This week I’m taking another short break from my series on The Top 5 Clichés in Fantasy Fiction for a review of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, as well as some comments on the new film John Carter, which is based on the novel. The novel tells the story of Captain John Carter,…
This week I’m taking a brief respite from my series on The Top 5 Clichés in Fantasy Fiction in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, one of my all-time favorite holidays! Appropriately, I’m focusing today’s post on Patrick: Son of Ireland by Stephen R. Lawhead. I had little appreciation for the story of Saint Patrick until…
Following the release of Death of Kings, I started re-reading some of the earlier novels in Bernard Cornwell’s fantastic series, The Saxon Tales. (You can read my review of The Last Kingdom, the first novel, here.) The books are set in England during the reign of Alfred the Great, who defended the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms against…
The trailer for Season 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, which will air in April 2012, was released this week (you can watch it here). Season 1 was fantastic and, from the trailer, Season 2 looks equally promising – as it should be since it depicts A Clash of Kings, the wonderful second novel in…
Holidays are tough on writers. Even when you think you’ll have time to write, something gets in the way. Agent Rachelle Gardner recently suggested that writers should plan out how much time they think they’ll have to write during the holidays – and then divide that in half. This year, I should’ve divided that number…
I’m still immersed in my research on Vikings, which leads me to another of my favorite Viking-related novels, Lion of Ireland by Morgan Llywelyn. Lion of Ireland tells the story of Brian Boru, perhaps the greatest Irish king who ever lived. He ruled at the end of the Tenth Century, during a time when Norse…
Today I’m taking a break from my focus on historical and fantasy fiction (at least of the medieval variety) to mention a new novel by one of my author friends, E. Kendrick Smith, titled Defeating Operation Hydra. It’s available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, among other booksellers, in e-book, paperback and hard copy. Here’s my…
Because I was traveling for the past five weeks, I had little time to conduct research on Vikings for my next novel. But I did have enough time to re-read another of my favorite stories about Vikings, Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead. The book is short (about 175 pages), and it has probably been…
Happy Saint Crispin’s Day! And happy Saint Crispinian’s Day too! Nearly 600 years ago today, on the feast of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian, the French and the English fought the famous Battle of Agincourt – the inspiration for at least two great works of fiction and the topic of today’s post. The English won the Battle…
Continuing my musings on Viking-related fiction, I thought I’d talk about a not-so-obvious Viking tale, Stephen R. Lawhead’s Byzantium. When I picked up this novel at my local Borders, the last thing I thought this book would be about is Vikings. Set in the Ninth Century, the novel tells the story of Aidan, an Irish…
With the latest draft of my novel put to bed, I’ve started researching my next work. This one involves Vikings, so for the foreseeable future, I’ll be immersing myself in a world of dragon-prowed longships, Norse gods, fierce warriors, beer, and plunder! All of which calls to mind my favorite novels about Vikings. While I’ve…