Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • The Blackswords S1:E1 ‘Cheap Wine’

    The Blackswords S1:E1 ‘Cheap Wine’

    More than ten years ago, when I had recently embarked on my hubristically ambitious worldbuilding project, I started writing a serial for this blog. I posted several episodes, and then it petered out. As I’m now close to finishing a novel set in my world, I thought I’d revive the series, in order to give Read more

  • What in the world?

    What in the world?

    Welcome to my blog. I’m a fantasy fiction writer, and I’m going to write about the process of bringing a project to fruition, and finding it a home in the publishing world. Hopefully it will be an interesting story, and if you’re an aspiring or early career writer, it should be a good guide to Read more

  • Both sides of the street

    Both sides of the street

    Songs can be many things. In written literature there are names for them, but songs, we seem to think, are all first and foremost songs. They can be collections of images, the sort of things we call poems when they’re printed. They can be short narratives, stories as they are known elsewhere—the ballad is a Read more

  • Mind blown, thinking changed

    Mind blown, thinking changed

    In The Dawn of everything I found a great deal of food for my confirmation bias. This is often a problem for me when I’m reading popular science writing, since my prejudices frequently seem to be in line with the results of statistical research, and the theorisations of researchers. When I’m reading humanities there’s usually Read more

  • An unforgetting shout

    An unforgetting shout

    I’m not very familiar with the music of Kevin Martin, also known as The Bug, despite his prolific output, and his reputation as one of the most interesting electronic music producers around (collaborations with the likes of Napalm Death’s Justin Broadrick and general avant-garde legend John Zorn). However, if Fire is anything to go by, Read more

  • Old new reboots

    Old new reboots

    I was late coming to Tomb Raider (of course) because I had to wait for it to come out on the Mac. I’m talking about the first game, in which the protagonist (one of few videogame protagonists to be as or more famous than the franchise they come from) was the archetypal Lara Croft, with Read more