The Fantasy Hive - A U.K. Wonderland
A hub for all things fantasy (plus some SF). Book reviews, games, author interviews, features, serial fiction- you name it. The Fantasy Hive is a collaborative site formed of unique personalities who just want to celebrate fantasy. Btw, the SFF novel to the left by one of our members, Warwick Gleeson, was a "Top 150 Best Books" Kirkus pick in 2019.
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On Wednesday, we announced our sixth trio of eliminations and revealed that this week’s two quarter-finalists from the “different” batch are SHADOWS OF IVORY by T.L. Greylock/Bryce O’Connor and WINDS OF STRIFE by U.G .Gutman. These two battle it out in our final quarterfinal of SPFBO 7 In treading a different path in fantasy fiction, our two quarter-finalists stretched our expectations of fantasy protagonists. One gave us a cruel man who finds and murders witches but considers that a mercy, even as his actions eat away at him. The other gave us a young woman gifted by position and wealth, but who sets out to find battles she can win by virtue of her wit and intellec…
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I’VE JUST WORKED OUT THE TITLE. That’s so damn clever… The title obviously, not me. Damn I hope you gave yourself a proper pat on the back Gray. Anyway We’re off to a good start, aren’t we. You’ll have to excuse me, please, as I’m suffering from serious book hangover. The kind where… you’ve finished the book, so you stare off into space thinking about it, then your hands reach for it in an attempt to return to reading it. But there’s nothing left to read… The Last Days of Hong Kong is the third and final instalment of G. D. Penman’s Witch of Empire series (The Year of the Knife and The Wounded Ones) and I screamed just a little bit when Gray sent me an arc. If you’re …
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This is a delightful little story – a mere 25 pages long in its Amazon listing, yet with themes that could have easily born a longer piece. There are shades of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time in the notions of a far future of colonisation, faster than light technology and terraforming. Pilot Msizi and Engineer Tariro make the first transit of a recently constructed “Einstein-Rosen bridge” to an unexplored star system. The bridge is effectively an artificially maintained wormhole making near instantaneous travel possible between two vastly separated locations – a sort of star gate if you will. Msizi is the first to test out the bridge which has only just been compl…
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Joe Abercrombie is the author of the FIRST LAW series and the SHATTERED SEA series. His novels have been shortlisted for the World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Awards, John W. Campbell Award and the David Gemmell Legend Awards. Joe formerly worked as a freelance film editor and is now a full-time writer who lives with his family in Bath. The world of the First Law collides with the industrial age in a new trilogy – The Age of Madness – which began in September 2019 with A Little Hatred, continued a year later with The Trouble With Peace and concludes in September 2021 with The Wisdom of Crowds. You can keep up with Joe by following him on twitter where he posts as …
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Welcome to our Sixth Eliminations post for SPFBO 7. This week, we have grouped our five brave entrants together into a “Different” batch. You can find out more about this week’s posts in our Meet the Batch post. Read on to find out which three of them fell in our sixth batch of eliminations, listed in alphabetical order. Faye in the City by K.E.Willis Theo: The fantasy element is quite light – in the first 20% we get to see that the main protagonist Faye has some kind of skill of precognition, influence and awareness of moods/emotions – which could be quite cool. The main thrust of the story though is young woman making friends in a very recognisable contempo…
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Being an Emergency Room physician for close to forty years, Dr. Mucci found that the pandemic brought forth new horrors in the ER. Writing this fantasy story about Ignatius became an enjoyable escape for him from all that was happening in the real world. Follow him on: Instagram | Facebook Welcome to the Hive, Dr. Mucci! Let’s start with the basics: dazzle us with an elevator pitch! Why should readers check out your work? Ignatius and the Swords of Nostaw is the first in an action-packed series perfect for readers who love an impossible mission led by an unlikely hero. The coming-of-age story follows teenager Ignatius (nicknamed “Iggy”) who finds himself transpo…
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Please note this review will contain spoilers for A Little Hatred and The Trouble with Peace, but it is spoiler free for The Wisdom of Crowds. ‘Wisdom is not a premium, madness is the fashion, the balance sheets are all torn up and the friends that were assets have become liabilities.’ Vic kept walking, ‘Threats for tomorrow don’t cut very deep when today is so damn threatening.’ The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie is the last book in the Age of Madness trilogy, and for now at least, marks the end of our time within the world of the First Law. Before I began this book I was apprehensive about what kind of ending these beloved characters would meet, but I needn’t hav…
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The seventh Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) is underway! Check out our introduction here | meet this year’s judges here | read all about the contest’s origins here | and keep track of phase one here We have divided the 30 books into 6 batches of five books each, with each batch loosely grouped around a common theme or motif. For the next six weeks our SPFBO posting pattern will be: Monday introduce a new batch of five Wednesday eliminate three of them and identify two quarter finalists Friday post the decision as to which quarter finalists which is our pick for semi-finalist and why The chosen semi-finalists will then each get a full read from all ou…
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Hello, mae govannen, and welcome to the first in a series of guided walks around the post-scouring Shire with your host, Everard Took. Each walk will feature a map and a description of the route pointing out places of interest (and local gossip). As Everard’s official scribe and map-maker, I can only hope to do the great hobbit justice. Thanks to the Fantasy Hive for inviting us in! Cheers, Kai Greenwood (@LostDunedan) Hobbiton Hike: A gentle stroll around the heartlands of the Shire, visiting Bag End and Sam’s mallorn tree. Distance: 2 miles Difficulty: Easy Dangers: The Gaffer’s Ire Since the War of the Ring, a new spirit has infused through the hobbits of th…
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OK – I know the expectation of competitions is that there should be FOUR quarter-finals, but if Douglas Adams could write five books in the (increasingly inaccurate) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, then the Hive can definitely have 6 quarterfinals. On Wednesday, we announced our fifth trio of eliminations and revealed that this week’s two quarter-finalists from the “Starting Anew” batch are THE SPEAR OF AKVALOON by Toby Bennett and WINDWARD by S. Kaeth. While many fantasy characters have to start afresh after some life convulsing event, they are not always able to do so with some implicitly trustworthy Obi-Wan Ben Kenobi figure, nor are the new recruits to…
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“Give me your unknown hand, since life is hurting me, and I don’t know how to speak – reality is too delicate, only reality is delicate, my unreality and my imagination are heavier.” “Humanized life. I had humanized life too much.” Clarice Lispector was a Ukranian-born Brazilian writer of fantastically weird and strange fiction. The Passion According to G.H., written in Portuguese in 1964 but not translated into English until 1988, is a short novel – the edition I have comes to 189 pages – but what Lispector achieves in this short space is nothing short of remarkable. The book is essentially a mystical experience, brought on by the protagonist’s encounter with a cockroa…
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Ray Star is a Fantasy author from Essex with a passion for animal rights and eco-living. She can often be found writing, exploring nature and occasionally stargazing underneath a full moon with a tarot deck in one hand and a strong cuppa in the other. Earthlings was conceived from a love for the environment and inspired by her father, whose passing was a catalyst in leading a greener lifestyle. Ray’s dream is to one day open an animal sanctuary and wildlife reserve in memory of her father. Earthlings is Ray’s debut novel and the first book in the Earthlings trilogy. #Earthlings | www.raystarbooks.com | @raystarbooks Many thanks for joining us here at the Fantasy-Hi…
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Welcome to our Fifth Eliminations post for SPFBO 7. This week, we have grouped our five brave entrants together into a “Starting Anew” batch. You can find out more about this week’s posts in our Meet the Batch post. Read on to find out which three of them fell in our fifth batch of eliminations, listed in alphabetical order. Dive Endless Skies by Chris Reign Theo: This is the third year in a row we’ve had a litRPG book in the Hive’s batch. This one is very resonant of my World of Warcraft experience – even down to a starter quest to kill a troublesome boar. However, it also manages to convey a sense of a real story in there as low level Eyre bypasses the tuto…
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Earlier in the year, Will from Gollancz invited me to take part in a read-a-long for A Little Hatred, the first book in Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness Trilogy, to build up to the release of the final part of the trilogy, The Wisdom of Crowds, this month. At the time, I was mad-busy, apologised and declined, sulked for a bit… But then Will invited me to take part in the second part of the read-a-along – for The Trouble with Peace – and this time I knew I had to take part. There is so much love out there for Abercrombie’s books, so not only was I looking forward to diving into his new trilogy and returning to Midderland; but I couldn’t wait to chat about Trouble with th…
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“But human society wasn’t built on rock and roll. No, it was cobbled from the commodified poor. When in doubt, the species creates itself something to beat up, beat down, bludgeon into grease for the gears of society. All the Minds did was ensure that people like Maya were made. And people like Maya, well, they were born without fucks to give out.” Cassandra Khaw has made their name as one of the most exciting voices out there writing short fiction, from their darkly lyrical short stories to the brilliant and disturbing Lovecraftian Persons Non Grata series of novellas. The All-Consuming World (2021) is Khaw’s debut novel, and shows that they are just as powerful and ad…
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The seventh Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) is underway! Check out our introduction here | meet this year’s judges here | read all about the contest’s origins here | and keep track of phase one here We have divided the 30 books into 6 batches of five books each, with each batch loosely grouped around a common theme or motif. For the next six weeks our SPFBO posting pattern will be: Monday introduce a new batch of five Wednesday eliminate three of them and identify two quarter finalists Friday post the decision as to which quarter finalists which is our pick for semi-finalist and why The chosen semi-finalists will then each get a full read from all ou…
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Welcome to my first review on The Fantasy Hive! Westu hal to you, I am delighted to being reviewing for the Hive for the first time and what a book I have been able to read and review. The Boy with Fire by Aparna Verma is one of the most interesting and original books that I have been able to read. Firstly I would like to say how wonderful Verma’s writing is, it’s accessible and flows, and pulls the reader into this wonderful world. It’s a world inspired by Indian myth, and what a wonderful story of redemption is in store for you. Verma seamlessly blends fantasy with sci-fi, so with the secondary world, the magic system, you also get hover cars, cameras and guns.…
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On Wednesday, we announced our fourth trio of eliminations and revealed that this week’s two quarter-finalists from the “Kick Ass” batch are BLOOD BOUNTY by Liza Street and THE NAMELESS AND THE FALLEN by Scott Kaelen. Kicking ass is what many fantasy protagonists do best. Interestingly though, our two quarterfinalists both upped the ante a bit by giving their leading characters some pretty hard to kick antagonists. See the judges’ comments below, with the books – as before – listed in alphabetical order! Blood Bounty by Liza Street Theo: This is one of the first entries I sampled for this year’s competition. As in previous years I tend to get wordier in my …
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Greetings to you, pestilent proliferating peasants. It is I, Ulesorin the Green, returned to serve you with wisdom once more. Do I do such kindness because I am a kindly old soul? Do I do it because of my immense love for all mortals? Do I do it because it is community service mandated by the court and my kobold lawyers are the absolute worst? I mean, just the absolute worst. Don’t ever hire kobolds folks. Definitely one of those reasons. Regardless of the cause for my generous donation of time, my crystal ball and attached interdimensional storm stand ready to receive your mail. So send me your woes that I may be their salve. Please. If I don’t keep doing this they’re g…
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Ashley Stokes is the author of Gigantic (Unsung Stories, 2021), The Syllabus of Errors (Unthank Books, 2013) and Voice (TLC Press, 2019), and editor of the Unthology series and The End: Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings (Unthank Books, 2016). His recent short fiction includes Subtemple in Black Static; Hardrada in Tales from the Shadow Booth, Vol 4, edited by Dan Coxon; Evergreen in BFS Horizons 11; Two Drifters in Unsung Stories Online, and Black Lab in Storgy. Other stories have appeared in Bare Fiction, The Lonely Crowd, the Warwick Review and more. He lives in the East of England where he’s a ghostwriter and ghost. Welcome back to the Hive, Ashley. Let…
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Piranesi, by award winning author Susanna Clarke, is a novel which left me awed by its charm and beauty. I had heard much praise for her previous novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, but I hadn’t actually read it myself. However, with Piranesi being rather short, at around 245 pages, I thought this would be a perfect read to sample the author’s work, and I was not left disappointed. Clarke whisked me away on a surreal, magical and somewhat sinister journey, written with such grace. Piranesi begins with Clarke throwing us into the middle of the story. Our main protagonist, Piranesi, is a man who believes he is in his thirties, and we immediately see he’s confined insi…
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Welcome to our Fourth Eliminations post for SPFBO 7. This week, we have grouped our five brave entrants together into a “Kick Ass” batch. You can find out more about this week’s posts in our Meet the Batch post. Read on to find out which three of them fell in our third batch of eliminations, listed in alphabetical order. Gathering of the Four by A.E.Bennett Theo: It’s an interesting premise – a far future America where amber eyed magic using aliens (Xanthi) live alongside humans in a realm that has echoes of the founding fathers. The aliens have become subjugated, an indentured form of service known as servantry evokes strong parallels with slavery. An illega…
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Today we welcome JE Hannaford to the Hive. Her debut novel The Skin, the first book in the The Black Hind’s Wake duology, will be out on October 18th! We are lucky to be allowed to share the gorgeous cover – but before you get to feast your eyes, and get to read what Jenny has to say about her book and the cover art, here’s the blurb: You cannot fix this world alone, selkie.’ ‘I know. But, when we die, all that is left are shadows of our lives preserved in the memories of those who remain. I plan on leaving an exceptionally long shadow, filled with ripples of moonlight for those I helped, and darker than the worst of nightmares for those who wronged us.’ – How far wou…
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Today G.R. Matthews stops over at the Hive for a guest post! He tells us all about his journey from struggling to finish one whole book, to succeeding at getting a traditional publishing deal. So without further ado, we’ll let him take over the keyboard: Reading. That’s what started it all. Books from the library when I was a teenager – luckily, my village in Wiltshire (UK) had a well-stocked one that was even featured on a popular children’s TV show (how’s that for fame?). Once I had a little money from the Saturday job, I started to buy books from the popular chain store that just happened to be on my walk from college to the bus station. RPGs. It started ther…
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The seventh Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) is underway! Check out our introduction here | meet this year’s judges here | read all about the contest’s origins here | and keep track of phase one here We have divided the 30 books into 6 batches of five books each, with each batch loosely grouped around a common theme or motif. For the next six weeks our SPFBO posting pattern will be: Monday introduce a new batch of five Wednesday eliminate three of them and identify two quarter finalists Friday post the decision as to which quarter finalists which is our pick for semi-finalist and why The chosen semi-finalists will then each get a full read from all ou…
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WTF is Wrong With Stephen King?
An Algonkian Success Story
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Angelo Esposito - LIVING IN SAINT'S HOOD - Crime Drama
Comparables: World Gone By meets Who They Was in this 90,000 plot-driven and character-rich debut novel set in modern day New York. Hook: A gun-runner for an urban gang sets out to uncover the mystery of his best friend’s death and triggers a chain of events that jeopardizes everyone in his orbit, including him. Short Pitch: Marlon Brown is a gun-runner for the Bloods, whose best friend has been gunned down outside of the gang's established territory. Though the whisper stream comes alive with speculation about who did the deed and why, conjecture isn't enough for Marlon. He ha -
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How To Stop Time: Don't Lose the Story in the Concept
If your book is all concept, it's all boring! First of all, I will admit to having enjoyed this book when said and done. Even though I'm about to use it as an example of what not to do, it was still a heartwarming read about love and loss and how trust can conquer fear if we let it. But... This novel is a classic case of the concept getting way, way ahead of the plot. So first, the concept: How to Stop Time revolves around a man named Tom Hazard who ages slower than normal people. He's not immortal exactly, but his body takes so long to grow old that he might as well be. B -
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New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
The act of the story statement Shadow Baelfiyer is a thief living on Chicago’s South Side. She is plagued by dreams of a world that has magic and dragons and a family she knows to be dead. Her aunt tells her these are just dreams. However, on a daily thieving hunt Shadow runs into two strangers who make her rethink all she has known. They are from a world called Elspeth where magic roams, people transform into lions; a world where she was born, and was taken away from, where she too has magic. These strangers take Shadow on a journey to find her past, but a great threat is uncovered -
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Books by Sylvia Day, Sophie Jordan, & More
The Queen’s Bargain The Queen’s Bargain by Anne Bishop is $1.99! This book was mentioned in a previous Hide Your Wallet and is part of the Black Jewels series. I didn’t keep up with the series as a whole, so I’m unsure how this fits in. I think it focuses on secondary characters now, but correct me I’m wrong? POWER HAS A PRICE. SO DOES LOVE. Return to the dark, sensual, and powerful world of the Black Jewels in this long-awaited new story in the New York Times bestselling fantasy saga Af -
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Active Protagonists are a Tool of the Patriarchy
I feel like I’m committing a grievous writerly sin by even typing these words, but I must speak my truth: I would like to see more passive protagonists in fiction. While the title of this post is tongue-in-cheek, I do think that passive protagonists are unfairly maligned in part because of the unspoken association between passivity and femininity. I’ll get into why I think so a little later, but let’s discuss what “passive protagonist” means first. The importance of intent Passive protagonists are the antithesis of what we’re told makes a good story. A good story, says common wisdom, is dr -
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Book Beat: Crafting, Middle Grade Graphic Novels, & More
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/WP/wp-content/themes/smartbitches/images/posts/hide-your-wallet.jpg Welcome to Book Beat! Book Beat aims to highlight other books that we may hear about through friends, social media, or other sources. We could see a gorgeous ad! Or find a new-to-us author on a list of underrated romances! Think of Book Beat as Teen Beat or Tiger Beat, but for books. And no staples to open to get the fold-out poster. Artie and the Wolf Moon Author: Olivia Stephens Release -
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New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
Story Statement Jeremy Peoples must do whatever it takes to find forgiveness and make peace with the past. The Antagonist Plots the Point Stacy Ramone is a former marine, married, with one son, a flawed family man with a heightened sense of loyalty and a rapidly declining mental state. His ultimate plan was to use the money he and his wife were making by selling narcotics and stolen pharmaceuticals to buy a local bar until he is betrayed by Jeremy. Several years later, Stacy remains unseen, a dormant facet of Jeremy’s complicated and violent past, until a series of even -
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The Review’s Review: These Were the Angels
Illustration: Liby Hays. Courtesy of Hays. Liby Hays’s Geniacs!, a graphic novel out this summer from the art book publisher Landfill Editions, takes place at a hackathon—truly inspired material for slapstick comedy, body horror, and philosophical reflection alike. This tech competition’s goal? Invent a new life-form. “People always think my ideas are dumb … but they’re purposefully so! Their failure is coded within them! It’s like when scientists artificially reanimate the cells of a dead pig’s brain. The brain becomes trapped in an infinite loop reliving the terror of its final moments. But -
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New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
1. Story statement. Reconcile with past and find self. 2. Antagonist. Tess begins the story at a low point; anxious, consumed by memories of the past. She presents as nervous, little confidence in herself. She places too much emphasis on what people think. Dominated by internal thoughts that belittle and degrade herself. Natural people pleaser who doesn’t speak up for wants and needs, would rather keep the peace. As the story commences, we see Tess having to start making decisions albeit it small; from paying by cash or card, to directions. Midway, we start to recognize her poor decisio -
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New York Pitch and Algonkian Pre-event Assignments - 2021
Greetings -- Attached is a first draft of Assignments 1-7 for the upcoming workshop in St. Augustine. All comments most welcome. Looking forward to meeting fellow writers and learning a lot soon. Cheers, Elizabeth EA_Nichols_PreWorkshopAssignment.docx -
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Eight Books Based on Real Female Spies
“Few suspected women of spying, and certainly no one expected a middle-aged knitter to be surreptitiously gathering intelligence.” -Elizabeth Bentley, A Most Clever Girl While researching topics for my next novel, I stumbled across Elizabeth Bentley’s name and was gobsmacked that I’d never heard of this American spy who once ran the largest Soviet spy ring in America. Because Bentley was a female NKVD-spy-turned-FBI-informer—a combination America wasn’t quite sure what to do with—she was overshadowed both in life and after her death by Joseph McCarthy and Whittaker Chambers. In fact, Whitt -
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How a Woman Becomes a Piece of Furniture
Gustave Caillebotte, Woman at a Dressing Table, 1873. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons My grandmother collected perfume bottles, a seeming whimsy for a woman of such plainness and ferocity. I have three of them, given to me when she was still alive. They lived in a drawer and then later, in a decorative moment, on the bookshelf, where I have since placed them higher and higher out of reach, as my daughter has attempted to climb up to play with them, a slow-moving game between us, until now they are so high up as to be out of view. I tend not to be sentimental about objects, but I at least -
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New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
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SPFBO 7 – The Sixth Quarter Final
On Wednesday, we announced our sixth trio of eliminations and revealed that this week’s two quarter-finalists from the “different” batch are SHADOWS OF IVORY by T.L. Greylock/Bryce O’Connor and WINDS OF STRIFE by U.G .Gutman. These two battle it out in our final quarterfinal of SPFBO 7 In treading a different path in fantasy fiction, our two quarter-finalists stretched our expectations of fantasy protagonists. One gave us a cruel man who finds and murders witches but considers that a mercy, even as his actions eat away at him. The other gave us a young woman gifted by position and wealth -
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Why do women love true crime podcasts so much?
The question we have been asked more than any other in our career as pro podders is ‘why are women so obsessed with true crime?’. And the numbers do stack up, we at RedHanded have been in the criminal fixation game for nearly five years, and we still boast an audience heavily swayed in the female direction. Eighty-two percent swayed, to be exact. So, the question is worth asking, but the truth is, true crime and the commercial consumption of it is nothing new. As far back as 1888, Victorian media moguls cottoned on sharpish to how much faster they could sell their papers if they recounted the -
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THE LAST DAYS OF HONG KONG by G. D. Penman (BOOK REVIEW)
I’VE JUST WORKED OUT THE TITLE. That’s so damn clever… The title obviously, not me. Damn I hope you gave yourself a proper pat on the back Gray. Anyway We’re off to a good start, aren’t we. You’ll have to excuse me, please, as I’m suffering from serious book hangover. The kind where… you’ve finished the book, so you stare off into space thinking about it, then your hands reach for it in an attempt to return to reading it. But there’s nothing left to read… The Last Days of Hong Kong is the third and final instalment of G. D. Penman’s Witch of Empire series (The Year of the Knife and The Wou
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