MCM Expo (Comic-Con) Part Deux
I was recently in London – less than a week ago to be exact – and had the great pleasure of once again attending another MCM Expo at the Excel Centre in east London. It […]
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The Artful Collector: Collecting Ahead of the Curve
When we started framing F/SF calendar pages to hang on our walls in the 1960s (the days before commercial prints or posters were available) original Victorian “fairy paintings” by the likes of Fitzgerald, Cruikshank, Doyle […]
Sexism and the SFWA
So there’s a brouhaha brewing around the Science Fiction Writers of America and accusations of blatant sexism within that organization. (Actually it’s more like a raging storm in some corners). The controversy surrounds the 200th issue of […]
Girl, You’re In the Army Now
Why do authors write equal opportunities for women into fantasy worlds with pre-modern technologies and societies? Unless they are Terry Pratchett, they’re only making themselves look silly.
A Tale of ConQuesT, Magic, Mystery, and Mayhem Part 2
At last the day arrived, and I broke the seal on my compression chamber, releasing an exotic blend of oxygen and nitrogen with a bold taste of helium into the atmosphere. I confess to feeling […]
Game of Thrones and the Curse of the Ninth Episode
Traditionally, episode 9 of Game of Thrones has been The Big One. Something HUGE happens which has been building up for an entire season and so it is looked forward to by all with glee, […]
Anime roundup 6/2/2013: Graduation Day
Hunter x Hunter #81 – Watch that fight scene in isolation, and it’s just another case of insanely exaggerated martial arts. But watch it with the weight of 80 previous episodes of struggling and training, […]
Understanding the Sexism of Fantasy
Thank you to Kate Elliott for her involvement with the inception and development of this post. One of the little pleasures of my life is that I have easy access to several of my favourite […]
Your Majesty, I’m So Over You
Ranks and titles are powerful tools in the fantasy writer’s toolkit. What a shame they are used so unimaginatively in general. I offer some inspiration alongside your weekly dose of young fogeyishness.
Anime roundup 5/26/2013: In the Long Run We Are All Dead
Hunter x Hunter #80 – The Chimera Ant queen has just collected the brain of a man so misanthropic that he founded an entire country just to give him a base from which to make […]
The Fantasy of Fashion
The clothes make the fan. Is extreme fashion a form of fandom? I say yes, but hesitate to approve of it.
A Tale of ConQuesT, Magic, Mystery, and Mayhem
While riding my keyboard and mouse across the infinite electronic pathways of the world, I discovered something quite surprising. At first when I stumbled upon it, I sloughed it off as just another coincidence. But […]
Anime roundup 5/19/2013: Ant Misbehavin’
Space Brothers #57 – Everyone caught that piko-piko is the Japanese onomatopoeic equivalent to “beep”, right? So we all know how the author picked Pico’s name? Well then, let’s talk about a slightly less obvious […]
The Artful Collector: Are Conventions Good Places to Find Art? (Part 3)
Throughout the 1990s, while weekend antiques and craft fairs, and even Ren Faires, were drawing tens of thousands of attendees each weekend, SF cons were still deliberating the good of “one day memberships” and advertising […]
The Artful Collector: Are Conventions Good Places to Find Art? (Part 2)
Once upon a time, science fiction and fantasy conventions were great places to find, and buy, original art – and, in time – reproductions of art created by the best professional illustrators in the field […]
Ray Harryhausen: Concept Artist
“Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no STAR WARS” George Lucas. “What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits.” Terry Gilliam. It […]
Psychics are Dark Fantasy
I remember being uncomfortable about the “psionics” in Dungeons and Dragons back when I was a kid. Psychic powers seemed more appropriate in science fiction than fantasy. I mean, we had Mr. Spock’s mind meld […]
Another Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form Ballot – A Sidewise View…
I kinda like the Best Dram Pres Long Form ballot this year. It’s a varied one, has one fairly good-sized surprise, features some obvious choices, and has a two-horse race as I see it. That […]
On Sansa Stark
(Note: This is from the perspective of someone who has watched the Game of Thrones TV show but is only 120 pages into the first book.) I’ve spent a serious chunk of my first week […]
Interview – The Amazing Art of Anja Uhren
I met Anja Uhren recently at an Easter egg painting event. She was casually painting a face on an off-cut of card and I was immediately impressed by the effortlessness with which she produced a […]
ASM Blog Horde Interview with Zachary Clemente
Welcome to the Amazing Stories BLOG HORDE INTERVIEWS! The ASM Blog Horde is a diverse and wonderful species. I have the privilege of talking with all of them, and I get to share those chats with […]
Characters: Kvothe from The Name of the Wind
Among fantasy titans, Patrick Rothfuss shocked just about everyone by carving a place for himself with his book, The Name of the Wind. It centered on Kvothe, a character of a hundred different stories and […]
Hayao Miyazaki and Epic Fantasy
Since taking on this blogging position, I have been struggling to find works that would appeal to the audience that Amazing Stories has, particularly those who are interested in fantasy. I would categorize a large […]
Anime roundup 5/3/2013: Photoeugenic
Hunter x Hunter #77 – Giant ants! Giant mutant intelligent ants! Giant intelligent ants which eat people and then practice Lamarckian evolution! I expect to start hearing a theremin any minute now. I can think […]
Vinyl Albums, KLAATU and the Warrior at the Edge of Time
Let’s travel back in time, you and I. Let’s go back to a time before music was delivered in packets of data. Let’s travel back to a time of bell bottoms, long hair and muscle […]
The Artful Collector: Why isn’t There a More Active Market in What I Collect?
A common thread of discussion for collectors who buy art from me, and which runs through many sites dealing with collectibles, concerns the factors that make certain types of “X” (coins, stamps, comics, art, etc) […]
Anime roundup 4/28/2013: Tribal knowledge
Hunter x Hunter #76 – Hunter x Hunter was previously adapted for TV in 1998-1999 for a series that ran to the middle of the Yorknew City arc and stopped. Various direct-to-video continuations (none of […]
Trials and Tribulations of the Publishing Game
As I put the finishing touches and edits on my latest novel, I am charged with the task of also creating the cover art. I consider myself to be a good photographer but for some […]
Zero-Magic Fantasy
Zero-magic fantasy is a growing subgenre. But can it ever rise above the level of thought experiment? And what are the tradeoffs?
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