Shores of Night

Urban fantasy is a genre that has grown up to its full strength over the past couple of decades; even though its roots lie back in the distant past. Today with authors like Mike Carey, Jim Butcher, Kelley Armstrong and others writing books based in urban environments, all using the idea that just around the corner there may be something out of the ordinary; it is safe to say that the genre has arrived and is as distinctive as other forms of fantasy fiction. Fated fits well into the line of 'wizard as protagonist' novels that have been published in recent years, and carries a nod in the first few pages to Butcher's Dresden novels; mentioning a mage in Chicago who advertises under 'wizard' in the phone directory. This element of awareness is pleasing if only because it suggests the Jacka acknowledges his novel is part of a young tradition. In practice Fated fits a little too well into the conventions it plays with. Once the nod to other work is out of the way ...

Proposed ad to go up at Waylands Forge (my Friendly Local Gaming Store)...  GM/player in South Birmingham looking for 3 or 4 players for horror, steampunk and urban fantasy games, in the main. I'm mostly interested in World of Darkness, Cthulhu/Laundry, Gumshoe and a few other games (sorry, no Shadowrun, D&D, Warhammer 40K or Star Wars). My game style favours investigation, mystery and social interaction, and I don't really enjoy combat and dungeon bashing. Please contact me at (email) if you're interested.

Las Vegas is a strange city from all accounts. A place of dreams with little reality underneath, where tourists are disorientated by the fact the hotels cut them off from the outside world, the tables never close and the windows don't open wide enough for the man who's lost everything to jump. This is the world Last Call inhabits, a world of gambling, obsession and magic. The protagonist is Scott Crane, a gambler who hasn't played poker for 20 years, after losing badly at an occult game called Assumption in '69. As he is dragged back into the shady world ruled by the stranger end of probability and cards his life, already breaking, falls apart completely. Obsession is the key to the novel; every character from the hitmen chasing Crane to the gamblers who inhabit the world he's forced into and beyond is touched somehow, broken by their obsessions and their connections to the strange otherworld that hides under mainstream Americana. Powers makes no bones about...

I roleplayed for the first time in over six months on Sunday, in a small game of Barbarians of Lemuria. The plot was largely ripped off Robert Howard's Tower of the Elephant and involved me transforming Sataria, the setting's 'melting pot' city into a low fantasy Venice just because... well that's cool right? As I say there wasn't much originality to the plot, from the bar brawl start to the way the characters found out about the gem the size of a man's fist (blatantly stealing the Jewel of the Seven Stars from Bram Stoker by way of Kim Newman) and beyond. The game was purposefully combat, planning and gravitas light. I dislike the former pieces of that trinity (I feel they suck the drama out of the game) and the players I was gaming with aren't much for serious tones. At the same time though the game felt like sword and sorcery rather than vanilla fantasy and that was really good; one of the things that annoys me is when a game doesn't have the ri...

Fresh from NewCon Press the Moon King is an interesting, in some ways challenging, read. Set in the island city of Glassholm, a place with a more intimate relationship with the moon than is perhaps healthy, the book follows a number of plots; focusing on a group of characters whose paths cross but each of whom has their own distinct stories within the narrative. The moon is held captive above the city and as it progresses through its cycle the city changes, and the people change with it. This creates two dangerous times Full and Dark which are significant to the story's development. Owing to its relationship with the moon, Glassholm is isolated and considered strange within its world and, in general, the reader is given the sense that the city's inhabitants are incurious about the world beyond their island. Essentially a mystery story, one  beginning when an engineer wakes in the palace and is informed he is the king, the Moon King is an exercise in peeling back the...

Yesterday I got my penultimate mark for my MA in Writing. I got a 60 for Reading into Writing, which is the lowest mark I've earned so far on the course but I'm still pretty happy about it. I'm still on course for a commendation and that's a good thing. It wasn't the strongest piece of work I've handed in so its going to take a bit to get it ready for its next challenge - getting published. I'm still loving the course and can't sing the praises of the people on the course highly enough. They're a great bunch of teachers (and I take my hat off to them for putting up with me).

I haven't much to post at the moment. I'm slogging through writing sword and sorcery style stories for the MA's Final Project, researching a PhD proposal, and put part of my first novel in for the Bridport Prize. Otherwise I'm bouncing back and forth in the grip of indecision about things like gaming (I'm not sure I want to go back to the hobby because, frankly the idea of trying to organise a game makes me feel stressed and I find myself thinking that if all gaming can be amounts to the list of things I don't like then I'm not sure I want to be involved with it). Anyway, I wanted to post more ideas about 'dream games' and throw them out for your delight and edification. I think a lot of these would end up being run with a generic system like FATE or BRP but I'm not sure. Damnation County Something dark has woken in the American West, a murderous spirit ushered into being by the Civil War, fostered by New England's folklore and the ra...