The Witcher, episode 1.3

For all it brightens, love casts long shadows. -Geralt

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, chapter 5

The writers's self-image. Writers have to simultaneously believe the following two things:

1. The story I am now working on is the greatest work of genius ever written in English.
2. The story I am now working on is worthless drivel.

[Believing 1 as you're sending and 2 as you're editing, etc.]

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, chaper 1

You know when you think you shouldn't bother to create something because it's already been done 1 million times?

The novelty and freshness you'll bring to the field won't come from the new ideas you think up. Truly new ideas are rare, and usually turn out to be variations on old themes anyway. No, your freshness will come from the way you think, from the person you are; it will invariably show up in your writing, provided you don't mask it with heavy-handed formulas or clichés.

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, chapter 1

The Infinite Boundary

...whatever is published within the field of science fiction and fantasy is science fiction and fantasy, and if it doesn't resemble what science fiction and fantasy were twenty years ago, some readers and writers will howl, but others will hear the new voice and see the new vision with delight. 

The Fifth Season, prologue

The Prologue in this book is better than anything I have ever written or imagined, and better than quite a lot of things I have read.

I was not expecting to be so instantly hooked, it usually takes me a few chapters to really get into a book.

Jak and the Wormhole

Heroes can be found in the most unlikely of places. Perhaps we all have it within us to do great things, but may simply lack the circumstances or the reason to be heroic.

The Three Little Sontarans

Brilliant. Exactly what I expected from a book called 'Time Lord Fairy Tales'.

The Twins in the Woods

I have a stack of fairy tales, Grimm's, Anderson's, various other collections. Haven't read all of them, some are very familiar, others just plain weird. So I don't know the origins of this one. Not Hansel and Gretel, not The Two Sisters.

No matter, it's a great story. Somewhere nice.

Cinderella and the Magic Box

I have never liked Cinderella (Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine being the exception), she doesn't do anything, things just happen to her. Until this one. I was a bit apprehensive at the beginning but it got very good very quickly.

Frozen Beauty

This one is also really good, really clever (as I'm suspecting they all will be). However, I was completely distracted by the idea of space travel normally taking centuries and arriving at your destination and waking up and everything could have changed.

The Garden of Statues

This book is beautiful, the contents intriguing; and this story, which could have been really obvious, was not.

---

'Where is she?' Tarmin yelled at the statue. 'What have you done with her?'

Of course, the statue did not reply.

The Dark Portal

Finished this a bit quickly. But there are two more! But I don't have them...

Reminded me a little of Redwall, not *just* because it was about mice, much more the way the mice (and other animals) were personified while retaining their animalistic traits and ways of life.

The Dark Portal, chapter 6

When a book nails it and you realise things haven't really changed much since 1989 and, I'm sure, much earlier.

Arthur had always thought that things became easier when you came of age but it wasn't turning out like that at all. He felt very unprepared for this responsibility.

The Dark Portal, chapter 3

I was recommended this book and now I finally got around to reading it I'm hooked!

Tall shadows covered the walls altering them into areas of pale moonlight and black caverns; deep shade and soft moonglow. Audrey could not tell the solid objects from the illusions.

The Mad Ship, Flights

More thinking.

'Such a storm of emotions as humans can evoke, all on the basis of imagination,' the dragon observed condescendingly. In a more reflective voice she asked, 'Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.'

The Mad Ship, Surviving

"A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking."

Belated note. Guess I found it important, and thought provoking.

The Mad Ship, The Calm

The panic had passed, and she had been able to join the party, pleading a morning headache as excuse for her absence. Since then, she had wondered if it were strength or a sort of madness that let her pretend she was normal.


I've found it to be both.

The Mad Ship, Taking Charge

When a character (and a writer) makes you stop and think.

Half the evil in this world occurs while decent people stand by and do nothing wrong. It is not enough to refrain from evil [...]. People have to attempt to do right, even if they believe they cannot succeed.

The Name of the Wind

This was recommended numerous times when I worked in a book shop, so strongly I sold it to folks before I'd even read it.

It's nothing like GoT. It has one main character who effortlessly dominates the two inches of book that's the first part of this (not-yet-finished) trilogy.

Reflections, A Whirlwind Tour of Australia

This book should be compulsory reading for anyone writing fantasy. For good reasons.

Imagination doesn't just mean making things up. It means thinking things through, solving them or hoping to do so, and being just distant enough to be able to laugh at things that are normally painful.