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The Lady of the Lake is a blacksmith: an excerpt from Queen of None
From Queen of None. I wanted to find a spoiler-free section, but that’s almost impossible. But here’s a bit of description I rather liked, as Anna and Lanceloch (who have just been married…) approach the Lake, after Anna has struck a deal to visit her imprisoned Aunt Viviane. A note: this is not an attempt at a historical take (technically, this world is not our own). I decided, after consideration, to take Malory’s approach: tell a story with the threads that are there, but warp them as I like. From the dark sandy bank, I could just make out the island, a wisp of smoke rising from the center—a chimney,…
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Play it again, Frodo: why I love a remake
There are too many purists in the world. Too many folks who cling to original books, movies, songs, rallying for the acknowledgement that their beloved version is The Best That Ever Was. Hollywood is “out of ideas”, books are “recycled”. Like this is a bad thing? The thing is, we’re always telling the same story. It might be a different medium, the genders might be switched, the religions and locations different, but from the Dawn of Humanity, we’ve been obsessed with the same stories: stories of love, hate, revenge, honor, sacrifice. And quite often, we get it wrong the first time. And even more often, we get it worse the…
