Saint Patrick’s Day is one of my all-time favorite holidays, so today I’m re-posting an updated article from years past about Stephen R. Lawhead’s Patrick: Son of Ireland. I had little appreciation for the story of Saint Patrick until I began the research for Enoch’s Device. That novel begins in Derry and tells the story of two Irish monks…
In honor of one of my favorite holidays, the Kindle version of Enoch’s Device will be on sale at Amazon for the next 6 days! After all, the book’s heroes, Brother Ciarán and Brother Dónall, are Irish monks who undoubtedly enjoyed a pint or three on St. Patty’s Day! Irish monks emptied the kegs on St. Patrick’s Day! In…
This has been a crazy month so far if you’re a fan of television shows with historical or fantasy elements. I’m running out of time in the day to keep up with all the good TV airing right now, and we’re still a few weeks away from the biggest one of them all, the debut…
With Season 2 of Vikings underway, I’m offering a little Viking humor for this Thursday, a take on the most famous of all Viking raids: the attack on the Lindisfarne Abbey in 793. In Season 1 of Vikings, this is where we met Brother Athelstan, who didn’t play a role in last week’s episode, but…
On Friday, Paramount Pictures issued a disclaimer about the upcoming Russell Crowe film Noah aimed at religious audiences. Here’s a link to an LA Times story about the disclaimer, and to a more humorous post on io9 titled “Noah’s getting a ‘please don’t freak’ disclaimer for religious people.” I’ve not seen any cut of the…
One of the best shows on TV last year was Vikings on the History Channel. (In my humble opinion, it was second only to Season 3 of Game of Thrones.) Season 2 of Vikings begins tomorrow, but before it starts I thought I’d re-cap 5 things about last season that have me looking forward to…
My meandering series on The Magic of Medieval Fiction moves into the Seventh Century, an era that is squarely within the Dark Ages as far as historical novels go. In fact, attempting to even identify novels set in this century proved to be a huge challenge. But maybe there’s a good reason for this. The…
Yesterday, HBO released the second trailer for Season 4 of Game of Thrones. I love how it begins with Arya Stark listing the names of all the people she’s going to kill! Looks like this one will finish A Storm of Swords, though I understand there are bits from A Feast for Crows and A Dance…
In honor of Black Sails, my new favorite show during the endless winter that exists between each season of Game of Thrones, I discovered this little bit of pirate humor thanks to the talented folks at Horrible Histories. Enjoy!
This week, I was lucky enough to interview author L. Marrick about her new historical fantasy The Hallowed. I really enjoyed the novel, which is a unique prequel to the story of King Arthur and Merlin (you can read my review here). Welcome to the blog, Ms. Marrick, it’s great to have you here. Let’s…
I’ve been looking forward to The Hallowed by author L. Marrick for a long time. It’s considered Arthurian fiction, but takes place during the early years of the Fifth Century near the end of the Roman Empire. This had me intrigued. After all, the legends of Arthur place him at the end of the Fifth…