Shamus Writes » fantasy

Posts Tagged ‘fantasy’

Flashes of Speculation Open Once Again

October 17, 2007 – 12:27 pm

After a six-month hiatus, Flashes of Speculation is once more open for business. With the site’s re-launch comes an upgrade to WordPress 2.3 and a new, magazine-style theme, courtesy of The Design Canopy. I am looking for contributions to the site, stories that are no longer than 1000 words and fall into any or all of the sub-genres of speculative fiction – science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate history, etc.

Additionally, contributors are now able to register at Flashes of Speculation and use the WordPress Dashboard to submit their stories. These contributions will then be reviewed before being published in order to ensure proper formatting and quality as well as to prevent spammers. Hopefully, this will take a bit more of the load off me in getting new contributions published, as well as make Flashes of Speculation a little more of the community project I’ve always intended it to be.

I encourage you to go check out the site again and contribute stories if you’d like. I would also be very appreciative of any and all publicity you are willing to give to Flashes of Speculation through your blogs and websites.

Posted in Writing | Comments (0)

A Less Charming Harry Potter

August 24, 2007 – 6:52 pm

Brandon Sanderson has read the final Harry Potter installment. He had, in part, this to say about it:

Initial thoughts: I liked it, as I’ve liked all of the other HP books. However, it lacked the charm of the books that occurred inside of Hogwarts. (Source: Brandon Sanderson)

That, for me, was probably the main thing about the last book that I disliked about it. I missed the uniqueness of Hogwarts and the interactions with the students and the teachers. It made sense that something near the end would have to take place away from the school, since Harry had to explore his roots in order to understand better how to defeat Voldemort. It just would have been nice to spend a little more time at the school. I didn’t really expect much of the story to take place there, though, since the conclusion to Book 6 made it pretty clear that Harry didn’t intend to go back for his last year.

I’d still love to see some sequels to the series to fill in the years between Voldemort’s demise and the epilogue. Whether Rowling decides to break her word and actually write such books, however, remains to be seen.

Posted in thoughts | Comments (0)

Oz

August 13, 2007 – 8:31 pm

Quote of the Day: ”...and a hootenanny – a whole lot of hoot, and just a little bit of nanny.”

Posted in Asides | Comments (2)

Pottered

August 9, 2007 – 7:30 am

The Harry Potter discussion continues apace – albeit at a bit of a slow pace. Go check it out and add your two cents!

Posted in Asides | Comments (0)

Ficlets

July 9, 2007 – 6:33 pm

I’ve started playing a bit with Ficlets, since I can’t do much else right now. It’s actually kind of nice to be restricted to 1024 characters or less and fun to see if, and how, anyone builds on it. My first Ficlet is an elaboration on a snippet I posted a while back. My first Ficlet is called Dead Gods. If you want to take a stab at elaborating on it, go for it. I can’t wait to see what someone does with it.

Posted in Writing | Comments (0)

Dead Gods

May 9, 2007 – 9:58 am

“Our gods are dead. We have killed them, and now we don’t know what to do with the bodies.”

Brother Lucius, Hierarch, Order of Kalesto

Posted in Writing | Comments (1)

Emberverse

May 4, 2007 – 2:16 pm

I just finished reading The Protector’s War by S.M. Stirling. It’s the sequel to Dies the Fire, where the entire world’s technology is rendered useless, along with all explosives. As a result the world is tumbled into chaos as governments fall, leaving a handful to rise out of the ashes of civilization to build new tribes to fight for survival.

It’s a very interesting concept, that some sort of extraterrestrial technology – for reasons of their own – would take away the technology of our world, leaving humans to fall back to the days of bows and swords where living every day is a struggle for survival. I stumbled upon Dies the Fire a couple of years ago and was pleasantly surprised it discover its sequel not too long after that. And then today, just a handful of pages from the end of The Protector’s War, I discover again that there yet another sequel, A Meeting at Corvallis. For some reason, I was under the impression that this was a two-book series, but I’m both pleasantly surprised and annoyed to find that this is not so. I’m pleased to be able to follow some of my favorite characters yet a little further but annoyed by the fact that I thought resolution was at hand.

And purusing Amazon.com a bit further, I see that there is yet another upcoming novel called The Sunrise Lands, set in the same universe but starting a new series, where survivors of the Change (the thing that caused the loss of technology) send out a mission to try to determine the cause and find Those responsible for it. This is a fascinating series, and while some folks may find it a bit dry and slow at times, I think anyone who likes both fantasy and alternative history will enjoy this series a great deal.

Posted in thoughts | Comments (3)

Ravings

March 10, 2007 – 9:00 am

“The trees are beginning to awaken from their winter-long slumber. The sap is flowing again, and the air is fresh and new. At long last the eternal winter has broken. We can have hope again and cast off this weight which has so long settled onto us. Man can once again live as he was meant to. The earth lives again and hope springs true once more.”

~the ravings of Quibble, a madman, with regard to the Dalara Wilderness, in which nothing will grow ¹

It’s amazing the sort of places I find inspiration for writing, even such snippets as this. Walking across campus yesterday I saw a pine tree that someone had recently ripped a branch from, and the sap was pooling in the wound. From that, came this.[back]

Posted in Writing | Comments (0)

Callout for Flash Fiction Stories

March 8, 2007 – 4:07 pm

With the Flashes of Speculation redesign complete, I’m putting the callout again for submissions. If you write science fiction, fantasy, or horror and are looking for an outlet for your writing, then please consider Flashes of Speculation. Stories need to be 1000 words or less.

FoS could use a little promotion, as well. If you’re a contributing author or a reader of the site (or simply a speculative fiction fan), I would be most appreciative if you could promote FoS on your blogs, websites, etc. Also, if someone has a little Photoshop mojo and time to spare, I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to banner and button graphics that people can put on their websites to link back to FoS. If anyone’s interesting in doing something like this, you can use my Contact page to let me know.

Posted in Speculative Fiction, Writing | Comments (2)

Book Reviews: Eragon and Eldest

March 7, 2007 – 8:00 am

For the work of a 15-year-old writer, Eragon is an amazing story – I enjoyed it as much on the second read as I did on the first, perhaps even moreso. The book tells the story of a young farmboy who stumbled across a dragon egg and becomes an unlikely hero. He is forced to flee his home in order to save the people he cares about and thus begins the quest of a boy-turned-man and his dragon to find their new places in the world.

Eldest picks up the story immediately where Eragon leaves off and is, in my opinion, an even better story than the first volume in this trilogy. Eragon makes his way to the forest of Du Weldenvarden to complete his training with the elves and become a Dragon Rider, one who will hopefully be powerful enough to face and overthrow the evil Galbatorix. In the process, young Eragon faces numerous philosophical and intellectual challenges, in addition to his physical and magickal training. He experiences heartache, betrayal, and loss before leaving us with a cliffhanger ending. The evolution of Paolini’s writing style shines through in this second volume.

These two novels may be classified as Young Adult fiction, but they are well-crafted and strong enough for anyone to enjoy. Paolini tackles some difficult topics and, in so doing, weaves together a world that is fascinatingly complex. Lovers of fantasy fiction will enjoy these two books and eagerly await the arrival of the third. It only remains to be seen, then, whether Paolini will extend this universe beyond this initial trilogy into an epic series to rival the likes of Middle Earth and the land of Shannara.

Posted in Reviews | Comments (0)