Ladies and gentlemen - we have a release date and a cover! The final book of the Plot Bandits "Trilogy", The Taskmaster, will be coming out on 20th June 2023. :)
The Unachievable Heights of The Chosen One Ah, The Chosen One. That staple of the fantasy world. Destiny’s Child, born under an auspicious star, with a unique birthmark foretelling their glorious fate, generally blessed with a stunning or striking appearance, an unusual eye colour and unexpectedly modest origins for their impressively regal heritage, watched over at a distance by a guardian just waiting for the right moment to reveal their secret power and fated purpose in saving their realms from a lurking evil. Step forward all you fantastical Eriks out there, for you are legion. But as anyone who has read my novels may have guessed, I have a few issues with the trope of The Chosen One. Because as the father of modern fantasy, JRR Tolkien himself dictated, fantasy is escapist but also aspirational. And although his work does have a Chosen One – Aragorn, I’m looking at you – who does his bit extremely well, he isn’t the one who saves the day. That role falls to a couple of v...
The human imagination is an extraordinary thing, when you stop and think about it. Being as I am not of a scientific bent, I have no idea of the ins and outs of how it can possibly work, how it is that a lump of grey meat inside a wrapping of bone could possibly generate images, ideas, unheard sounds, regurgitate things once seen and create whole new universes out of nothing. Indeed, to be honest, I don’t want to understand how it works - that would destroy the magic. I’m quite happy just to have the means to play in new and never before seen realms in the depths of my own head. But there is another special thing about the imagination – it is unique. It is a strange thing to consider that no one will ever see my characters exactly how I do. Oh, I can describe them down to the freckles on their noses but one of the beauties of books and taking a world out of words rather than pictures is that everyone’s imagination will give it their own slant. Even the finest description in t...
Note: Work is mad and my health isn't great right now so I haven't the time or the mental capacity to rant online this month. So I'm resorting to pulling a short story out of my challenge archive again.... Live Forever, Die Young The young man stared up at the towering figure in his crisp business suit, so like all the others who had come before him, waving contracts, begging, wheedling, for him to sign his awesome and vastly in demand new sound to their label. The pleas and the promises, the guarantees of global glory and riches beyond compare were getting almost embarrassing. But this one – there was something different about him. Perhaps it was his ruddy complexion, so deep as to make his skin seem almost crimson. Perhaps it was the neat, black little goatee beard that he stroked so lovingly. Perhaps it was the strange fit of his neat Italian shoes or the odd way his dark wig seemed to balance on his forehead, as though something beneath was getting in the way. Bu...
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