Features

Review of Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

By Marielle Seche Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Sexual Assault, Abuse “KATABASIS, noun, Ancient Greek: The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld.” R. F. Kuang’s latest book, Katabasis, is a dark academia fantasy novel that follows two Cambridge graduate students of magick: Alice Law and Peter Murdoch. They use their magical knowledge to journey into Hell to retrieve the soul of their professor and academic advisor, Jacob Grimes—whom they may have accidentally killed. With what’s Read more

By logan.farley, ago

Romantasy Contest “A Hard Day’s Knight” Runner Up: For Love (Or simply, The Tale of Brave Percival)

By Jagger van Vliet From out of a murky trance, there came the sudden rushing of light, the brutal sting of salt, and the sullen grey of morning. A thin, brown rat named Percival awoke from a terrible dream and looked blearily out into the gloom. Nothing around him was familiar, save for the hordes of other rats who were also waking from their own respective slumbers. All of the rat colony, it would seem, Read more

By logan.farley, ago

Romantasy Contest “A Hard Day’s Knight” Winner: Locked Away

By Zenia deHaven The rescue mission was going great until the geography quiz.  Though Eris reveled in her unsavory profession of snatching purses, gathering blackmail, and pilfering anything shiny she could get her itchy hands on, the pay was sporadic. She could be rolling in gold one week and then counting out bronze pieces on her landlord’s desk the next. This was one of those weeks.  So when she saw a flyer promising 20,000 gold Read more

By logan.farley, ago

Interview with Elaine U. Cho, Author of Ocean’s Godori

By Brett Cadigan This past August, I enjoyed an interview with Elaine U. Cho (elaineucho.com) regarding her sci-fi space opera duology, Ocean’s Godori and the recently released Teo’s Durumi. We discussed a variety of topics, including the series, her experience as a writer, some favorite authors and inspirations, and a never-before-told Goodreads horror story! Brett: When did you first know you wanted to become a writer?  Elaine: Oh, gosh. I don’t know. I’ve just always Read more

By logan.farley, ago

Fantasy Contest “Untimely Portal” Runner-Up: The Little Black Salamander

By Clarissa Janeen When the fairy prince fell through the portal to the mortal realm, he had been presiding over the high court, discussing what was to be done about the hobgoblins encroaching on pixie territory. This was highly embarrassing and irregular for a prince of the high court. One moment he was delegating a spy to seek out the extent of the invasion, the next he was in a circle of mushrooms in a Read more

By logan.farley, ago