As Season 3 of Vikings gets underway, it just so happens I’m immersing myself in Viking-related fiction. I just finished Blood Eye by Giles Kristian, a book about the Vikings in England that guest reviewer Bill Brockman introduced me to last year. A quote on the cover from Bernard Cornwell (who writes some of the…
Television gets even better tonight as Season 3 of Vikings premiers on History. Vikings, along with Black Sails, is part of a quintet of great historical fiction and historical fantasy shows that will soon include Da Vinci’s Demons, Outlander, and Season 5 of Game of Thrones. Needless to say, I love this time of year!…
As a follow-up to my recent post on 5 Reasons Peter Jackson’s “The Fellowship of the Ring” Was Better Than Tolkien’s Original, I’m offering my thoughts on the merits of Jackson’s second film, The Two Towers, as compared to the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. (My daughter and I are still reading The Return of the…
Season 5 of HBO’s Game of Thrones will premier on April 12, 2015, and last week HBO released the first official trailer. It looks absolutely amazing, but it also hints to some distinct changes from the books. For example, I don’t recall reading about Ser Jorah fighting in Meereen’s arena or Jaime going to Dorne, and it…
For the past few years, my daughter and I have been slowly making our way through J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece The Lord of the Rings (this is the third time for myself, the first for her). After we’d finish a part of the trilogy, we followed it up by watching the movie version by Peter Jackson….
This Saturday marks the return of the Starz original series Black Sails. It is the first of what should be an incredible run of shows in the first half of 2015, including seasons 3 of Vikings and Da Vinci’s Demons, as well as the return of Outlander and the next season of Game of Thrones….
To kick off the New Year, guest reviewer Bill Brockman has reviewed Odin’s Wolves by Giles Kristian, and it looks to be another fantastic Viking tale. Bill is an avid reader of historical fiction, but he’s also devoted his life to public service as a Battalion Chief of the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department and a…
I began the New Year by finishing The Scourge: Emaculum, the third and final volume in Roberto Calas’ historical fantasy series about a zombie apocalypse set in fourteenth century England. In short, I loved this book and believe it’s the perfect ending to this trilogy. You can read my review of The Scourge here, and…
For my final post of 2014, I’ll offer my thoughts on the final installment in The Hobbit series and what will likely be our last visit to the Middle Earth envisioned by Peter Jackson. So, without further ado . . . Two movies would have been enough. 1. This should have been a 2-movie series…
It’s hard to find time in December to get anything done, and with a busy work week, it’s been near impossible. That said, I found a few minutes to post a link to this amusing interview of Smaug by Stephen Colbert (you can see it here). I’m off this week for the holidays, but…
After rediscovering vintage fantasy fiction by Robert E. Howard last month, it got me thinking about some of the other classics I’ve read over the years. Among these is Three Hears and Three Lions by Poul Anderson, first published as a novella in 1953. This may not be one of the most well-known works of vintage…