What is it about horror that fascinates us? What is it about being scared that is like a drug? For many Brits of a certain age, that fear began young: cowering behind the sofa at the appearance of the Daleks or the Cybermen on Doctor Who. Children seem to love being scared and my childhood memories of television are littered with terrifying programmes such as Children of the Stones, Under the Mountain, The Tripods, Dramarama (some were spooky) and countless others who titles I can’t remember but have images of events that took place. Continue reading “Fear!!!! Why Do We Love It So Much?”
Category: Lists
Three Fantasy Novels Everyone Should Read
(That are not Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones)
Not, of course, that I don’t or wouldn’t recommend reading them! I just think it would be the lazy choice to include one or all of them. Readers of my blog know that I am very fussy about fantasy. LOTR and Game of Thrones filled me with indifference but I do love Harry Potter. What puts me off fantasy the most is seeing rainforest-murdering tomes with a caption on the back “Book One of this Exciting 40 book series!”
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Which Story Endings Would You Change?
This is a bumped and edited old post that I felt needed a bit more exposure and an update. This was originally a Post a Day prompt to 2011. An interesting subject. We all have books and films where we felt a disappointing ending marred what had been a great story. Here is my humble list of changes I would make. Continue reading “Which Story Endings Would You Change?”
Three Essential Classic SciFi Novels *Everyone* Should Read
“I don’t like sci fi!” ever heard yourself saying that? If so, and you are quite happy to have your prejudices against sci-fi challenged, then you might want to consider reading any of these superb examples of classic science fiction that have stood the test of time, have great stories and have subtext that is still relevant today. I may revisit this subject in future, but here are three to start you off and why you should read them.
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Top Five List: Authors For Whom I’ve Read the Most Titles
I got this idea from Sabina of Victim to Charm a few days ago. As readers, do you read around every genre and a broad range of writers? Do you have a handful of writers to whom you keep coming back? I decided to explore this question. I have made a rough count of the number of titles, but it is more of an educated guess and I could have missed some. Continue reading “Top Five List: Authors For Whom I’ve Read the Most Titles”
10 Greatest Speculative Novels of All Time
As a sort of follow up to my anti scifi snobbery rant, I’m just going to list my ten favourite speculative genre books and tell you why I love them and hopefully, if any of my readers are not into the genre, will see something that catches their eye enough to give it a try. Continue reading “10 Greatest Speculative Novels of All Time”
7 Things the Assassin’s Creed Film Should Have
I saw this and decided to add a few of my own. Some of these may overlap with the very fast-paced video here.
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Five Books I Gave Up on, And Why
We all have them – some of us more than others – and there comes a point when we give up on books that everybody seems to love that we can’t understand what the fuss was all about. We also continue in more than moderate bemusement for precisely why anybody loved them in the first place. Here’s my list. Continue reading “Five Books I Gave Up on, And Why”
My Three Essential Tools of Freelancing
There are a few things I thought I’d never actually need, or things I thought would be extravagant luxuries, and some things that would have been unnecessary (I don’t get the writer’s obsession with personal stationery for the purpose of branding, for example) but over the course of the last few years I have found the following items essential in my day to day work. Continue reading “My Three Essential Tools of Freelancing”
Dealing With Those Self-Employed Work Lulls
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The first couple of weeks of this new financial year has been a little quiet. I’m not empty of work, but I am finding at the moment that my workload is light. A few contracts have been put on hold and applying for new contracts on elance and odesk is not proving very fruitful. I’m not worried, I still have more work than I did this time last year, but it is quiet at the moment. So what do I do when there’s a lull in work? Continue reading “Dealing With Those Self-Employed Work Lulls”