While I am a staunch advocate of running constant research alongside writing, and I appreciate the resonance of accepted facts in my reading, there are times when research can thoroughly trip one up ( Read more... )

My latest BVC post covers two time travel books--a subgenre that is more miss than hit with me, usually ( Read more... )

Over at Book View Cafe I blog about being a visual writer/reader, and scenes from books I've remembered for years.

Come discuss memorable scenes that have stuck with you over time.

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Which assigned stinkers and snores of days of yore have you reread that turned out to be pretty good?

Do you think kids should be exposed to the classics? And if so, how?

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This was one of the panel topics at the recent Fourth Street Fantasy con in Minneapolis. The panel went really well, I thought, bouncing between all the various branches of TOM study. Not surprising as it is so very fundamental to human existence ( Read more... )

And so the end. If I’m not careful, I’d quote the entire thing.

In fact, long ago when I was a student in Europe and suffering some homesickness as I experienced my first winter, a friend made a cassette tape of the last page and a half, starting with Then Cirdan the shipwright. I listened to that over and over, feeling that not a word was wasted ( Read more... )

And so, after the long adventure, we are making our way back to the Shire, where everything began. At least, when it began from the hobbit-eye-view. In Fellowship we left the quiet Shire, so comforting, so vividly painted, as our four adventurers dared the larger world. Now they are back, three of them ready to take up their lives again, and the ( Read more... )

Merry said to Pippin after Aragorn woke him from the shadow, “The soil of the Shire is deep. Still there are things deeper and higher; and not a gaffer could tend his garden in what he calls peace, but for them ( Read more... )

As book six opens, Sam is so alone, orc voices echoing in the distance. He wonders if any of them “out there” ever think of him and Frodo, then the narrative voice establishes the date, and where everyone is-and that Frodo and Sam are never far from anyone’s thoughts ( Read more... )

There is a fascinating vignette at the start of chapter 9. I can’t help but think of JRRT writing that conversation between Legolas and Gimli after living through two horrible world wars. He might have penned those words during the second one, while his son risked his life every day, or during the long shadow afterward ( Read more... )