Public Service Reviews: Dawn of the Dragon Slayer


I have a problem. You see, I've come up with a new feature for the blog, something I'll be adding as an occasional piece – what I'm calling Public Service Reviewing. I even came up with a great tag line – 'I watched it, so you don't have to'. It's a good tag line. I'm proud of it. I picked up a load of cheap – and low-rated – movies on Amazon, mostly fantasy with a few historicals sprinkled in, and decided to see just how low it could go. I bought 'Amazons vs Gladiators', for heaven's sake. So, what is my problem?

The first movie I reviewed is actually good. Rewatchable good. Recommendable to my friends and readers good. Sigh.

This is 'Dawn of the Dragon Slayer', which I bought in the blu-ray version (and to get that out of the way, it looked great but had zero special features...which is a little disappointing, because I would have liked a commentary for this one, a making-of, something) and fired up. It opens with a man playing a flute being burned to a crisp by a dragon, which is a nice opening – though it does ruthlessly expose the limited CGI budget – and then we cut to our lead, a shepard's son called...Shepard... (sigh) in the hills, who decides to try and slay a dragon that has been killing his sheep.

I'm not going to go heavily into spoiler territory here, but essentially, this is a bildungsroman, but a good one. It's a low-budget production, but the production team has been...sensible. The weak spot is the dragon and its effects, though there are some good moments while it is attacking the castle, and I suspect they knew that, as we don't see the dragon that often – instead, the plot concentrates on story and character, and relies on the actors to carry it off...and they do. The paucity of extras does show a little at times – it would have been nice to have a few more people in the background – but that's not a failing, really.

The show is shot almost entirely on location in Ireland, and my god they take maximum advantage of the scenery to get some fantastic shots. Roger Corman, when filming in Greece, said that he didn't need sets for his movie with all the ruins around, and this is perfectly true; the cinematography is excellent. The soundtrack...isn't. During some of the 'run across the landscape' scenes it's needlessly dramatic and pounding – something a little more...wistful, perhaps, would have been better. Something a little softer.

This isn't a great movie, but it is a good one. Which is perfectly fine by me; it's a film you can put on, watch for ninety minutes, and enjoy. I can't tell you what the DVD is like, but frankly...buy it on blu-ray. The footage is worth it. There is a sequel coming out, but it doesn't seem to be staring many of the cast from this one, and the production company has done some more fantasy movies, including a recent Kickstarter. (Which I backed, before I watched this movie.) I'll certainly be watching future movies by this group. Soon, I hope, as I already have another – in blu-ray – and another pre-ordered.

So, I watched it so you don't have to, but in this particular case, I'd rather recommend you do.


Books On Writing...

Well, it's been a little while since I posted on the blog – I've been down with the flu, and that's sapped my energy rather. I'd figured that if it was a choice between working on Triple-Cross or blogging, everyone would be a bit happier if I pushed on with the book...so that's what I've been doing. I just put the finishing touches to Chapter 11 this morning, and I'm almost half-way through right now. Target date for release is the final week in June, but more on that to follow.

When I started seriously thinking about writing, I went through a phase – as I'm sure every aspiring author has – of picking up books on writing. I must have picked up a couple of dozen at one point, and to be honest, I found a lot of them rather less than useful. Many of them were excellent at describing their personal technique, but frankly...I am of the opinion that generally, every writer needs to find their own style, their own technique, and that it is this that takes up the majority of the 'million words of crap'. (Sixteen years for me...not counting the two or three million words I did while employed, but that's another story...)

However, that doesn't mean all of the books were useless, far from it; there are a few that have leapt out as being excellent, and I thought I'd flag them here – now these, I should highlight, are focused rather tightly on the field in which I'm working – science-fiction and fantasy action/adventure. Those working in other genres will likely find them less useful, but there will certainly be equivalent books to look at. What all of these have in common is that they discuss rather than direct – instead of telling you what to do, they discuss the problems of writing and world-building, focusing on providing ideas rather than instructions.

I'll start with an obvious one. If you are writing fantasy, then 'Writing Fantasy Heroes' belongs on your shelf. It's a collection of essays focused on, well, writing about fantasy heroes – working in the epic fantasy, historical, or sword and sorcery genre, and covers a wide range of issues. It's the sort of book that you can just pick up and flick through to find something interesting; I must have gone over my copy four or five times.

A recent acquisition is the 'Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding', which is not dissimilar to the first book in form – a collection of essays on the construction of fantasy settings. Whilst technically this book is directed at role-playing games, there is so much commonality that it is, I feel, of equal use to a writer working on creating a new setting. I have also got the recently published 'Kobold Guide to Magic', but it is so recently published that I haven't read it yet!

'How to Write Action Adventure Novels' is a rather old book, but 90% of it is still extremely useful. Written by one of the writers of the serial action/adventure novels that swarmed in the 1970s and 1980s, it goes into the nitty-gritty of plotting, outlining and the nature of the form, largely through the use of examples drawn from the genre. I've found this one useful, and I think it would be of use for anyone working in this field – I wish I'd read this book ten years ago, I'll put it that way.

'What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank' is another one of those books that provides the grit to a fantasy setting, that little touch of realism that grounds a setting. I found this an excellent read for the addition of detail, and it's going to be something I consult a lot the next time I write fantasy, I can assure you! Definitely one for the shelves.


Only a few months ago, not even that, I finally got my hands on a copy of Lin Carter's Imaginary Worlds. This really needs reprinting, because after I finished reading it...darn it, it made me want to sit down and write. His 'Look Behind the Lord of the Rings' is good as well – not for the coverage of the trilogy as much of the discussion of what preceded it. These are long out of print, of course, but definitely recommended.

Writing the book is the hard part...

I've seen quite a few people online who have indicated an interest in self-publishing, but who are afraid about what it involves, and don't think that they can do it. Take it from me – you can. Writing the book is the difficult part. That's the part that occupies my thoughts, my time, and that is as it should be. Usually...actually publishing a book takes me less than half an hour from start to finish. There's no need for it to take any longer, especially if you are prepared.

First, obviously, I need two things to start – the first is a completed draft of my book in LibreOffice format (OpenOffice or Word will work just as well) and a cover. This cover needs to meet the requirements of Amazon for a cover upload; if you hire a good cover artist they'll know those details well, but it's worth checking. Once you have those, you can begin. (Note that there is nothing permanent about the book, though. If you find something you need to change tomorrow morning, say that you forgot to put in the link to your mailing list, you can add it and update the file whenever you want.)

The first step is to make sure that I have a clean file. That means going through and making sure that all the page breaks are in the correct place; this is critical, because you never know how your book will be read. Different font sizes, different screen sizes – my philosophy is to keep it simple and clean, keeping fancy work to a minimum. Indents are my biggest headache at the moment; I'm using Google Docs, and when I work on the file, I often have to re-indent an awful lot. Still, this isn't a long job, just a tedious one.

Once that's done, you need a conversion program. I know a lot of people hire out to convert to ebook format, but in my personal opinion, for a novel this really isn't necessary. If you have some sort of special requirements, lots of pictures, for example, then it might be a different story. Normally, however, if you can use a word processor you can do this yourself without trouble, and save time and money. (Paperback formatting is different; that process is rather more involved, and there I would recommend hiring a professional.)

The program I've always used is called Alkinea; it does the job very well, and is smooth and quick to use. You simply enter the location of your file and your cover, fill in your title and author information, and click one button. Simple. (This produces .mobi and .epub files; I obviously only use the .mobi, as for the present I am only publishing through Amazon.) Now, it would be total foolishness to publish now – so we come to the next step.

You need to read your book again. If you haven't got the Kindle for PC program, get it; then scroll through the book. This actually is a quick process, because you are looking for formatting errors. Indents in the wrong place, chapters that run on, that sort of thing. I've never managed to get this right in one yet; there's always something wrong that needs fixing. It is important to fix everything, no matter how small – because you never know how much that might be magnified on a different reader. Once I've got the file right, I then check it on my actual Kindle – I do the PC one first because I can scroll through the pages with my mouse more quickly.

Then, the time comes to upload. You'll need a blurb ready – you do have one, right? That usually takes me ages to do, so I like to have it ready before I even start this. Amazon's Bookshelf is really quite self-explanatory – you need to upload your cover file and your book, enter your blurb and the details of the book – title, contributors, and the like. Then you need to set the price, and while that's a whole other story, there is one thing I will recommend – don't use the automatic feature to set the prices for books in non-US markets.

You see, currency rates change, all the time – and though it might only be a small change, it will mean that all of your books are on sale in, say, Amazon Germany at completely different prices. It looks unprofessional if one book costs five pence more than the last, which itself cost three pence more than the first book you sold. Round to the nearest 50 pence/cents – it might cost you a few pennies, but it's more than worth it.


Amazon has a spellcheck feature that is worth using at the last minute, though I've never found anything with it – the few it has highlighted have always been names or the like. There's another viewer that is certainly worth using, though hopefully by now you've got everything right. Then – hit publish, and sit back and wait. It will take a few hours for the book to appear. I often hit the button in the evening, on the idea that by morning, it will be on sale...though it does tend to make sleeping that night rather difficult!

Review: Vikings in America

When I was in college (slightly unusually for the UK, I went to a college rather than sixth-form for my A-levels) studying history, I had the option of doing an extended piece of coursework; I chose to do mine on pre-Columbian voyages to America. The essay has itself now been long-lost to history – unlike my work on the War of 1812 that for some reason is one of the more popular posts on the blog – but my interest in the subject has never waned. When I saw this book on sale, I rather had to buy it.

I was certainly not disappointed. It's a short book, but it packs an awful lot of punch into its two hundred-odd pages, covering the explorations of the Vikings across to Britain, on to Iceland and Greenland, and following on to America. I hadn't realized the potential expanse of their explorations, though thinking about it, it should be obvious enough; a Viking site was found in Newfoundland forty years ago, and given – as the author points out – that few Viking settlements have survived even where we know they travelled, there were likely more, in more fertile lands.

Where this book comes alive is where it ranges outside its remit. Vikings in the Arctic might be a better term for it; he records discoveries of Viking artefacts well into the High Arctic, further afield than I certainly had ever considered. Given how little archaeological work has been done in the Canadian Arctic, the odds are that there is a lot more out there waiting to be discovered, and certainly this seems to be a fruitful field of research.

The Kensington Runestone is also explored, and though the author considers it probably a fake, the reality of the object is that if it is a fake, it's an extraordinary one. Whoever created it went to an extraordinary amount of trouble – and he also notes that were it not for the location, had it been found in, say, Sweden – it would have been accepted as authentic without a second thought.


This is an excellent book, and if you have any interest in the topic at all, it's well worth picking up. My goal was to mine it for story ideas, and I've definitely got several to explore from it...but that would be telling...

Historical Podcast Recommendations

In my final year or so in an office, I seemed to spend most of my time with earphones plugged in. Fortunately it was the sort of job where that was completely fine, in fact almost everyone spent the long nights listening to music. I spent more time listening to podcasts, especially historical podcasts, and given that I'm taking this back up again on long walks – for I am trying to take more walks this year, it was one of my resolutions to actually take advantage of nice days a bit more – I thought I might highlight my favourites.

First and foremost must probably be the History of Rome, a podcast by Mike Duncan. The hint is in the title; this covers the entire history of Ancient Rome, from its near-mythical establishment all the way through to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. This one is a behemoth; almost two hundred episodes, mostly about half an hour in length. Not something you are going to get through in a hurry, but if you are seeking to gain a basic understanding of the Empire, this is the one to go for. I've just about managed it twice, astoundingly. It's on the long side, but it definitely has my recommendation.

If you are looking for something a bit more manageable, I can recommend seeking out Lars Brownworth's two podcasts – Twelve Byzantine Rulers and the Norman Centuries. The first of these is complete in eighteen episodes, the second essentially complete in nineteen. (I've been waiting for the last of the Norman podcasts for months...) In about nine or ten hours, these will give you an excellent rundown on Byzantine history and the Norman Conquests of England and Italy, in all the detail you might want; further, Mr. Brownworth has written two excellent books to accompany each of the series, and both are well worth looking up.

Going a little further back, I can recommend a podcast that looks at the ancient world, called...the Ancient World Podcast. This one stops just about at the start of the Roman Empire, and covers everything from the beginnings of civilization onwards, putting the pieces together across the world. I had thought this was finished at thirty-six episodes, but there are a few more appearing now, so I've got those to look forward to.


One I very recently discovered, but am enjoying, is Fin Dwyer's Irish History Podcast. I didn't know anything like enough about the history about our neighbours over the Irish Sea, and I'm fixing that little problem now. I'm still fairly early into this podcast, at about episode eight, but I'm very much enjoying this one so far, though some of the names can be a bit of a handful at times! He also has a book, Witches, Spies and Stockholm Syndrome, about Medieval Ireland; it's sitting on my shelf but I have yet to get to it....