BookWords Blogg

Today I’m going to do the usual “werd nerd” stuff and also talk about fantasy (or “phantasy”) and how it relates to reality in literature. Deep stuff, but first, some ads: My newest novel, Sea and Sunset Lands , is out: the second of the MadStones books; the second “Tond” series. Besides being part of a sequel to “Tond”, it relates to some of my other writing, such as the novel and “Ussers and the Echo of Nothing” (yes, “ussers” with two S’s) and the collection of short stories, “Fronds”. Also, check out a new sister blog, TheFronds in Tond (if you just read the rest of this paragraph you should get the joke) and the old one: The SoundScroll . The ”Werd Nerd” Stuff Today’s words: Fantasy, Phantasy, Fantastic, Phantastic, Fantastical. Fantasy: a genre of speculative fiction that includes magical or supernatural elements. Phantasy: an archaic spelling of the same, also used in psychology to describe imaginative mental images. Fantastic: excellent or great. Fantastical: imagin...

This time I’m going to review three books about other species, their journeys, and their possible cultures and languages. Shiloh   By S A Moon This tiny book is a beautiful enigma. Mr. Moon is a mysterious internet presence, known by several names; he is the creator of art, stories, songs, mythologies, conlangs, and something called the Blurry Rabbit Dream Klub. He is also the illustrator who created the moon-horse on the covers of my MadStones books. Many of these things (including, at this point, the moon-horse) ask more questions than they answer. This book is an example: with beautiful line-drawn illustrations, he tells the tale of a penguin who has wandered away from the others but doesn’t seem to know he is lost. The penguin speaks of the journey in a kind of running monologue, but he goes nowhere and comes to no conclusions. He merely observes his world. If you read this book quickly (I did it in a couple of minutes the first time), you miss the point. It may seem like nothi...