Book Review: The Middle Ages Unlocked: A Guide to Life in Medieval England, 1050-1300, by Gillian Polack and Katrin Kania
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” — L.P. Hartley The conceptions and misconceptions of what medieval life was really like influence our perceptions of who we are as people, and the fiction and worlds that we create. There is a real struggle within certain sectors of the SFF genresphere about the […]
On Fury and Fairies and the Remnants of Gods by Gillian Polack
The other day, someone said to me that Tolkien’s elves were the real thing, because he was a Medievalist and so he knew. I’m a Medievalist and I know, too, and what the real thing is depends so very much on where one is and what one is writing. I’m not at all certain that […]
Mining the Genre Asteroid: Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle
In our world, the duchy of Burgundy, the Middle Kingdom, has had a fascinating, and often strange history. Wedged in the middle of Europe, from the Mediterranean and up toward the North Sea, parts of which are now France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, the Dukes of Burgundy have often been as powerful or more powerful […]
