Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews

[Nick]

Hi,
I'm Mihai Adascalitei, I'm a passionate reader and I run the blog Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews. I post reviews to my recent readings, interviews and some thoughts of mine.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

My Fantasy Art post has a renowned guest this week, Les Edwards. Les is an artist with a great talent and an impressive career of over 35 years in illustrations, with a huge number of book jackets and covers made in the Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction genres. He also works using a pseudonym, Edward Miller, with excellent covers made for small publishing houses like Subterranean Press and PS Publishing. His talent was awarded with 7 British Fantasy Award for Best Artist, 5 nominations for the World Fantasy Award (won it once as Edward Miller) and 5 nominations for the Chesley Award.

[Nick]

Great stuff, Dark Wolf. Les Edwards is without question my favourite fantasy artist. That bloke Edward Miller isn't bad, either! I went to an exhibition a couple of years back and you really have to see the work in the flesh - because he is a traditional oils and acrylics and pen and ink artist - to really appreciate it. The dragon over the sea painting, absolutely staggeringly beautiful. He's a decent London geezer, too!

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

Thank you very much, Nick :)
Les Edwards is indeed a very talented artist. And I can only imagined how his wonderful works look in reality. But maybe someday I'll have the opportunity to see them in an exhibition.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

I read the anthology edited by Mark S. Deniz and Amanda Pillar, "Voices". It is a horror anthology, dealing mainly with the supernatural and paranormal, and although it is rather short (180 pages) and I would have liked some of the stories to be longer, I enjoyed some of them and I discovered quite a few interesting authors.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

I finished Joe Hill's novella, "Gunpowder". I have to admit that Joe Hill's works are quite impressive and if he keeps his works at this level he will be strong voice in literature. "Gunpowder" is an absolutely lovely read.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

I finished "The Company" by K.J. Parker. It is an interesting read, but I believe not to be the typical fantasy novel and it will not appeal to every reader. But I really liked the great in-depth characterization and how the author caught the human psychology.

[RobertB]

I liked it, though I didn't find the ending very convincing (who goes on fighting in the middle of a fire?), and I thought the women were portrayed a bit superficially, with two much emphasis on one of them being a poisoner. The properties of rhododendron honey are well-knows in the Caucasus, where Xenophon describes an incident where the Greeks escape a pursuing Persian force by leaving pots of noxious honey behind them! It's not usually fatal though.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

You are right about those things, but they didn't ruined my read. As for the characters I think that the author focused only on the five main ones and the others felt behind.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

This week guest is the Portuguese artist, Andreas Rocha. Andreas has an architect degree and has worked in architecture field for 5 years. For over 10 years now he paints digitally and you can see the influence made by his architecture experience on his works, Andreas is specialized in 2d illustrations/matte paintings and 3d architectural visualizations.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

I finished Tim Lebbon's novella, "The Reach of Children". Basically is a horror story, but I believe that this novella is much more than this. It is a wonderful read and one of a best I had this year. The only thing I regret is that "The Reach of Children" is a limited edition and sadly its publisher is no more. I really hope that this novella will be re-published soon, because it deserves to be read and deserves to have a wider audience.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

I finished Michael J. Sullivan's "The Crown Conspiracy". I am glad that after I've started my blog my access to the small publishing houses' titles became easier, otherwise I would have missed some titles such as "The Crown Conspiracy". The novel offered me a lovely and entertaining read and I liked its characters, setting and action. It hooked me from the start and until the final page and I am eagerly waiting to see how "The Riyria Revelation" series (this is the first novel in the series) is developing.

[Mihai, Dark Wolf]

My next guest is the French artist Christophe Vacher. Christophe has a wide experience in background and concept artwork for films, working for 9 years for Disney Studios and creating concept art for movies such as "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", "A Goofy Movie", "Hercules", "Tarzan" and "Treasure Planet" among others. He also worked on Dreamworks' "Shark Tale" and now is Art directing the CG feature film "9", produced by Tim Burton and directed by Shane Acker. He also works now on personal artwork for galleries and covers for books, CDs and video games.