Great epics are never about a single character’s journey. Even if the stakes are enormous for that one character, rarely would such a story be described as epic. In great epics, many characters must be in peril, and sometimes the fate of whole nations, or even whole worlds, are at issue in the story. The…
I’m slammed with work this week, so my next installment of the Top 5 Elements of a Great Epic needs a little more time and attention. For now, here’s my first post about epics from August 2011. This summer has been huge for George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. First, HBO made…
This week’s “beginning” comes from Hood, Stephen R. Lawhead’s reimagination of the Robin Hood myth. For those who haven’t read my post on Legends Reimagined, Hood features “Robin” as a Welsh freedom fighter during the Norman Conquest. Here is how it begins: The pig was young and wary, a yearling boar timidly testing the…
Among the Top 5 Elements of a Great Epic, setting is at the top of my list. Great stories, of course, can take place in a very limited setting. Stephen King’s The Mist, which largely takes place in a convenience store, and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, which primarily takes place in the protagonist’s home,…
I adore epic fiction. It’s likely the fault of George Lucas and J.R.R. Tolkien. I was eight when Star Wars came out in 1977, and I’ll never forget staring wide-eyed at the opening image of the rebel ship and that star destroyer. Then Darth Vader emerged through that smoke-filled portal and it blew my mind. Later that…
The end of last week’s discussion on the beginning of Deryni Checkmate and openings that start with the weather had me thinking about the opening passage of one of my favorite novels, The Arcanum by Thomas Wheeler (you can read my review here). I think I’m on the side that believes opening with the weather…
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…
I’m returning to the realm of vintage fantasy for this week’s “beginning.” Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni Chronicles books are among the classics from the early days of the historical fantasy genre, and here is how the second book in that series, Deryni Checkmate, begins. March has long been month of storms in the Eleven Kingdoms….
Last week I published my review of Graham Joyce’s new novel, Some Kind of Fairy Tale, so it’s only fitting that the opening passage of this story serves as my “beginning” of the week. In the deepest heart of England there is a place where everything is at fault. That is to say that the…
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…