“Stories are as slippery as seasons; it’s beyond my power to make either stand still. I try to tell them the same way, but each telling leads to small changes; something is added to the structure, a change of pace, a tweak of testimonies, all of them make circles in our minds.” There are few…
“’The way I’d put it,’ said Makin, ‘is that Rike can’t make an omelet without wading thigh deep in the blood of chickens and wearing their entrails as a necklace.’” Killing a hero is hard work, but if anybody is up to the job, it’s King Honorous Jorg Ancrath. Oh, and he’s getting married. Lucky…
Some of you may know that I am writing a book. Currently, I am editing the entire novel by cutting it in half and rewriting from almost scratch. It’s a fun process, and I like to think I’ve improved immensely over the past four years. I’ve actually done a lot of thinking these past six…
“In the dark hours of a frostbitten morning, someone is digging.” Sometimes you need a comfortable read, a story with characters you’ve read multiple times, set in a land that’s not too strange or different. Sometimes you just need something that you’ve been to before, something you know from the very first page. Darkwalker by…
“One doesn’t attract support before fighting, one fights to attract support. It’s a way of showing that things cannot continue as usual, of showing that resistance is possible.” The newest addition to the Science-Fantasy subgenre, New Weird, is Rjurik Davidson. His novel, Unwrapped Sky, is one of those rare stories that manages to blur the…
“A good one sacrifices everything to win, and stabs who he must however he can. The great warrior is the one who still breathes when the crows feast. The great king is the one who watches the carcasses of his enemies burn. Let Father Peace spill tears over the methods. Mother War smiles upon results.”…
“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man’s will.…
“Talking round and round a point was like wearing lace into battle.” Around January, the SFF community exploded over the most hyped debut of 2014, The Emperor’s Blades. It was quoted to be “amazing” and “a favorite.” I, naturally, walked into this book with a hint of trepidation a month later. And unfortunately, all the…
“Nothing is so painful to the human being as a great and sudden change.” Everything you know is a lie. In fact, every single pop culture reference you think of when Frankenstein comes to mind is probably false. It’s why I have trust issues. But more than that, it’s why you should read this book. Simple…
“‘When we die, we don’t cease to exist or turn into shimmering motes of ectoplasm or purple angels or anything else you may have been brought up to believe. We just…go on living. Someplace else.’” I oftentimes feel like I can tell when a book is objectively good or not. Yes, there are personal biases…
Acerbic Writing 