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Oliver Arditi

Writing all the things.

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Category: Fiction

Complicated fun

In my current mission to read Neal Stephenson’s entire oeuvre, I’ve been zigzagging between his earlier and later publications. If … More

Neal Stephenson, Nicole Galland, The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.

In black and white

Having dipped into Kim Stanley Robinson’s work at intervals during his career (whether retrospectively as here, or contemporaneously), I’m starting … More

Antarctica, Kim Stanley Robinson

Warts and all

I’m on a long-term project to read all of Michael Moorcock’s classic fantasy-fiction, which comes together under the general rubric … More

Flux, Hilary Bailey, Jerry Cornelius, Max von Bek, Michael Moorcock, Philip James, Sailing to Utopia, The Black Corridor, The Distant Suns, The Eternal Champion, The Ice Schooner, The Tale of the Eternal Champion

No hubris

Having loved Snow Crash a long time ago, and having decided after reading Anathem in 2012 that Neal Stephenson is … More

Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson

Read this now

We don’t live in a temporal silo, separated from the past and future by an impermeable barrier. Indeed, when you … More

Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry For The Future

Entertaining contrivance

What little I’ve read of Neal Stephenson’s work has made me want to read more of it, but I don’t … More

Neal Stephenson, REAMDE

A warm voice in a cold world

When I wrote down my thoughts in response to La Belle Sauvage, which is the first volume of Philip Pullman’s … More

His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman, The Book of Dust, The Secret Commonwealth

Expert hand-holding

Worldbuilder, storyteller—these are Philip Pullman’s great strengths for me. As a ‘novel-maker’ he’s stuck in a rather old-fashioned, comfortable mode … More

His Dark Materials, La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman, The Book of Dust

Thresholds

We cross thresholds, we readers. Each book we read is entered through a portal, and marking those portals—projected onto the … More

A Musical Offering, Charco Press, Fionn Petch, Luis Sagasti

A game of madness

I’ve never paid particular attention to Nicholas Hawksmoor’s famous London churches, although I am familiar with some of them. I … More

Hawksmoor, Iain Sinclair, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd

One face in a thousand

In Rhetorics of Fantasy, her important structural taxonomy of fantasy literature, Farah Mendlesohn identifies four key types of fantasy, defined … More

Corum, Corum Jhaelen Irsei, Farah Mendlesohn, Joseph Campbell, Michael Moorcock, Rhetorics of Fantasy, The Eternal Champion, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, The King of the Swords, The Knight of the Swords, The Queen of the Swords, The Swords Trilogy, The Tale of the Eternal Champion

Worlds and authorities

I was spurred by the recent BBC TV adaptation of Northern Lights to re-read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, … More

His Dark Materials, Northern Lights, Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife

The magic of the real

My introduction to fantasy fiction was The Lord of the Rings, which I encountered surprisingly early, while visiting a friend … More

A Wizard of Earthsea, Earthsea, Tales From Earthsea, Tehanu, The Books of Earthsea, The Farthest Shore, The Other Wind, The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

Energy and entertainment

My long-interrupted project to read or re-read all of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion books has at last been resumed, after … More

Hawkmoon, Michael Moorcock, The History of the Runestaff, The Jewel in the Skull, The Mad God's Amulet, The Runestaff, The Sword of the Dawn

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Oliver Arditi
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