I blame the internet. Earlier this year I was telling my roommate about a run of books I was in that were great, but sad. She’s dubbed my year as “The Depression Readings”. I mean, to a certain extent this is fair. I have read Burial Rites, The Black Country, Tell the Wolves I’m Home and The Age of Miracles in a 6 week period. That’s a lot of heavy reading, emotionally. So, at some point she decided that it was her mission to bring […]
On Maps, Morality, and Boring Psychopaths
Let’s talk about maps for a moment. A fantasy staple since the year dot, the map at the front of the book is perhaps the most evocative element of a given genre epic. Your humble correspondent used to draw fantasy maps in high school (no, I wasn’t exactly knocking ’em dead with the ladies, why do you ask?). Granted, not every fantasy epic comes with a handy map. I can think of a few authors off the top of my head (Glen Cook, Joe Abercrombie, […]