I used to love ebooks. When I got my first ebook reader, a Bookeen cybook, I used it all the time and swore it was the future. I used to buy all my books from a place called Fictionwise that used bizarre economics whereby I always got more back in credit than I spent (to [...]
The Name of the Wind tells the life story of Kvothe, a legendary hero, and goes about showing the more realistic story behind the legend. It’s a book about deconstructing legends and in that sense, it’s a book about story. The problem for me is that a novel must have plot. It must have a [...]
2011 is going to be an insane year for good books. It looks like all those authors who only release a book every few years are releasing books in 2011. I think Fantasy readers are going to be spoiled for choice, and I see that as a good thing. Let's face it, everyone is going [...]
It's that time of year where I need to find the gold suit at the back of the wardrobe, brush it off and present my best cheesy smile as I look back at 2010 and name my favourite reads. The focus of my reading in 2010 was on new fantasy authors. I wanted to see [...]
The cover quote from Peter Hamilton says “Retribution Falls is the kind of old fashioned adventure I didn't think we were allowed to write any more” and I think it’s very true. It’s mixture of strange lands, airships and magic cutlasses makes it at time feel like a fantasy novel, a steampunk novel and a [...]
As a rule, I don't have a problem with Tie-In Fiction. I'm very much in the "you like what you like" camp and don't think you should ever be ashamed of your reads. The argument against tie-in fiction is often that it is of a lesser quality, that because it is work for hire, authors [...]
It was both a blessing and a curse that I came about the audiobook for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Crime doesn't tend to be a genre I read a lot in, but I'm pretty genre agnostic when it comes to reading. So when a newspaper was offering the audiobook for free as part [...]
Someone recently asked me what I thought the appeal of The Painted Man was. I mean, the book has been through 7 printings and its sequel was a bestseller. At the time, having then yet to complete the novel I said it was its simple premise: Demons rise at night and lay waste to everything [...]
With a combination of real life dramas and editing work on the novel taking my evenings, my reading has been suffering. To make up for this, I decided to try and find a book that I could read in my lunch break. I’m usually the type of person who reads in long chunks, as I [...]
I spent about ten years of my life writing and helping to promote popular collectibles from action figures to resin busts. It’s very easy for an outsider to be dismissive of the art of such things – who didn’t own a Princess Leia action figure that made her look more simian than human. But the [...]
