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 […]
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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?
The Greatest Fantasy Author of All Time
This week some in the world are celebrating the birth/death of the Bard of Avon also known as William Shakespeare. Shakespeare as you might have heard was a well-known English playwright and poet. Curiously enough […]
The Rising Tide of Alien Languages
Be warned, this post contains spoilers for this week’s Game of Thrones episode “And Now His Watch is Ended”. This morning I sat and watched Daenerys Stormborn finally grow up as she unleashed hell upon […]
The Young Animators’ Project, and What We Can Hope For
It has recently been brought to my attention that every year, the Japanese government pays a large sum of money to a handful of animation studios so that those studios will each produce a half-hour […]
Anime Roundup 4/21/2013: Fee Fi, Ho Hum
More international streaming sites have announced their spring simulcasts, and I’m afraid it looks like the entire world will get to see a couple of high school romantic comedies, but most of the good sf […]
ASM Blog Horde Interview with Terence Jackson
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 […]
Realistic Fantasy: an Oxymoron
oxymoron (n) a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction fantasy (n) the faculty or activity of imagining impossible or improbable things realistic (a) representing things in a way that is […]
The Meteor That Never Fell
Just kidding! Putin didn’t really ride that meteor! But it was an uneasy thing to watch, and it prompted uneasier thoughts about other things that fall, and why I crave stories with endings.
No. 13 – The Number Thirteen, Black Magic, Mysticism, Swordplay and Sorcery
Number 13: a 13th Amazing Stories post. I interrupt my regularly scheduled posts, in my ongoing series of discussing writers of classic science fiction (and the inner meanings therein), to consider the number 13 (and […]
Anime roundup 4/14/2013: This Will Be on the Test
A big stack of first looks this week, and then it’ll be time to make decisions about what to add for the regular weekly commentary. Those of you worried about the absence of Attack on […]
FRITZ LEIBER: SWORD & SORCERY GROWS UP
In 1939 Farnsworth Wright began a move away from Sword & Sorcery. With Robert E. Howard dead, he no longer championed the dark fantasy tale, publishing Henry Kuttner’s Elak as the last. This meant that […]
Writers Writing About Writers Writing About …
There’s something unseemly about writers who write about writers. Many of my beliefs about writing have changed since I was a pink-cheeked little colleen getting up early to write before school, but this is one […]
A Little Game of Catch
This week I’m fighting my way past drunken skateboarders and striking cab drivers to get a peek at the latest security and surveillance gadgets the world has to offer. I’ve already spoken with some developers […]
Anime roundup 4/7/2013: Stop the World, I Want To Get Off
First, a little awards news: Nominees for the Seiun for Best Media (roughly equivalent to Hugo nominees for Best Dramatic Presentation) include two anime series, Bodacious Space Pirates and Eureka Seven AO. E7AO is a […]
When Hairy Met Scaly
“Do not annoy a dragon, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.” — Author Unknown A myth about ancient map makers is that they’d adorn the distant uncharted areas with “Here Be Dragons”, […]
SWORD & SORCERY BECOMES A SUB-GENRE: HENRY KUTTNER’S ELAK AND PRINCE RAYNOR
Henry Kuttner deserves our thanks. If things had been left to Clifford Ball, Sword & Sorcery would have fizzled out in the pages of Weird Tales. Ball, who we know very little about, was the […]
Foxes, Cultural Appropriation, and Japonisme
Here’s how to do cultural appropriation right. Look at the man and his fox bride; you can tell he loves her.
Sequential Wednesdays #7 – Tales of Tails
Animals have a very special role to play in stories, at least according to the long history of tales utilizing their presence as potent symbolism. Throughout the world of story-telling, a multitude of beasts have had very […]
Great TV Series Are Like Buses … Two Come Along at Once
This weekend has been all about TV; on Saturday night we had the return of the Doctor but also the high fantasy epic Game of Thrones. I can’t remember the last time I looked forward […]
Spring 2013 Anime Preview
Every three months, like clockwork, Japanese TV remakes itself. A bunch of shows end, a bunch more start, and many continuing series bring out new opening and closing sequences. Most anime series run for only […]
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