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...
Note: I wrote this when I was angry and upset because it seemed like the entire world was turning into an awful place and while things have improved a little since and I've seen a glimmer of hope again, I still feel what I wrote below applies. And I still feel that social media is bad for the human race and the internet was a nicer place without it.... The Horror of Online Road Rage - Are We Star Trek or Bladerunner? I’m sorry if this sounds like I’m repeating myself as I’ve said the same thing in various ways and various forms in my blogs over the last year or so. But I am feeling so helpless and despairing of the world right now, that I all I can do is vent that feeling and hope my tiny cry in the dark void that is the internet will shine a very small light against the bleak darkness. Because the internet, social media in particular, has turned into one big morass of Road Rage. People are venting their spleens and developing a hatred of other people that bears as much resemb...
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...
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