Fantasy Fiction

How Long Should a Fantasy Book Be?

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 48 Comments
Photo by Jonathan Cohen (CC BY-NC-2.0)

It’s a question often asked by aspiring authors wondering if their manuscript is several thousand words too long or short, but it’s also an intriguing one for readers to consider: is there an ideal length for a fantasy novel?

Every book is different and for any suggested word or page count you see, you are likely to encounter several popular fantasy books that are outside of it. Nonetheless, as someone who reads a lot in the genre and has also submitted work to competitions, agents and publishers, I thought I’d tackle this topic from three different perspectives:

  • how long popular published fantasy novels are,
  • how long the industry (agents, publishers, competitions) prefers them to be,
  • how long readers prefer them to be.

Continue reading →

The Magic of a Brilliant Book Brilliantly Read: The Gentleman Bastards Audiobooks

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 15 Comments
Book cover segment from The Republic of Thieves, Random House, 2013. (NPR Books)

The Gentleman Bastards is a much-loved fantasy series that is particularly popular in audiobook format. Fans who’ve listened to the audiobooks regularly recommend them, the narrator Michael Page has won awards for his performances (including his narration of The Lies of Locke Lamora), and author Scott Lynch has made no secret of the fact he thinks Page does a brilliant job: Continue reading →

My Top 5 Fantasy and Science Fiction TV Series

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 25 Comments
Church Tower from HBO series Westworld (source: Heavy.com)

I’ve long been a fan of fantasy and sci-fi TV shows, and although I don’t have time to watch as many as I would like (I guess I’m reading too many books!) if a good one comes along I’m liable to get addicted. For example, I recently finished watching the first season of Westworld and had to force myself not devote all my waking hours bingeing on it. The experience had me trying to remember which other fantasy and science fiction shows had a similar effect. After some thinking, I’ve narrowed it down to the five I like most: Continue reading →

My Favourite Fantasy and Science Fiction Books in 2016

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 6 Comments

Well it’s that time of year again – the time when bookworms set their reading challenges, make a bookish resolution or two, and muse on what novels they enjoyed most during this particular loop around the sun. So to join in the New Year’s spirit, here are the 6 best fantasy and sci-fi books (and/or series) that I read in 2016: Continue reading →

When Evil Characters Switch Sides

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 12 Comments
“Yin Yang”. Photo by Hartwig HKD (Creative Commons CC BY-ND 2.0)

I like a plain old dastardly villain I can hate, but a seemingly evil character who gradually discovers their soft, gooey core, and crosses over to join the good guys? No matter how many times I see it, if it’s done well it still gives me the warm and fuzzies.

I was thinking of this because I’ve recently been reading the Throne of Glass series, which is full of villains that change their colours and show their softer sides, as well as morally questionable heroes and heroines in general. I’ve also finished the Red Rising trilogy, which has so many characters crossing back and forth it’s hard to tell who’ll be left standing on the “good” side in the end. Clearly, it’s something many readers, myself included, enjoy.

So what is it that’s so compelling about this ‘crossing over’ from evil to good? Here is my attempt at breaking it down: Continue reading →

Poisons, Antidotes and Remedies in Fantasy

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 13 Comments
Box of old vials containing arsenic, belladonna and other substances at the German Pharmacy Museum.

The dramatic regicide-by-poison in Game of Thrones may have placed them centre-stage, but poisons have always been rife in the fantasy and science fiction genres, along with antidotes and remedies.

Poisoning may simply seem like a convenient (if dastardly) way to kill a character, but poisons and antidotes are used in a variety of ways to add twists, tension, and complexities to fantasy plots. Continue reading →

What Makes a Good Book Tagline?

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 16 Comments
Tagline on Hunger Games Box Set. Photo by Nicola Alter (CC BY SA 4.0)

A great tagline can help sell books and give readers an idea of what kind of story they’re picking up. However, titles, covers and blurbs play a much larger role in book marketing, so taglines (aka straplines or endlines in the UK) are rarely discussed. We’re more likely to associate them with the subtitles on movie posters or trailers, and most of us would be hard-pressed to quote the tagline of our favourite novel. In spite of this, I’d wager that at least one out of every two books you pick up will have a slogan or catchphrase that appears on its front or back cover.

So this week I’ve collected 20 stand-out taglines from various books on my shelf and analysed which ones I like, which ones I don’t, and why I believe they do or don’t do a good job of selling the novel. Continue reading →

A Trip to Braavos and King’s Landing

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 5 Comments
Girona Skyline from the City Wall. Photo by Nicola Alter (CC BY SA 4.0)

I recently spent a week in Spain and made sure to fit in a day in Girona into my schedule. It’s a beautiful, ancient city with an impressive medieval wall, and it’s also got an airport with cheap flights to the rest of Europe… but I’d be lying if I pretended it was anything other than pure nerdy Game of Thrones fandom that peaked my interest. Continue reading →

How My Dad Ended Up in a Potter Queue

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 2 Comments
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Poster. Image from Pottermore

Okay, so this is going to be a bit of a short post this week, but I wanted to write about something that happened to my dad recently because I found it amusing, and because Father’s Day is coming up this Sunday (in Australia anyway). Continue reading →

Ways of Measuring Time in High Fantasy

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 15 Comments
Photo by viviannedraper (CC BY 2.0)

There’s no rule that says Fantasy authors have to avoid clocks and calendars when writing their fictional worlds. Many authors simply stick with seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years.

After all, the 24-hour clock and the Gregorian Calendar pre-date the Middle Ages, so if a fantasy is set on a medieval earth-like world and characters refer to hours and months, it won’t feel immediately anachronistic (though admittedly these measurements wouldn’t have been available in handy wristwatch or smart phone format). Continue reading →