Jonathan Green On Indie Publishing

In a long standing Xmas tradition for this blog, which I have just made up, we have another guest post today. This time from Jonathan Green. Jon is the genre-spanning author of more than 40 books ranging from Warhammer novels to works set in the universes of Dr Who and Star Wars. He is the creator of the Pax Brittania steampunk series for Abaddon books. He’s also well known for his work on the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks. I’ve been meeting with Jon most enjoyably (for me at least) at Black Library functions for many years and we’ve talked about Read more…

The Hobbit: An Unexpectedly Unsatisfying Journey

Don’t get me wrong. I greatly enjoyed Peter Jackson’s latest epic. It looks wonderful, the actors are superb, and the action sequences are highly enjoyable. In places I found it very moving. Like a lot of people, I was expecting the worst when it was announced that the film was to become a trilogy. Here it comes, I thought, the studios are looking for a new cash cow– KA-CHING. Well, that may be the case, but watching the film I did not care. I really, really liked it. The bits I feared most, the inevitable padding, actually turned out to Read more…

Howard Andrew Jones on Sword And Sorcery

 I first encountered Howard Andrew Jones over seven years ago when he was editing the old Flashing Swords website. Howard bought my first Kormak story, The Guardian of the Dawn, which naturally disposed me to think he was a man of considerable good taste. Over the years we’ve engaged in a good deal of correspondence on the subject of Sword and Sorcery, a type of fiction close to both our hearts. We shared many of the same influences, from Robert E Howard to Fritz Leiber to Michael Moorcock. It turned out Howard was, in particular, an expert on one of Read more…