Summer means different things to different people, depending on their age, their life situation, their life goals—and their reading habits. Some folks read their one book a year over the summer, lazing on a beach. Others sail into June with a reading list arranged alphabetically and by length. Some just like to wander into bookstores […]
You might be forgiven for assuming that magic is, well, magic—a supernatural ability to do things that violate the laws of reality. That is a pretty good description of magic, which is awesome. Except if you’re a writer, in which case it becomes a problem: once you introduce magic into your story, you must come […]
2017: the year that became an adjective. A year during which the only status quo became the lack of one, and the only thing stranger than the day’s trending Twitter topics was the next day’s trending Twitter topics. Wherever you come down on the merits of the past 12 months, there’s no denying the fact […]
In sci-fi and fantasy, heroes tend to wield huge two-handed swords or have bandoliers of ammunition strapped over their impressive physiques as they rocket through space and time. Or, sometimes, they are brainy mad-scientist types who kick butt via chemical reactions, superior intellect, and possibly a time machine disguised as a police call box. Rarely […]
Though ostensibly genres of escapism, some of the best and most entertaining government agencies—hardly two words synonymous with “fun”—ever conceived were invented by sci-fi and fantasy writers. Of course, these speculative agencies, departments, and extra-legal bureaus tend towards the ungovernable, the incomprehensible, and the unregulatable—which makes them more or less just like the government agencies […]