The Long Good Lunch

So the call comes at last that I should meet with my agent and my editor in London for lunch. The publisher’s lunch is rightly famous, to the extent that the name graces a trade magazine for the industry, and Douglas Adams incorporated a homage to it in Life, the Universe and Everything (1). In a world gone mad for […]

Paving over the Shire

The roots of fantasy are rural. This is true whether one considers the original medieval romances, or the nineteenth century ‘lost race’ type fantasies of Haggard, pulp fiction like Howard or the fantasy resurgence following Tolkien. The landscapes are wild, populated by villages, castles and evil towers. The plots tend to be travelogues (1) with […]

Meet the Neighbours Part 3 — Black and Gold

It might seem that the Beetle-kinden of the Lowlands are the only force for progress and Aptitude in the world, set against a tapestry of the ignorant and the superstitious: Moths, Dragonflies, Mantids and Spiders being dragged kicking and screaming into the world post-revolution. If only. The Lowlanders are not alone. Although the overthrow of the […]