All over the world there are myths and legends concerning beings of human appearance but prodigious size and strength, commonly referred to as giants. Fairy tales such as Jack and the Beanstalk have formed our modern perception of giants as stupid and violent monsters, frequently said to eat humans. In cultures as diverse as ancient Greece, Scandinavia and the Indian subcontinent, giants are almost invariably associated with chaos, wild nature and conflict with both gods and heroes. The overwhelmingly negative nature of the lore concerning giants, as well as its ubiquity across the world in otherwise totally unrelated nations, seems to suggest that there is a germ of truth in the old tales. Was there, perhaps, at one stage in the dim and distant past a gigantic, brutal race that walked the earth, oppressing humanity and giving rise to dark race-memories that ever since have forever made the giant a figure of fear and loathing? The sacred texts of many different religions almost uniformly equate giants with evil. In the Bible there is the tale of David and Goliath; In the Vedas and Puranas there are the Daityas, who fought the Hindu gods known as Devas; and in the Jewish Torah further giants are reported, including the Anakites, the Emites and the Rephaites. There are the occasional ‘big friendly giants’ that appear in the books of Roald Dahl and others but by and large in literature these more benign examples of the species are overshadowed by the sinister connotations of beings such as Anne Rice’s Taltos. Another view of giants is that they symbolise immense primal forces, neither good nor bad, but simply larger than life in every way.
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Welcome to my blog!
I'm a fantasy writer and on this site you'll not only find samples of my work but also articles concerning folklore, myth and legend, reviews of movies, books and graphic novels and much else besides (including the occasional short story - you lucky people!).
Click on the image below if you would like to buy a copy of my novel, 'White Planet', a science-fiction/fantasy set on the ice world of Rygarth, whose snows hide ancient secrets and restless evil. Go to the ‘Novels’ section of this website for more information and to read free samples of this and my other longer fiction. Excerpts from my short fiction appear in the 'Short Stories' section of this website.
The 'Blogroll' below contains links to lots of other fantasy and sci-fi websites and the 'Writer Links' section of this site will take you to the websites of other authors whose work I admire.
If you like what you see on here don't forget that you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter too by clicking on one of the links below!
White Planet
The first volume of 'The Ice World Chronicles'
Blogroll
- Abattoir
- Abomination
- Albedo One
- Allegory
- Aphelion
- Black Static
- Clarkesworld Magazine
- Cygnus
- Dark Discoveries
- Dark Moon Books
- Dark Tales
- Encounters Magazine
- Fantasy Magazine
- Interzone
- Locus
- Prime Books
- Realms of Fantasy
- Strange Horizons
- The Black Library
- The Edge
- The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
- The Realm Beyond
- Weird Tales
- #TheWhiteQueen - is written by Emma Frost! Just like the Marvel character! 1 day ago
- #Oneiromancy - wp.me/p21O69-iq 1 week ago
- #RichardtheLionheart - wp.me/p21O69-il 2 weeks ago
- #Manga - wp.me/p21O69-hS 1 month ago
- #MayDay - wp.me/p21O69-ia 1 month ago
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- Urban Fantasy
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Blogs I Follow
- bunnylover
- Winson Chiu (The Manga Creator)
- Ultimate Spoiler Attack
- Flying over a forest
- Judith Shaw - Life on the Edge
- Amber Lotus Publishing
- Faerie♥Kat's Faerie♥Korner
- Scattering the light
- The Keya Quests blog
- The Always Hungry Bookworm
- SCC Library Reads
- The Writer's Wand
- Books and Adventures
- Hellar Reviews
- Raging Biblio-holism
- Nada Faris | Blog
- Zendagi Migzara !
- Trees-Per-Second
- melanie bourgeois, illustrator and conceptartist
- Books On Trial
- MAHEEKATS
- Laura Bruno's Blog
- efrona's blog
- Ozark Pagan Mamma
- The Dancing Hare
- The Raven and The Oak
- stormyviews
- The Rowdy Goddess
- SCOD Public Blog
- Ravemore's Notes
- Life hands us the lemons, now where's the vodka?
- Summer Thunder
- A Witchy Life
- Temet Nosce
- PNC-Minnesota Bureau
- Fanny Fae
- Marlene Dotterer
- ChibiSketches
- Robwired
- Daniel Delgado's Blog
- litbeetle
- Bloggity, Bloggity, Blog
- Zcreed
- skylatron
- Reviews and Ramblings
- Life, the Universe, and Everything
- The Write Edge
- shelflifepodcast.wordpress.com
- The Place to Be ...
- Johann Thorsson
