Month: September 2015

10 Types of ancient warriors.

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Picture from 1zoom.net The Hoplite. Normally a farmer by trade, when the call came he took up his large Hoplite shield, dons his breastplate, greaves, and helmet and marches to war.  Such warriors were the backbone of each Greek city state’s strength.  In more peaceful times they could compete in different forms of physical prowess in the Olympic games. Picture from mindenkilapja.hu The Spartan.  Spartan society was based on one thing: war! At twelve years old each young boy was taken under the wing of an elder veteran and incorporated into the great Spartan Phalanx.  The sight of which was feared throughout Greece and Persia.  The three hundred Spartans who held the pass at Thermopylae have passed into legend. Picture from monolith.dnsalias.org The Immortal.  The Persian Emperors finest men, the bodyguard and elite of his army were skilled with spear, blade, and bow.  This small army consisted of 10,000 warriors, never more, never less.  As soon as one died or was gravely wounded he was replaced by another of equal skill immediately so that their numbers always remained constant and thus gave …

Sunday update and book giveaway!

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I hope you have enjoyed the Lord of the Rings season on this site, which was concluded on Friday with my final post of the series, with the search for the next Tolkien to grab the fantasy world’s attention.  I will return to other fantasy works soon, but I think on my next post I should come up with a post more centred on historical works…after all, this site does cover both genres.  It can be quite difficult to get the balance right, but as I’ve stated many times in the past, I think the two genres have more in common than they have differences. I try to be quite open to new ideas for this site, therefore in an endeavour to help involve my readers in the running of this site, I have come up with a new giveaway competition.  I will be giving away three copies of the paperback version of my book Roman Mask.  Possibly you haven’t purchased it yet, and even if you have you may only have read it on …

Who will take Tolkien’s place?

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Over the past week and a half, I have posted several articles on the Lord of the Rings.  I don’t think anyone can deny the importance of Tolkien’s work to the fantasy genre, but maybe it is time to start looking beyond Middle Earth, to find the next great classic fantasy novel.  There have been several pretenders to the throne, various novels or series of books that for a time have come close to the popularity of Tolkien’s work, but so far, none have lasted the test of time.  I can’t possibly list them all as there are far too many but I will go through a few of the past, present, and future claimants to the throne… The Dragonlance series by Weis & Hickman – Back in the 1980’s, before computer video games hit their prominence, the game fantasy enthusiasts played was Dungeons and Dragons: a role-playing game played with character sheets, dice, and active imaginations.  The popularity of this game was in part fuelled by the massive popularity of the Dragonlance fantasy series …

Middle Earth since the films…

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picture from digitaldomain.com Despite being known primarily as a lover of books, I think I should make it clear from the start that I love Peter Jackson’s three films that make up his adaptation of the Lord of the Rings.  I don’t think Tolkien’s classic work could ever be completely captured in its entirety on film, but I really don’t think that anyone else could have done it any better – they really are fantastic. I could try and nick pick here and there, how I wished they’d portrayed a particular part, this way or that, but I won’t bother – the film adaptation is just that, an adaptation, and it is a very good one. The films have done a lot for the fantasy genre as well.  They showed how the incredible advances in in CGI meant that virtually any imagined concept or world can now be achieved via the medium of film.  It used to be thought that fantasy novels could only be achieved in either books or animation because of the limitations …

Sunday update!

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I hope you have been enjoying the series on The Lord of the Rings this past week.  I started off with a post on my own memories of when I first read the trilogy and followed that up with a piece on what separates Tolkien’s work from other novels.  I could leave it at that, but I would like to write one more post on how our perceptions on the three books have changed since the films have come out, and what the legacy of The Lord of the Rings is likely to be, since the three film’s incredible success at the box office.  I will also try and look ahead, at other fantasy novels that may one day be considered classics and take their place alongside The Lord of the Rings at the top of the genre.  This will come out on Wednesday. Roman Mask An update on my own novel Roman Mask.  I still haven’t managed to work out what has happened to the three missing reviews from my blog tour which were supposed …

Why the Lord of the Rings is still such a great book!

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Because the Lord of the Rings was brought to the forefront of everyone’s attention by the release of Peter Jackson’s magnificent set of films, it is easy to forget how great the books are.  For anyone interested in fantasy novels, The Lord of the Rings is still the most important book you can read, and here are a few reasons why. Picture from Reddit.com Depth.  Middle Earth is incredible.  Not just because Tolkien envisaged such a land of rivers, mountain ranges, great forests, and towering ancient cities, but because of the depth and detail he used.  Well researched languages, myths and legends that go back millennia – only a selection of which made it into the pages of the trilogy.  New types of animals, races, and magic all imbue Middle Earth with its own mysticism.  If you research the history of any of the lands great cities in Tolkien’s other writings you will find details on who founded the city, why it was built, and the great battles fought for it.  No other author has …

The first time I read The Lord of the Rings.

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I was eleven years old, when I first read The Lord of the Rings, and it changed my life.  I’d been a sporadic reader up until that point, occasionally reading a book when bored, or reading something to appease my parents.  But I soon realised as I slowly made my way through all three volumes over a long hot summer in the mid-eighties, that The Lord of the Rings was different.  This was a book that I loved. So much so, that from that point on I became an avid reader.  I was then always known to be the boy with a book in his hands, desperately wanting to recapture that feeling of complete immersion in a world far removed from my own.  Be it fantasy novels or historical, throughout university and beyond, the sight of me carrying a book or with a novel stuffed in a coat pocket or bag was so common that it was only remarked upon on the rare occasion it was missing. The attraction of escapism is obvious, but this wasn’t …

Coming up on the site soon!

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Coming up! It occurred to me recently that although I have highlighted and written about a number of fantasy novels, apart from the odd mention here and there, I have missed out the two most famous works in the Genre.   They are of course The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.  Possibly the reason I have avoided writing about them up until now is that since the films and the TV series have come out, so much has been said about them, I wasn’t sure I could offer anything more.  However, I now realise that was ignoring the elephant in the room, and to have a site which discusses fantasy novels, and not include these great books is ridiculous. So this week I will start of writing some pieces on The Lord of the Rings, the book that I first read at eleven and did more to spark my imagination than anything else in my life.  It lead to a lifelong love affair with reading and …

Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King. A great combination of myth and history.

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Bernard Cornwell has always been a great favourite of mine, managing to combine exciting action with historical events – informing the reader, whilst keeping them on the edge of their seat.  So I was intrigued when he decided to write a series of novels based on the legend of King Arthur.  The Winter King is the first of the Warlord chronicles and is set in ancient Britain just after the Romans left its shores and the Saxons started to make incursions into the British Isles.  King Arthur comes to hold back the impending storm, and by so doing spawns the legend that has inspired the myth that has lasted through the millennia. The difficulty with any Arthurian novel is striking the balance between historical accuracy and the myth that has grown over the past fifteen hundred years.  Most people realise that Sir Thomas Mallory’s concept of knights in shining armour is completely inaccurate, but do you throw out all the elements of the legend you think untrue or exaggerated?  If so you may come up …

10 Castles to see before you die!

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picture from Etonnantes-pyrenees.com Montsegur, Southern France.  Unless you know your European history well, you might be unaware that there was another branch of Christianity once.  They were called the Cathars and were based mainly in Southern France in the 12th and 13th century.  Alas, they fell out with the Catholic Church, who declared them heretics and with the co-operation of the French King pursued a religious crusade to wipe them out.  The Cathar’s last stand was held in this tiny castle in the Pyrenees.  A year long siege was ended by a daring raid of French knights who climbed up the cliffs to take the castle in the night.  The Catholic Church then burnt the 225 Cathar priests alive at the foot of the mountain (they apologised in 1979). picture from en.wikipedia.org Alnwick Castle, Northumberland UK.  I had to have this one on the list because it used to be my favourite as a child.  My grandmother had dinner mats of different English castles in her cottage in Northumberland.  I used to always insist I had …