Dante’s Inferno. The premise of Devil’s Lair is that…
This week, I’m featuring my first ever guest post, a great article by Sci-Fi Bloggers about Patrick Rothfuss’ fantasy series, The Kingkiller Chronicles. Sci-Fi Bloggers is an online magazine covering all things science fiction and fantasy: movies, TV, books, video games, comics and more. It’s well worth reading! The fantasy genre has a hard time fitting in with most…
A while back, I was doing research on Vikings for my next novel, which will be the sequel to Enoch’s Device. In the course of that research, I spent some time on Norse mythology, since many a tenth-century Viking would have clung to the worship of Thor or Odin instead of embracing the Christian faith…
On a lazy weekend back in the early ‘90s, I stumbled across a movie on TV that helped me discover one of the finest books I have ever read – and the story that became the inspiration for my first novel. I was drawn to the movie by its medieval setting, and became immediately intrigued…
I have written several posts on the fine line between history and fantasy, noting how subtle that line can be. For works set back in the Middle Ages or earlier, for example, what is “true” history gets a bit murky, so the line between history and fantasy can become quite blurred. The same is true…
For several years now, I’ve been interested in medieval Spain, and about a quarter of my first novel takes place in tenth century Córdoba (which was part of a Moorish caliphate, back when the Iberian Peninsula was called Al-Andalus). Knowing this, it’s astounding (and a bit embarrassing) that I waited so long to read The Lions of…
A year ago today I published my first blog post titled What is Fresh-scraped Vellum? It analogized the medieval art of bookmaking to the task of writing a publishable novel in today’s world. It also promised book reviews and commentary on both classic and recent fiction in the historical and fantasy genres, along with posts…
Thanks to the kind folks at Random House, I received an advance copy of Graham Joyce’s new novel, Some Kind of Fairy Tale. I’ve been pretty jammed up on my books to read and review, but this one jumped to the top of my list due to its intriguing premise. More on that and my…