Claire Waller

My One and Only Love. That’s from the Cloud and all the way back to 2014/2015.

And congratulations to you too, Ath. Which story is yours? It did strike me that at least one of the titles had your ring to it, but I might have been completely off-beam so I ain’t sayin’.

Congratulations, Richard. It’s a powerful story that deserves recognition.

I see from the website that my entry has been longlisted, too, which feels rather good. I didn’t recognise any of the other titles.

Andrew, 1975

It’s February, and evening is upon us. Andrew goes unnoticed. Pedestrians streaming by the Palace Theatre barely even see a youth leaning against the wall. Some look towards him, but they are peering through the glass doors. Maybe they are wondering whether Jesus Christ Superstar is worth the ticket price. The traffic sweeping a…[Read more]

There’s a lot to be said for Discord. There are a number of pages I visit regularly. I don’t imagine it would suit some of our members, but there may be no alternative in a year’s time.

I too fail to understand what ‘static’ is supposed to mean in this context, or why it should apply to present tense. I have no problem whatever with reading present tense stories: sometimes I think I even prefer them. With past tense you’re always at one remove, as if listening to someone tell a story. Present tense is immersive, immediate. After…[Read more]

No preference.

My WIP is first person, present tense. I didn’t choose or plan this; it just happened when I started writing. I think it fits the voice of the MC.

I suppose that many people who are mainly familiar with a narrator, often omnipotent, addressing the reader in past tense, assume that present tense (especially first person) is likely…[Read more]

Very true. There are precious few lighter moments. Mind you, he’s not quite the worst author I know for that. Not exactly fantasy (although he did write a collaborative series with Terry Pratchett), Stephen Baxter has the habit of making you identify with and root for particular characters, and then watch as their responses to ever tougher…[Read more]

I discussed that last point with the person who recommended the series to me, and we agreed that that’s actually one of its strengths. In real-life situations of war, revolution, unrest etc good people are just as likely, or even more likely, to get killed as bad people. The atrocities that occur at regular intervals are paralleled in real life…[Read more]

@woolleybeans wrote: “For me, that aspect [the defining factor of PD] was/is the level to which the POV character’s thoughts, feelings etc influence/become part of the writing style itself.

As for how that correlates to film/TV…

The saturation of colours? Whether the shot angles up through something? The somewhat cliché blurry/wobbly scen…[Read more]

You’re probably right re urban fantasy, I have a rather vague grasp on the various subgenres, and that’s when authors oblige and ensure that their work falls squarely within one category. I have no idea where to put China Mieville’s Bas-Lag novels, and I suspect he likes it that way. They have the epic sweep and complex magical systems of high…[Read more]

I’m not sure that I’d call The Ten Thousand Doors urban fantasy, exactly, as I understand it (yes, I did go and look it up). it has some of the tropes, like fantastical elements intruding into our world, but the setting is neither urban nor contemporary.

I take your point about some modern fantasy being more original (I’ve sampled George R R…[Read more]

There’s something awe-inspiring about coming into contact with truly large insects and similar bugs, and your blog reminded me of an incident on holiday in Spain, years ago. We’d rented a cottage and on the last day we were cleaning up and I’d put a bin-bag by the door. I reached down to retrieve what looked like a piece of vegetation poking out…[Read more]

We had one of those alight on the edge of our utility room door a little while ago. Huge, and very striking. Almost big enough to have the same sort of presence as a bird rather than an insect. Can’t find pics of it now, but we fairly often see them out and about, along with different types of dragonfly and damsonfly.

It only occurred to me after posting to do a bit of investigating, and it turns out this must have been a female golden-ringed dragonfly, which is the longest British dragonfly and is often found quite some way from water.

I was going to edit this to add some links but apparently I’m too late. Anyway, in case there are any non-SE grads out there, some details on psychic distance here

That sounds fantastic (in both senses of the word). My tbr pile is probably already longer than I will get through in my lifetime but I will add it anyway.

Fantasy definitely did seem to go through an obligatory magic ring/sword phase, not to mention the ominpresent dark lord – the overlong series’ of Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind and, to a lesser…[Read more]