fantasy – Page 2 – BELINDA CRAWFORD

Straying from the norm: Sophia Madison on antiheroines

January 26, 2017April 7, 2016 by Belinda Crawford

Sophia Madison is the author of Blue Ruin, a gothic fantasy about a woman named Maura and the vampire who intends to use her to end the world (as we know it).

BELINDA: Tell us about Maura, what makes her an antiheroine?

SOPHIA: Everything. Maura does things a normal (sane) person wouldn’t do. But she makes the choices we can’t–choices that are too difficult. She wasn’t always an antiheroine. In fact, her character started off as a bratty teenager…and then mutated into this ass-kicking, whiskey drinking, cigarette smoking, bad-ass, cold-blooded, immortal killer. She was the easiest character to write, but the hardest to edit. She’d become such an antiheroine that she became hard to like and relate to. Her actions early in the novel turned readers off. I never thought I’d have to tone down a protagonist before.

The Ugly Princess by Henderson Smith

January 9, 2015October 30, 2014 by Belinda Crawford

Disclaimer: I received this book in exchange for an honest review

3.5/5 stars

I love The Ugly Princess for its message and for having a truly ugly heroine. It’s message, that beauty is only skin deep, came through strong, right from the first page. I especially loved how happy the heroine, Olive, was to be ugly in exchange for her other gifts and how she rejoiced in every new boil and wart.

Altaica by Tracy M Joyce

January 9, 2015September 23, 2014 by Belinda Crawford

I’d been hanging out to read Altaica ever since I saw the cover art (yes, I know, I’m shallow) and once I had my hands on it, I devoured it (in the literary sense). The storyline was engaging, the plot kept rolling along and there was never a moment when I was bored or tempted … Read more

I want this book! Gates of Thread and Stone

August 5, 2014 by Belinda Crawford

You can never have too many books, which is why I’m always on the lookout for a good one, and why my bookshelf includes towering piles on the floor.

Personally, I’m not to sure where I’m going to fit Gates of Thread and Stone (which looks and sounds awesome), but I’m sure I’ll find a cranny somewhere.

Teaser Tuesday: The Towers of the Sunset

February 4, 2014 by Belinda Crawford

Can you see how the pieces fit together? Not just the visible ones, like the towers of the sunset, but those unseen, like the heart of a man or the soul of a wizard.

The cover of The Towers of the Sunset by L.E. Modesitt Jnr. — A good book, although the lack of a blurb is confusing.

What’s awesome about it

The langauge is beautiful (as you can see above)
The worldbuilding and the use of the word ‘masculine’.

What’s not-so-awesome

There’s no blurb! At least on my copy. This makes it very hard to place the book in context to the first, The Magic of Recluce
The last half of the book is kinda boring
Magera is a twit.

Would I buy the sequel? I already did, in fact, not only did get the sequel, The Magic Engineer, I splurged on its sequels as well, The Order War and The Death of Chaos. I just haven’t read them yet.

A world-building template for when you're on the go

September 21, 2013 by Belinda Crawford

World-building on my iPad — Just whip out the iPad and get world-building, while you wait for you morning hot chocolate.

Patricia C. Wrede’s Fantasy World-building questions are great, and the World-building Leviathan is equally awesome, but there are times when they just don’t hit the spot. Like, when you’re halfway (or more) into your novel and you need to sort out what a battle mage can do that an illusionist can’t.

Sure, you can jot down a few notes and whack them into a notebook, but if, like me, you can’t stand the thought of not being organised, something a little more structured is in order.

Normally, I’d turn to Scrivener, but, until the iPad version comes out, it doesn’t work so well on-the-go. Yes, you can sync your files to an external folder and edit them on the iPad (which works great for writing), but whatever file structure you’ve created in Scrivener is lost, and when I’m world-building I need folders, and not just any folders, but nested folders and lots of them.

And so, I set out to make myself a template in which I could make random notes, while still being organised, and that I could use just as easily from my laptop as my iPad.

10 books I'm going to read in 2013, promise

January 1, 2013 by Belinda Crawford

This year I’m participating in a few memes and the very first one is Top Ten Tuesday at The Broke and the Bookish (which is a great blog title!).

Aptly, the first Top Ten for the year is the Top 10 books I’m going to read this year. In this I’ve sprinkled some of the books I also have listed for the Australian Women Writers Challenge (AWWC) 2013. The AWWC is about raising the profile of female authors in Australia, because always seems as if the men win all the literary prizes.

Alanna of Trebond – a childhood hero

October 15, 2012 by Belinda Crawford

I first devoured the Song of the Lioness series when I was ten; to say that it was my favourite set of books ever is to understate the case. Alanna, the series protagonist, was my childhood hero, and not just because she had a magic sword and a talking cat. Alanna was my hero because she was doing something forbidden and getting away with it.

It wasn’t an especially bad thing that she was doing, like selling drugs or stealing, she was just doing what the boys did – playing with swords, riding horses, going to war – and if that meant she had to lie about her gender, well, that only added to the tension.