This month’s cover is once again from the archives of the British Library. It is an internal illustration from a series of books called The Casquet of Literature, edited by Charles Gibbon and Mary Elizabeth Christie and first published in 1…
In the acknowledgements for this book, Adrian Tchaikovsky thanks his editor, Lee Harris, “for actually allowing me to get away with any of this incredible nonsense”. He does so because, unlike most of his novels (that I have read), Green Ci…
Looking at the PR for Mike Carey’s latest SF novel, you could be mistaken for thinking that it is a space Western in the style of Stark Holborn. And to some extent it is, but only to the extent that Iain Banks’ Inversions is a fantasy novel…
I found this is a very strange book. Partly that is my fault, for reasons that I will explain. But it still goes places that the reader probably won’t expect. Given that I loved the stories of Shizuka and Shefali that began with The Tiger’s…
Berlin is a city that I have wanted to visit for some time. Of course the main reason I wanted to go was to see the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum, but that is currently closed for renovation. I did manage to get a morning in the Nuwes
One of the things I have learnt since coming to live in Wales is that the Welsh literary establishment really hates The Mabinogion. I think that’s partly because it is seen as fantasy, and Wales is still in the 20th century with regards to
It has been a while since there was a Finncon in Turku. The last one was in 2018. But it is a very lovely city so I was pleased to be able to go back for a few days. First, however, there was some travel. I flew into Helsinki direct from th…
Many years ago, when there was a lot less of it about, I considered writing a book about trans-themed science fiction and fantasy. I did get an academic paper (and a trip to Italy) out of the idea. But by then I had started a publishing com…
Having watch the Disney movie inspired (loosely) by the first two of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain books, I figured that I should get on and read book 2. The Black Cauldron is, as I expected, very different from the film. Pretty much the only t…
Given the amount of travel that I have done this month, I am somewhat surprised that I managed to get an issue together. I guess at least I had a lot of reading time. August will be a lot quieter, though I do have lots of books that I need
This issue’s cover is Ben Baldwin’s art for the latest Chaz Brenchley Outremer book, The Hand of the King’s Evil. You can’t have a fantasy version of the Crusades, with djinn, if your heroes don’t get to ride on a magic carpet once in the s…
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