I Am John, I Am Paul by Mark Tedesco follows the lives of two real-life Roman soldiers in the fourth century, Ioannes (John) Fulvius Marcus Romanus and Paulus.  John and Paul form a strong bond of friendship during their days fighting on the German frontier, a bond that is never broken even when John is sent away […]
Read MoreBook Review: In Apple Blossom Time by Robert Wack
In Apple Blossom Time by Robert Wack starts with an interesting Prologue—a time traveler jumps back and forth in time between different locations in World War II Europe tracking another man important to the time traveler’s mysterious mission. It’s a violent struggle, as the traveler sometimes kills his quarry and then sometimes loses him. The […]
Read MoreBook Review: Black Book, Volume 1, by Dylan Jones
Black Book, Volume 1, has the first three episodes of the genre-bending Black Book series. It’s a story that mixes Western, science fiction, and fantasy into a quest that spans centuries. In Part 1: The Devil’s Blood, we find Sheriff Jack trying to keep the peace in a small, American West town during the 1860s. […]
Read MoreBook Review: We’ll Watch the Sun Rise from the Bottom of the Sea
As the father of a 7-year-old, I can relate to many of the short stories in David Drazul’s sci-fi/horror collection, We’ll Watch the Sunrise from the Bottom of the Sea. The overarching theme to this collection is that parents are often clueless when it comes to raising their kids. Sometimes we get it right; sometimes […]
Read MoreAmWriting: Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the process of creating a novel’s exotic setting — its history, geography, cultures, religions, etc. For the purposes of this post, I’m referring to made-up worlds in science-fiction and fantasy novels. So which is better to create first: the world or the story? Well it’s different for every writer and every story. For […]
Read MoreWhen book bloggers hit the wall
Tobias Buckell writes about a book blogger who struggles with how to keep his reviews original after reading huge volumes of books. I write reviews for The New Podler Review of Books, so Buckell’s piece hit home for me. 1) When you get to a point where you’ve read an amazing number of books, you […]
Read MoreAmWriting: Seven simple steps for writing a novel
I love books on writing. I have over three dozen on my bookshelf right now, and I’ve checked out numerous writing books from the library over the years. My writing process is a mish-mash of the techniques I’ve learned from all those books, so I in no way claim the following is original. It sits […]
Read MoreMarcus Antonius?
I like Tor.com’s explanation best for the giant styrofoam head found floating in the Hudson River last week: This past Thursday a giant styrofoam head turned up in the Hudson River. Our suspicion is that it fell through from an alternate 2013 timeline where the Roman Empire never fell. My second favorite explanation: it fell […]
Read MoreAmWriting: Research is writing, too!
It helps that I love all things ancient Rome; I’ve spent almost as much time researching my MUSES OF ROMA series as I have writing it. From books to web sites to pod casts to multiple viewings of the HBO series Rome (both seasons), I’ve covered a lot. Obviously I’ve barely scratched the surface of […]
Read MoreHappy Birthday, Rome
The Eternal City of Rome is 2,766 years old as of 4/21/13…if you go by the day Romulus and Remus, who were conceived by the war god Mars and a Vestal Virgin, raised the city’s first walls.
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