Author: Terry Graves

The Snow Queen was an original fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen in 1844. It tells the story of Kai being kidnapped by the Snow Queen and Gerda’s journey to rescue him. It is a coming of age story, but it also deals with faith and science, good and evil, and some…

“Aladdin” is a classic Disney tale set in the mystical city of Agrabah. The story begins with a pair of shady characters in the desert. The leader, Jafar, is attempting to open the Cave of Wonders. He sends a poor street beggar to enter, but the beggar fails. The guardian of the Cave of Wonders…

If you have watched any of the Ghostbusters movies, then you probably have a pretty well formed image of what ectoplasm is: an oozy, sticky, disgusting substance that ghosts throw away at will. But there is more to it. The story of ectoplasm starts at the closing stages of the Victorian era, an epoch full…

I love Tim Burton movies, and I’m sure you will love them too. But I also love reading, and sometimes I’ve tried to find books that are like Tim Burton’s films. In other words, works of fiction that somehow manage to capture the same mood and tropes that the director uses so well. Yes, sure,…

Do you want to know which are the best Victorian penny dreadfuls out there? The term “penny dreadful” is a pejorative term used to describe the cheap publications from Nineteenth-Century Britain. They were also known as penny awful, penny blood, or even “penny packets of poison” because of their sometimes gruesome and shocking content. They…

In Japan, a light novel (LN or ranobe) is the equivalent of a tween/young adult book. They’re shorter than normal fantasy books, running about 50,000 words, and are often illustrated with manga-style drawings. They are normally published first in pulp magazines as serials and then compiled in book format. Being fantasy such a popular genre…

YouTube and Facebook may be more popular, but, for a true reader, Goodreads is THE real social network. However, there is much more in there apart from book ratings and reviews, and not many users get the most out of it. In this quick list I will guide you through some of the most interesting…

One of the figures that shares the most resemblance to Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen is, unexpectedly, a spirit from Japanese folklore popularly known as Yuki-Onna. As happens with the Snow Queen, Yuki-Onna is a woman who, in some stories, personifies winter. In her most famous depictions, she has black hair, pale skin and a…

Have you ever got hungry while reading a fantasy novel? Are you planning a theme night? What follows is a list where you will find a lot of recipes from fantasy books of five different sagas and a couple of personal suggestions. What if you could order dishes straight from your favorite fantasy books? These…