Original post by news@mmorpg.com and software by PC Game Reviews

Fantasy Games and Books

This is the latest fantasy woman art from Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell who wrote that this is a part of their newest book titled, “The Ultimate Illustrations: The Drawings of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell”.  Word is that it’ll be available in 2009.   This was just posted on their blog (see reference at bottom of this email for URL).

Ms. Bell writes goes on to write, “There is something fun and exciting about having a mission where you don’t have time to think about it too much, you just have to get down to work and do it.”  What a great place to be.  Their fantasy woman art just seems to be getting better and better.  I can’t wait until this one comes out.

(This posting is from Paint and Brush.)

Technorati Tags: fantasy woman art

Fantasy Art Women

I painted this mini like this from GW site but it wasn’t that. Then mini goes to thinner and was repainted. I found some pictures at CMON and one of them was very inspired.

Necron Lord with Orb front

Necron Lord with Orb side view

Necron Lord with Orb back

This mini at CMON

Fantasygames

Official Gav Thorpe Website
Order “The Crown of the Blood” HERE

INTRODUCTION: “He had brought his master’s Empire to the furthest reaches of the world. All had fallen before him. Now he longs for home. But home isn’t what it was. Could it be that everything he’s fought for all those years has been a lie?”

When “The Crown of the Blood” was announced, I did not know more about it than the short blurb above; I had vaguely heard that the author is an experienced tie-in-writer and this was his original fantasy debut but somehow the blurb and cover sent “positive vibes” to me and they turned out to be justified.

FORMAT/CLASSIFICATION: “The Crown of the Blood” stands at about 460 pages divided into chapters headed by date and location. There is a prologue whose meaning becomes clearer later, while the novel ends with “A Guide to Greater Askhor, its Peoples, and Enemies” and Glossaries of People/Places/Creatures.

Narrated in third person with several POV’s noted below, “The Crown of the Blood” is a trilogy debut that stands very well on its own though of course the story is to be continued. “The Crown of the Blood” starts as military fantasy, but later it goes beyond the subgenre into more complex stuff, so I would call it a military/epic story.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: “The Crown of the Blood” is set into a world that mixes Roman-style armies with middle-Eastern – from the Assyrian or Babylonian Empires of yore – customs and attitudes and with some magic. The legions and style of fighting resemble the Roman armies, but the Greater Askhos Empire‘s provinces resemble oriental satrapies rather than Roman provinces as do customs like a special brand of polygamy – the high nobles marry all the sisters from another noble family, custom that is quite important in the structure of the novel. The way the imperial power is structured resembles also the middle-Eastern experience as are the naming conventions.

The main character is Ullsaard, a General of the Greater Askhos Empire who raised himself from the provincial ranks with the patronage of General Cosuas his current co-commander of the legions sent to subdue a desert people and of Aalun, younger son of the old king Lutaar. Aalun is more or less in charge of the empire nowadays at least as an executive leader with Lutaar taking only crucial strategic decisions; the thorny issue is that since its founding 200 years ago by the legendary Askhos, the Empire’s Crown of Blood – which may be linked to magic – has always passed to the oldest son, and the current elder prince is very sick, while his son who works as a staff officer for Ullsaard is both inexperienced and not really cut to be a leader.

Alluan sends Noran – a high noble of Askhos origin, friend of Ullsaard and “court herald” – to recall Ullsaard for “consultations”; Ullsaard has three sister wives which are quite different – beautiful, scheming, smart- and three grown sons, one from each: an officer in some provincial governor’s standing legion, another – the eldest and the son of the middle scheming wife, a merchant/wheeler-dealer and the youngest a law student in the capital…

Despite the king’s frailty and his acknowledgment of his eldest son’ sickness and of his grandson’ inaptness, the succession laws are not to be changed in favor of better suited Alluan, so Ullsaard and Noran for that matter are caught in the middle…

In a secondary thread that becomes important as the novel goes on, Anglhan is a “debt slaver” in the important but decentralized country of Salphoria who sits on the border of the Empire but so far has been protected by a treaty. While Askhos does not allow debt-slavery, this custom is cherished by the disunited clans of Salphoria; recently there have been risings of the poor against the rich and the nobility, so Anglhan has to tread softly.

“The Crown of the Blood” is another novel which has raised into my appreciation in the 2 1/2 months since I read it. The beginning and end of the novel are strongly mil-fantasy and at first they overshadowed a bit the character development and world building in the middle of the novel that takes it beyond the constraints of the military fantasy – “band of brothers”, “blood and guts”,…” subgenre.

So yes, it is still mostly men in arms, but there is intrigue too and the devious Anghlan steals the show in the second part while the several women that appear are developed somewhat beyond the stereotypes mentioned above. The book has also great narrative energy that keeps you turning the pages, while the world building has clearly been a labor of love for the author as the several appendixes at the end show.

As military fantasy “The Crown of the Blood” is at the top of the game with battles, personal combat, strategic decisions, logistic considerations and explicit gore, so all the elements we expect, while the story is reasonably straightforward though there is a fundamental twist I did not really see.

“The Crown of the Blood” (A+) shows how to expand a straight-up military fantasy novel beyond the constraints of the subgenre and make it richer and more complex, while delivering a reasonably self-contained story with an ending that makes one wish to have the next installment soon to see where the story goes.

Fantasy Book Critic

It’s been a busy year and I’m itching to show off the new art I’ve created at next month’s DragonCon.  To ramp up, I’ve been posting sneak peaks through my Facebook fan page (http://www.facebook.com/moonshines.fantasy/art).  Here’s the rough draft for a piece I’m hoping to have finished for DragonCon called “Underwater“.  Let me know what you think, and if you’re at DragonCon, stop by the Art Show and say hi!

MoonShines

Original post by news@mmorpg.com and software by PC Game Reviews

Fantasy Games and Books

Towers of Midnight and No Mercy swap places this week, while The Way of Kings and The Exile see their returns to the top 5 fantasy bestseller list.

1. Towers of Midnight (Hardcover) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
2. No Mercy (Kindle) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
3. The Exile (Hardcover) by Diana Gabaldon
4. The Way of Kings (Kindle) by Brandon Sanderson
5. Dead in the Family (Kindle) by Charlaine Harris

Fantasy Book News

Congratulations to Zoran Furlan of Croatia who has added the You The Manager 2007/08 crown to his increasing list of fantasy football successes.
Zoran pocketed an incredible £100,000 for the win to take his career earnings from fantasy sports through the £200,000 barrier.
You can read how it did it on the You The Manager Blog.
Is there any else out [...]
Dream League

Hello everyone, been some time since I did an update, I have been very busy making new clothing items on Second Life (see blog here) But I have been recently inspired but an old critter I made up years ago called the Quizzie. Perhaps some of you remember? Back in the day when eBay was a more lucrative source of selling original artwork! I’ve had my quizzie also refereed to as ugly bunnies lol. I name em Quizzies for being quizzical, they came from an idea I had for a story I had started writing. You can read a bit on Elfwood in my old “Tribes of Arcadia”

This is one of my original Quizzie paintings, acrylic on canvas pad.

And here is the new one! Prints are available for anyone interested in it This is an 8x 10 digital painting.

The Fantasy Art of Candace Bell

Choosing a Halloween costume can be just as difficult for men as it is for women. Do you go for the humorous or more serious costume? Which superhero should you be? Which villain? Do you instead go as one of the latest sword and sandal hero?

Related posts:

1. Top Thirty Best Halloween Costumes for Women
2. 2010 Top Ten Halloween Costumes
3. Popular Adult Costumes For Halloween

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