Polytheism is common in fantasy fiction, likely due to its roots in the mythology of cultures that worshiped a pantheon of gods. Not all fantasy worlds include deities (or spirituality, for that matter), and those that do have their own unique twists. This series will look at the use of gods and religion in fantasy [...]

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I finished reading through the 4E Player’s Handbook last week. 4E introduced some significant changes in mechanics from the previous edition of Dungeons and Dragons. There are a lot of good reviews of the core rules, but seeing as this is a blog about writing fantasy fiction, I wanted to take a different tack.
D&D fantasy [...]

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I’ve made reference to the “dwarf-elf-orc cliche” in a couple previous posts, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to explain what I mean. There’s two parts to this concept. The first deals with the interpretation of these fantasy races. The second encompasses the the fantasy trope of good and evil races.
Going back to their [...]

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Today is the last day of the May 2008 Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour, featuring the Mindflights webzine. The editors’ vision for Mindflights is to provide quality science fiction and fantasy stories that respect “traditional values and Christian principles.” However, their submission guidelines reveal they aren’t interested in “works that appear to function [...]

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When I think of serial fiction, the first thing that comes to mind are those old black-and-white serials that used to play in theaters before the main attraction. However, serial fiction has a longer tradition in the written word than the moving picture. Writers from as early as the 19th century made their livings by [...]

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