I was watching The Eagle on DVD the other evening. It’s the 2011 film adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff’s classic 1954 children’s novel, The Eagle of the Ninth, the story of Marcus Flavius Aquila, a young Roman officer, driven by duty and honour, both of Rome and his family, to travel to the north of Britain,… Read More
Month: August 2013
How to Train Your Dragon is the first in Cressida Cowell’s series of books about Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, a young Viking destined to be a great hero – the greatest Viking hero that ever lived – not that you can tell from his inauspicious beginnings. It’s also a film by Dreamworks that bears a… Read More
The Great Galloon is an enormous galleon suspended from a huge balloon – a skygoing vessel the size of a small town, captained by the larger-than-life, heroic, but melancholic Captain Meredith Anstruther, a giant of a man who commands supreme loyalty from his bizarre crew. Chief amongst the inhabitants of the galloon is Stanley Crumplehorn,… Read More
The first book I read by Michelle Paver was the Arctic spine-tingler Dark Matter – a stunning work, creepy and claustrophobic, a modern entry in the long and illustrious tradition of ghost stories. Wolf Brother is a completely different beast – both in terms of subject matter, and in terms of audience. Dark Matter is… Read More
Self-publishing without the actual publishing
On Tuesday this week, I completed the first draft of book zero of my Chimney Rabbit series – the prequel story, Tales of the Ancient Rabbits. This is my third completed novel, but the first to be restricted to what seems to be the standard Middle Grade length – it clocks in at just a… Read More