Stephen King has described The Dark Tower as his "Jupiter." The epic series, inspired in part by Robert Browning's poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", has spanned 22 years, 7 books and nearly 4000 pages. The first book in the series, The Gunslinger, begins with a simple, memorable declaration, "The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
posted on Apr 18, 2008 - View this thread

Free Speculative Fiction Online is a database of free science fiction and fantasy stories online by published authors (no fan-fiction or stories by unpublished writers). Among the authors that FSFO links to are Paul Di Filippo (14 stories), James Tiptree, Jr. (4 stories), Connie Willis (3 stories), Eleanor Arnason (3 stories), Bruce Sterling (5 stories), Robert Heinlein (7 stories), Ursula K. LeGuin (3 stories), Jonathan Lethem (5 stories), Michael Moorcock (6 stories), Chine Miéville (2 stories), Samuel R. Delany (3 stories), Robert Sheckley (8 stories), MeFite Charles Stross (33 stories) and hundreds of other authors. If you don't know where to start, there's a list of recommended stories.
posted on Apr 5, 2008 - View this thread

Rick Cook, the author of the 5 novels in the "Wizard's Bane" series of computer-infused light fantasy from the early 90s (the first two are available, free, and legally, courtesy of the Baen Books Free Library) was in the middle of writing a sixth in Spring 2000, when he underwent emergency heart surgery. The result of that, and the meds that followed — he says in his blog — is that he has the sixth book (The Wizard Recapitalized) about 90% complete, but can't finish it, and he wants to know if he should release it anyway. Not all that much
posted on Feb 22, 2008 - View this thread

Some Thoughts On Balrogs.
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

Terry Pratchett diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. Turns out last month's stroke was a symptom of a greater illness. While there's still some time to go before we have to worry about Discworld substitutions, it has been a pretty tough year for fantasy authors.
posted on Dec 12, 2007 - View this thread

This link goes to an discussion with 'Future Noir' author Paul Sammon... then this one goes to a Q&A with 'BR' director Ridley Scott, talking about the upcoming re-release.
posted on Dec 8, 2007 - View this thread

Imagine a world without lightsabers—where, instead, every big Star Wars finale consists of a 10-minute slap fight. Thank the maker we’ll never have to witness such a spectacle, because magical and impossibly high-tech weapons are staples of nearly all of our favorite entertainments! ToyFare Magazine presents the 50 Greatest Fictional Weapons of All Time.
posted on Nov 21, 2007 - View this thread

If you like 'fantasy' art (as opposed to comics :) and you're in DC I'd highly recommend checking out the JMW Turner exhibit at the NGA!
posted on Oct 20, 2007 - View this thread

Build your dream home. Answer a page of questions and real fortune-tellers on a steady diet of tea leaves and tarot cards will show you the house of your dreams.
posted on Sep 28, 2007 - View this thread

In the world of fantasy art, he is an icon. Some argue Arnold would never have become governor without him. Though his arrogance is second only to his skill, Frank Frazetta suffered for his art: for eight years an undiagnosed problem left him unable to create at all, while a series of strokes in his later years led to the artist having to learn to paint all over again, this time with his left hand. Since I was a girl, only this artist ever came close to inspiring me half so much as Frazetta did.
posted on Aug 15, 2007 - View this thread

We've discussed David L. Cunningham before, especially the controversial 9/11 docudrama he made. But there's more to the man who's the son of Christian reconstructionist and University of the Nations founder Loren Cunningham. There are a lot of movies he claims to have directed on his IMDB page that don't have any external verification outside of self-published websites, which seems to contradict IMDB policy. Then there's the fear from both pagans and various political bloggers and fans of the books that his upcoming adaptation of the The Dark is Rising fantasy books is going to completely butcher the source material. The movie is produced by Walden Media, the production company owned by conservative christian billionaire Philip Anschutz, who's trying to "clean up Hollywood", in association with 20th Century Fox.
posted on Aug 14, 2007 - View this thread

If you like looking at maps of imaginary places, you should take a peek at the Fantasy Atlas, a German-language collection of maps of literary fantasy and sci-fi worlds. For a more obsessive (but just as interesting) take on maps of imaginary places, you can check out the work of Adrian Leskiw, who's been creating road maps of non-existent places since the age of 3. (Previously on Metafilter.)
posted on Aug 1, 2007 - View this thread

Kerwin Mathews, 1926-2007. The genre actor may be best remembered as the title character in one of my favorite movies, the classic The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
posted on Jul 18, 2007 - View this thread

Anyone who has spent time browsing through Deviant Art has almost certainly run into the cartoons of a young Australian woman named Gemma Wilson. She is fond of Harry Potter, snakepeople and (occasionally) torture and hermaprodites. She has a fan club. And she has detractors. Make of this what you will.
posted on Jun 26, 2007 - View this thread

Parting the Veil of Faery: The Colmore Fatagravures, said to date from the 1890s. "A Scottish adventurer, inventor, and photographer named Neville Colmore claimed to have constructed a device capable of '...parting the veil of Faery...' The device, which he called the Spectobarathrum, along with all of the images he claimed to have made were believed destroyed in a fire. I believe some of these images and related artefacts may have survived." [via Apothecary's Drawer]
posted on Jun 19, 2007 - View this thread

Gamers and their avatars
posted on Jun 17, 2007 - View this thread

Paramount does Neil: Gaiman's book (illustrated by Charles Vess) is being made into a film called Stardust. You can watch the trailer or read the first chapter online. The film is directed by Matthew Vaughn, who doesn't exactly have a strong fantasy background. Cross your fingers, Gaimanites.
posted on May 16, 2007 - View this thread

Imaginary places in detail: Start with a wonderful overview of megastructures in science fiction and examine a dictionary of 76 locations from recent fantasy novels. Then move on to the interactive maps: Mordor, Narnia, the Simpson's Springfield, England as seen in many stories, New York in fiction, Lovecraft's New England, maps from almost any video game, Star Trek, the Marvel Universe, and the DC Universe.
posted on Feb 21, 2007 - View this thread

Mark Leung's College Saga (pt 1) (2)(3)(4)(the entire 40 min. youtube) is many things, but it's mostly a massive live action homage to Final Fantasy and having way too much free time at Babson College. Points for tremendous effort. (Related Retrovideogamepopcultery: Collegehumor's Street Fighter: The Later Years.)
posted on Dec 30, 2006 - View this thread

"Dear Tokyo, why don't you have a building like this yet?" There are a lot of other ideas found on Ironic Sans.
posted on Dec 6, 2006 - View this thread

Iraq: The War of the Imagination. "Anyone seeking to understand what has become the central conundrum of the Iraq war—how it is that so many highly accomplished, experienced, and intelligent officials came together to make such monumental, consequential, and, above all, obvious mistakes, mistakes that much of the government knew very well at the time were mistakes—must see beyond what seems to be a simple rhetoric of self-justification and follow it where it leads: toward the War of Imagination that senior officials decided to fight in the spring and summer of 2002 and to whose image they clung long after reality had taken a sharply separate turn." By Mark Danner. [Via Tomdispatch.]
posted on Nov 23, 2006 - View this thread

Death of a President...the first six minutes [youtube]. This slick mockumentary imagines the assasination of George W. Bush. So far, most critics have panned it; apparently the filmmakers have managed to take the premise of Bush being killed and made it...boring. Still, for those of you who'll gladly pay $8-10 to watch Bush get shot, here's where it's going to be playing (and yes, some theater chains have refused to show it)
posted on Oct 29, 2006 - View this thread

Ultimate Wingnut Fantasy Wankball: "Fantasy football" (??) played with right wing bloggers. (Me, I think I want a raise.)
posted on Sep 3, 2006 - View this thread

Write your name in Tengwar, the Elvish language/alphabet created by JRR Tolkien. You can work with Tengwar fonts based on Middle Earth languages and runes and see many examples of the script via a Google Image search. According to Tolkien, "there is quite a bit of linguistic wisdom in it." There are certainly websites devoted to his languages and thier history. And It took some thought and work to make the speech sound right in the movies.
posted on Aug 29, 2006 - View this thread

Nivbed's artwork
posted on Aug 5, 2006 - View this thread

Surreal, fantastic realist, psychedelic and visionary artists, sculptors and forum. Sites created by Jon Beinart.
posted on Aug 4, 2006 - View this thread

The His Dark Materials movie is taking shape. The award-winning children's series, considered the "anti-Narnia", is due on the screen in 2007, starring a actress found in open casting, along with Nicole Kidman (as Mrs. Coulter, for those who know the books). Unfortunately, the screenplay by Tom Stoppard has been dumped, though the new one appears to be to the author's liking. There is no official trailer yet, but there are several more or less painful fan-made ones. The series has also been made into a successful play, and a radio program. For those who haven't read it, an excerpt is here; and for those that have, try the interactive alethiometer or find out your daemon's name. Previous discussion on the debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury was here.
posted on Jul 31, 2006 - View this thread

David Gemmell has died.
posted on Jul 28, 2006 - View this thread

Tim Hildebrandt, half of the Brothers Hildebrandt artwork team, died yesterday due to complications from diabetes.
posted on Jun 12, 2006 - View this thread

The Kingdom of Redonda. In 1865, a Caribbean trader laid claim to a small island near Antigua, and declared himself king. His son, M.P. Shiel, was an author of fantasy fiction. When Shiel died in 1947, he left the island to a young poet, John Gawsworth, King Juan I of Redonda.
posted on Mar 24, 2006 - View this thread

Suck it, Moller Sky Car! After 25 years of promising to bring me my flying car at a reasonable price, I'm stuck with a fricking scale model???? Enough. I'm taking my fantasy sky car anticipatory business across town to the good folks at Urban Aeronautics!
posted on Feb 2, 2006 - View this thread

Kim Taylor's Online Art Gallery. The beautiful, mystical, and eerily fantastic artwork of Kim Taylor.
posted on Jan 31, 2006 - View this thread

(NSFW-but not porn) Never GIS "little mermaid," large size images, and click the second image from the left out of curiosity. If you do, don't look at the other galleries at the site, hypnotized and horrified. Furthermore, follow any of the links at your own peril. If you manage to make it to the Renderosity pages, you are expressly forbidden from looking at every single page of art by these three artists. Under no circumstances look at these unabashed masterpieces: "Damnedly Wanted," "Nooo, you ARE hansome," "9/11 Remembrance," "Cure for cancer," and god knows how many more. If you follow these instructions carefully, you will have successfully avoided the fairy(faerie, fae), poser, chibi, furry, and koshini scenes for the day.
posted on Nov 29, 2005 - View this thread

"I shall clasp my hands together and bow to the corners of the world." Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart won the World Fantasy Award in 1985. Set in a China that never was, it tells the tale of Master Li Kao, who has a slight flaw in his character, and Number Ten Ox as they uncover the mysteries of a cursed town, a terrible duke, and a beautiful woman. Originally intended to be the first in a series of seven, Bridge of Birds spawned only two sequels. The reclusive author explains some of his influences and poor luck here. Also, for those of you familiar with the story, the original draft of Bridge of Birds (PDF version) is available online!
posted on Nov 18, 2005 - View this thread

Terry Pratchett isn't a happy muggle! In a letter to the Sunday Times, Pratchett's had a go at the media for 'the continued elevation of JK Rowling at the expense of other writers'. The letter appears to be in response to a Sunday Times article from last week (sorry, archived) and possibly this article in Time magazine.

I agree that JK has had significantly more press in the last few years than any other author. I'm a Pratchett fan, however, I suspect her success is down to a mix of good marketing and the simple truth that Harry Potter is (and don't shout at me), slightly less geeky and more accessible than the Discworld series. Although I wouldn't be too surprised if, eventually, the streets of Ankh Morpork are alive with “knights and ladies morris-dancing to Greensleeves"...
posted on Jul 31, 2005 - View this thread

Lexicon: An RPG - The basic idea is that each player takes on the role of a scholar, from before scholarly pursuits became professionalized (or possibly after they ceased to be). You are cranky, opinionated, prejudiced and eccentric. You are also collaborating with a number of your peers -- the other players -- on the construction of an encyclopedia describing some historical period (possibly of a fantastic world).
posted on Apr 21, 2005 - View this thread

Did The Wizard of Oz inspire Lord of the Rings? "The first film version of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz was released in the summer of 1939, less than a month before World War II officially began. Though started as early as 1937, The Lord of the Rings was largely composed during the war years, but not published until somewhat later. Therefore, it is by no means impossible that J.R.R. Tolkien saw the magnificent MGM movie before he wrote most of his magnum opus. Could Oz have influenced his tale somehow, consciously or unconsciously?"
posted on Apr 7, 2005 - View this thread

Fantasy Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski was found murdered at his house
posted on Feb 26, 2005 - View this thread

Fantasy Planes. Sometimes I think the most interesting airplanes are the ones that never got built
posted on Feb 10, 2005 - View this thread

Nick Bantock's gorgeous Griffin and Sabine series is based on mail art, a medium with a long history. Developed in the mid-20th century by Ray Johnson and his contemporaries, today the community thrives, with the internet allowing dissemination beyond the reach of point-to-point mail.
posted on Dec 13, 2004 - View this thread

Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks tried to do Choose Your Own Adventure books one better with D&D-style rules. These massively single-player games, released in Britain, absorbed '80s nerds into the kind of murky, dead-serious fantasy recently parodied by Trogdor, in a decade when interactive fiction was on the rise. A bunch of the Gamebooks are now available to play online. Hang on to those healing potions.
posted on Sep 14, 2004 - View this thread

The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant More than two decades after the last chapter, Stephen R. Donaldson is set to release the first of four novels in "The Final Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant." Bonus: a "trailer" of sorts (left side of page, midpoint). Hellfire & White Gold!
posted on Sep 12, 2004 - View this thread

How to write a best-selling fantasy novel. Ten steps towards instant literary fame.
posted on Aug 26, 2004 - View this thread

Hear D and D players roll the dice in a fantasy battle with nefarious foes.
posted on Aug 18, 2004 - View this thread

Dial-Up For Murder.
So, you're a typical geeky teenage boy with serious angst and a death wish. How do you commit the fatal deed? Obvious! Groom an older boy by writing 50,000 lines of fantasy, inventing 8 characters, including a female spy offering sex, meet up to buy a blade, and voila! - redefine murder plots for us all.
Wierdest.Web.Story.Evah?
posted on May 29, 2004 - View this thread

The Harry Potter series and the Left Behind series are more alike than you might think...
posted on May 18, 2004 - View this thread

If you can't get enough Sith-on-Sith sexy slashfiction action, you could check out the entire category of such work, broken down to what types of character interaction takes place and who is involved. It's just a tiny sliver of the work indexed by The Slash Page Database Project. Oh, the creativity of sexless nerds...
posted on May 7, 2004 - View this thread

Fantasy gaming is nothing like real fantasy.
posted on Apr 8, 2004 - View this thread

The Encyclopedia of Arda A reference guide to Tolkien-can't tell an orc from a Uruk-hai? Stumped at what the three kinds of hobbits are? This website has the answers. Nicely laid out site, too.
posted on Jan 4, 2004 - View this thread

An unhealthy obsession? The Internet is full of websites dedicated to a rabid fan's obsession with a celebrity. These websites often reveal their owners' fantasies of sexual encounters with said celebrity. But it's not often the object of such sexual desire ends up being a well known public figure from the Clinton administration.
posted on Dec 24, 2003 - View this thread