R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War is "a big, messy mashup with inspirations ranging from World War II to Ender’s Game to Avatar: the Last Airbender."
Tag: epic fantasy
World Fantasy Convention 2015, Part I: Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of the Earth and Sky
He spoke in a small presentation room called Broadway I in the Saratoga Hilton at Saratoga Springs, NY, introducing for the first time the central concept behind his new novel. It was Guy Gavriel Kay giving the origin story behind Children of the Earth and Sky, due for release this Spring, and I was among the privileged few to hear him …
Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever: Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
Beware! Leper unclean! shout the crowds. Don't touch me! responds Thomas Covenant, the antihero of Stephen R. Donaldson's memorable epic fantasy trilogy. In this exchange, which Convenant repeats in his mind like a mantra for his sanity, Donaldson summarizes the conflict of his protagonist. Despite being unlikeable, Covenant tends to garner your empathy. He's a …
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The Secret History of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle
If you're like me, you have probably starved for an original fantasy novel. So many novels and short stories rely too heavily on The Lord of the Rings and the epic fantasy genre that spawned from it. Are there any original fantasy works that use impossible situations without having elves, orcs, and dragons run across …
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The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower I, by Stephen King
What do you get when you combine Tolkien and the Western? Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Meet Roland, the last gunslinger. He's Aragorn meets John Wayne. A solitary man “wandering but not lost,” he carries two six-shooters that were once his father's pistols. His single quest, which he pursues with an instinctual audacity, is summarized …
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Are Tolkien’s Ideas Still Alive in Our Postmodern Twenty-First Century?
J.R.R Tolkien, born this day in 1892, would be 122 if he were alive today, one of the oldest people in the world. Alas, his physical body perished 2 September 1973, even though his textual body lives on, with much thanks to the continued labours of Christopher Tolkien, his son and editor. I would love …
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13 Things I Learned Writing My First Novel: Battles of Rofp
I hope you all had a merry Christmas. Now, while you're still warm with Christmas feeling (perhaps you are snug by the fire with a cup of hot cocoa, or a drink of rum and eggnog, experiencing a similar but not altogether identical feeling of warmth) let me take you down to Memory Lane to …
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Eternal Guarantee
Every once in a while, two events in your life happen simultaneously and in their juxtaposition, a humorous situation appears in your imagination. I had just finished reading Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry and started a job as a salesman. Anyone familiar with the myth of King Arthur, especially as retold by Kay, and …
Is Fantasy Heresy?
“War begets war. Destruction begets destruction. On earth, a century ago, in the year 2020, they outlawed our books.” -Edgar Allen Poe, in Ray Bradbury's “The Exiles.” Edgar Allan Poe fights rocket men on a Mars mission to annihilate everything fantastic or non-realistic, in Ray Bradbury's short story “The Exiles.” Bradbury's short story stands with …
River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay
My hardcover of River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay We first see Ren Daiyan, the heroic protagonist of Kay's newest novel, as an angst-ridden adolescent in a grove, wielding a bamboo sword to channel his anger. Living in a time of famine, and of war against the barbarian Kislik tribe, he is deeply aware …
Matthew Rettino 