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36 Articles

DO YOU KNOW YOUR JON SNOW FROM your John Carpenter? How about your Falcor from your Fizzgig? Then you’ve come to the right place! Here at The Ultimate Guide To Fantasy, we’ve packed an entire magazine full of the very best fantasy going. Top of the pile is Game Of Thrones, and we’ve hunted high and low for the juiciest season six spoilers, plus chatted to the stars of the show. Elsewhere, we’ve assembled the definitive list of the 50 greatest fantasy films ever made, with contributions from genre overlords Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson. Enjoy the magazine.…

Adapted from George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire, the mountainous novel series that made its debut in 1996, Game Of Thrones is now so big that the ranking “most pirated show on television” can be considered a triumph: Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes declared it “better than an Emmy”. Viewing figures soar legally, too. The show once dubbed “The Sopranos with swords” bested Tony’s mob’s record of 18.2 million with 18.4 million for Season 4, a figure whose number includes Barack Obama. Throw in the startling number of copycats (Spartacus, Marco Polo, Outlander) and, indeed, startling number of cats now responding to “Daenerys” and you’ve got a phenomenon: a series that shatters all previous boundaries for TV fantasy. And not only because it boasts more sex than…

21 things you need to know about GAME OF THRONES Season Six

George R.R. Martin might well be a genius, but genius takes its own sweet time. In a recent blog post, the author admitted that the next instalment of A Song Of Ice And Fire – The Winds Of Winter, the follow-up to 2011’s A Dance With Dragons – won’t be ready before season six of Game Of Thrones airs. “Will the show ‘spoil’ the novels?” asks big George. “Maybe. Yes and no. I never thought the series could possibly catch up with the books, but it has.” Which means, for the first time ever, readers and TV viewers alike are in the dark as to where the plot is headed. Exciting, right? So, where were we? Predictably, given Game Of Thrones’ predilection for killing every mother flipper in the room,…

21 things you need to know about GAME OF THRONES Season Six

WE KNOW NOTHING, JON SNOW!

Jon Snow is dead. Or is he? Kit Harington all but confirmed that Jon is back for good while on the promo trail recently: “Let’s just say that Game Of Thrones will remain a part of my life for a while,” he said. “I’ll probably be in my thirties when it’s over.” That admission, coupled with the fact that he’s been spotted shooting battle scenes (apparently wearing Stark armour and leading an army comprised of Umbers and other Northern houses), begs the question: how the hell did Jon survive the night of the knives? There are a few options. First – and most likely, in our estimation – is that Melisandre summons the power of R’hllor and resurrects Jon, much as Thoros of Myr did for the extremely dead Beric…

WE KNOW NOTHING, JON SNOW!

MISSING IN ACTION

Whatever happened to Gendry (Joe Dempsie)? The last of Robert Baratheon’s seemingly endless number of bastard sons made a sensible choice in legging it at the end of season three, but will we ever see him again? He has a royal heritage, which sets him up as – potentially – a major player. How about one of his old travelling companions? Remember Hot Pie (Ben Hawkey)? The orphan left Gendry and Arya to stay and work at an inn, and was last seen chatting to a passing Brienne and Pod. We’re also still holding out hope that Arya’s swordmaster Syrio Forel (Miltos Yerolemou) may yet make another appearance. We saw him facing off against a gang of Kingsguard, but his eventual fate was left pointedly ambiguous. Where the hell has…

MISSING IN ACTION

MARGAERY TYRELL NATALIE DORMER

On Natalie Dormer’s left forearm lies a quote from Dune, the 1965 sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert – later a muddled film by David Lynch. “Fear is the mind-killer” it says; not only a reminder to “take myself out of my comfort zone”, as she explains it, but further proof that Dormer herself is geeky as hell. For her career has been one forged in fantasy; in her deft portrayal of Margaery Tyrell, the aspiring queen in Game Of Thrones, a character who lives and breathes and schemes in a way she never did in George R.R. Martin’s books. Today, she’s chatting to us in a central London hotel, where she’s promoting the final instalment of The Hunger Games, Mockingjay – Part 2, in which she plays Cressida, a propagandist…

MARGAERY TYRELL NATALIE DORMER

INTO THE DARK BEYOND

IN A CAVERNOUS STUDIO five minutes drive from central Belfast, Maisie Williams, as Arya Stark, is tip-toeing through a stone room. Around the walls are carvings of gods and monsters. Her fists are clenched – a standard Arya pose – as she passes a hooded figure, a faceless man, and whispers “Valar Morghulis”. The director says cut. Maisie does a quick running man dance and pulls a face. No notes, no changes, a perfect take. Fans of the books would be able to tell by now that this is the House of Black and White, a key set for season five and the next stage of Arya Stark’s journey from tomboy to cold-eyed assassin. More than that though – well, it’s virtually pitch black, barely a word is spoken and…

INTO THE DARK BEYOND

The formerly triumphant Lannister family was left in disarray. Jaime was despatched to the tedious kingdom of Dorne to bring back his daughter Myrcella. He found her, only for her to be poisoned. Cersei was captured and tortured by religious nut, the High Sparrow. Shamed in King’s Landing, she’s now plotting revenge. Tyrion is doing rather well. He’s met up with his old ally Varys and the two are working to keep the peace in Meereen, following Daenerys’ unexpected departure. Daenerys was rescued from an assassination attempt and flown to safety by Drogon. She’s now stumbled upon a group of Dothraki, who may come to her aid. Lots happened near The Wall, including Stannis Baratheon sacrificing his daughter’s life and then paying the ultimate price himself. The White Walkers struck…

Lena Headey knows a thing or two about playing a badass. The Brit actress took on Judge Dredd as scar-faced Ma-Ma, traded barbs with Charles Dance on a daily basis in Game Of Thrones and licked a toad (for real) on the set of The Brothers Grimm. Headey has her own drum and she enjoys dancing to its beat. It’s a stifling July weekend when we meet her. Tall in summer wedges, with her tattoos on show, Headey sips an iced drink, a severe black fringe swept to one side. It’s a change from the long blonde tresses she wears as Cersei Lannister, the ice-cold Queen of the Seven Kingdoms in Game Of Thrones. Thanks to that show, Headey’s movie stock has soared in recent years. Though she claims to…

NICOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU

loved him from the very beginning, when I read the script for the pilot and it ends with him shagging his sister, pushing an innocent kid out the window and then saying, ‘The things I do for love…” says Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. In the past couple of years, the Danish actor has done everything from supernatural horror (starring as the guardian of two haunted young girls in the Guillermo del Toro-produced Mama) to big-budget sci-fi, joining forces with Tom Cruise in the high-concept Oblivion. For all his efforts on the big screen, though, he’s perhaps most well known for his appearances on the small one – as the ‘kingslayer’ knight Ser Jaime Lannister in HBO’s phenomenally successful George R.R. Martin adap, Game Of Thrones. “It was just the contradiction – it…

NICOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU

GAME OF THRONES SEASON 1

“THIS IS A CRUEL, BRUTAL WORLD WHERE INNOCENT PEOPLE DIE” 1.01 WINTER IS COMING Writers: David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Director: Timothy Van Patten Rating: IT’S AN ODD EXPERIENCE WATCHING ‘Winter Is Coming’ again, in the wake of the following episodes. In comparison it all seems so… calm. The Starks look, for the most part, like a happy and well-adjusted family. The Lannisters are clearly a dodgy bunch, but haven’t yet revealed just how bad they’re gonna get. That calm, of course, doesn’t last. The opening seven minutes make for a fantastic introduction to George R.R. Martin’s world. A group of scouts discover the site of a massacre – and then the creatures that caused it. The Wights are chilling creations, ice-bound zombies with pale blue eyes. Our introduction to…

GAME OF THRONES SEASON 1

“SEXUALITY, DEATH, HONOUR AND POWER, SPRINKLED WITH ACTION AND INTRIGUE “ 2.01 THE NORTH REMEMBERS Writers: David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Director: Alan Taylor Rating: THERE ARE PLENTY OF WAYS TO make an impact with the first episode of a new season, but few of them top butchering babies. Throw in armoured knights fighting to the death, incest, a boy king with a murderous rage and mysterious new characters, and it can mean only one thing: Game Of Thrones is back. It would be overwhelming if it wasn’t so well handled. Things kick off in King’s Landing, with King Joffrey having knights batter each other to death for his name day celebrations. You wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but Jack Gleeson’s performance as the odious Joff is even more…

“THE WAR HAS ALREADY TAKEN A DRAMATIC TOLL, BUT NOW IT’S GOING TO GET PERSONAL…” 3.01 VALAR DOHAERIS Writers: David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Director: Daniel Minahan Rating: A STORM OF SWORDS IS OFTEN CITED as the pinnacle of the Song Of Ice And Fire saga to date. It’s the moment where things well and truly do get real in Westeros, and because of that a decision was made to spread it across both seasons three and four of the show (the book itself is also often split into two volumes, Steel And Snow and Blood And Gold). With that in mind, it makes sense that ‘Valar Dohaeris’ is a good, but faintly ponderous episode. Not boring, of course – when has the show ever been that? But there’s a…

“NOW IT’S TIME TO BE REMINDED HOW DANGEROUS THE WILDLINGS CAN BE “ 4.01 TWO SWORDS Writers: David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Director: D.B. Weiss Rating: THE NEW SEASON STARTS WITH A slick prologue as Tywin has Ned Stark’s old blade melted down and reforged as two Valyrian steel swords for his own family. The war, it seems, is over and the senior Lannister is feeling confident in his position of power. Does that mean season four is going to be low key? Hardly. Prince Oberyn’s arrival in King’s Landing is an instant game-changer. The arrival of yet another faction risks leading to confusion, but the elegant Dornishman’s motivation is clear and relatable – he wants revenge on the Lannisters for the murder and rape of his sister, and the…

“DORNE IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR SINCE OBERYN STOLE OUR HEARTS” 5.01 THE WARS TO COME Writers: David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Director: Michael Slovis Rating: THIS FIRST EPISODE OPENS WITH something we’ve never seen before in Game Of Thrones: a flashback. The books are studded with glimpses of what came before the current events, but they’ve never been included in the show. It’s good that the showrunners have changed their minds, especially since Young Cersei’s trip to see Maggy the Frog and have her fortune told is such a pivotal moment in her life. Meanwhile, Tyrion is busy being tumbled about in the box we saw him in at the end of season four, before being unceremoniously dumped into the Illyrio Mopatis’ garden. Cue excellently witty dialogue between…

GAME OF THRONES TOP 10 MOMENTS

10 DAENERYS FREES THE UNSULLIED ‘AND NOW HIS WATCH IS ENDED’ 3.04 Daenerys has had a moral wobble. She’s just bought an 8,000 strong army of slaves to help her win her quest, and she even traded one of her dragons to do so. No, Dany, no! But then… psych! She doesn’t so much turn the tables as annihilate them, revealing that she was double-crossing the slave trader all along, freeing the army and unleashing hellfire. 9 THE BATTLE OF HARDHOME ‘HARDHOME’ 5.08 The White Walkers launch a brutal assault on the wildling town of Hardhome. It’s hard to know which bits of this battle are the most exciting: the pressure building at the wall as the creatures pile up behind it; the giants stomping on humans; poor Karsi coming…

GAME OF THRONES TOP 10 MOMENTS

ONCE UPON A TIME IN WESTEROS

BEAN THERE, DONE THAT Sean Bean relaxes between takes during the first season of Game Of Thrones. As Eddard Stark (Ned to his mates), Lord of Winterfell, the actor brought some A-list gravitas to the fledgling fantasy saga. And while Bean is infamously no stranger to meeting his maker on screen, Ned’s untimely beheading was Thrones’ first real gut punch – even for the readers of George R.R. Martin’s novels who knew it was coming. “What if the hero dies?” was the original one-line pitch that piqued HBO’s interest, according to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, setting up the show’s penchant for shock exits and its ‘nobody’s safe’ maxim. “Sean Bean was number one on the call sheet – and he got his head chopped off,” says Benioff. “So…

ONCE UPON A TIME IN WESTEROS

LET THEM EAT CAKE

RED (VELVET) WEDDING CAKE THIS DELICIOUSLY BLOODTHIRSTY CAKE MAKES A WEDDING GIFT TO DIE FOR, THOUGH SOME MAY FIND IT HARD TO STOMACH… FOR THE CAKES 1.15kg butter, softened 1.15kg caster sugar 18 medium eggs, lightly beaten 2 tsp vanilla extract 1kg self-raising flour 150g cocoa powder, sifted 2 pinches salt 2 tbsp (30ml) baking powder 10-11 tbsp (165ml) red paste food colour FOR THE BUTTERCREAM 750g butter, softened 1.8kg icing sugar, sifted 225g cream cheese 1 tsp vanilla extract FOR THE BLOOD, FIGURES AND ROSES 250g white ready to roll icing Small amount brown ready to roll icing Black, pink and red food colours 2 medium egg whites 350-500g icing sugar 1 tsp glycerine FOR THE ARROWS AND SWORD Chocolate sticks 1 packet of strawberry astro belts Melted chocolate,…

LET THEM EAT CAKE

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW... GAME OF THRONES?

THINK YOU KNOW YOUR WESTEROS FROM YOUR ELBOW? TAKE OUR QUIZ TO FIND OUT... 1 ‘Ours Is The Fury’ are the words of which House? 2 What is the name of Ned Stark’s greatsword, which he uses to behead a deserter in the show’s first episode? 3 In what year was Game Of Thrones first published? 4 Which legendary figure built the Wall? 5 What was the name of the dragon whose breath forged the Iron Throne? 6 Who is the King Beyond The Wall? 7 On which ’80s SF show – itself a revival of an earlier incarnation that ran from 1959 to 1964 – did George R.R. Martin work as a writer? 8 Which English city links Sean Bean, Mark Addy and Valyria? 9 Name Robert Barratheon’s brothers.…

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW... GAME OF THRONES?

50 GREATEST FANTASY FILMS EVER!

50 300 (2006) ZACK SNYDER’S BLOOD-SOAKED COMIC ADAP PAVED THE WAY FOR GAME OF THRONES… SPEND A FEW MINUTES listening to Zack Snyder and you realise why he was the perfect guy to helm 300. Like most directors, he thinks visually. Whether those visions are his or – as in the case of his big-screen adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel – another artist’s, they’re inevitably outrageous and oversized. But they’re also fuelled by a passionate urgency. Snyder speaks in quick, staccato bursts and, like a volcano that can’t erupt fast enough, words tumble forth before his mind has time to properly arrange them. It hardly matters. Snyder proved his skill at realising his visions with his breakthrough hit Dawn Of The Dead. Dawn proved that a horror film remake…

50 GREATEST FANTASY FILMS EVER!

PICTURE THE SCENE. IT’S twilight. Two little girls wait at a rainy bus stop. A frog crawls along the ground. Silence. And then… the click of footsteps on earth, soft at first, coming closer. The older girl looks up, seeing a furry, bear-like body, a wide, neckless head, a sultana nose, two round, white eyes. It is a Totoro, a creature of fable and fairy tale, coming to wait at a bus stop in a Japanese wood. This is just one of many sublime images from the films of Studio Ghibli, creator of such anime classics as Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro and Princess Mononoke. Some are ‘family’ films in the manner of Disney and Pixar, perfect for youngsters while still retaining an appeal for grown-ups. Others, especially Mononoke, are…

THE 10 GREATEST Middle-Earth moments

WELCOME TO HOBBITON THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING 10 IT MIGHT NOT BOAST the most spectacular views in Middle-earth, but Bilbo’s bucolic hometown bathes the whole series in a fuzzy glow of grassy hillsides, warm ale and happy Hobbits. Half merry olde England, half Teletubbie land, Gandalf’s sundappled entrance (to the strains of Howard Shore’s score) still feels like a big hug. SHELOB SQUISHING THE RETURN OF THE KING 9 “LET HIM GO YOU... FILTH!” Sam, the plucky, podgy Hobbit vs a giant poisonous spider. Animated a bit too well for arachnophobes, Shelob’s last stand proves Sam the real hero of the saga – and is a great reminder that, without him along for the ride, Frodo would’ve ended up in quite a pickle. GOBLIN CITY AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY 8…

THE 10 GREATEST Middle-Earth moments

HERE BE DRAGONS

VARIOUS GEORGES MÉLIÈS (1903–1911) French FX pioneer Georges Méliès gave us the first film dragons. Records suggest that the beast he created for Le Puits Fantastique (1903) also turned up in Le Palais Des Mille Et Une Nuits (1905). It was, in fact, just a large cardboard cut-out. THE RELUCTANT DRAGON (1941) An animated short based on the book by Kenneth Grahame of Wind In The Willows fame, set within a Disney film which took you on a fanciful tour at Disney studios (fanciful in that it made Walt look like a nice guy…). THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958) Ray Harryhausen gives us cinema’s first threedimensional dragon, with a stop-motion creation who has a tussle with a cyclops. Also the first instance of dragon bondage if you’re into that…

HERE BE DRAGONS

Future Fantastic

“IT’S ODD GIVING NOTES TO ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL WRITERS OF ALL TIME” POTTER’S STORY MAY BE OVER, BUT IT’S JUST THE BEGINNING FOR SPIN-OFF FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM… Director: David Yates Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston ETA: 18 November 2016 IN HOLLYWOOD, ONE THING’S for certain – you can’t keep a good franchise down. Case in point? When Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 rounded off the lucrative saga in 2011, few people actually thought that was going to be the last we saw of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world on screen – especially given the rich expanded universe she’d created within the books. And so, five years later, comes Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, the first of a new trilogy set…

Future Fantastic

Director: Duncan Jones Starring: Daniel Wu, Dominic Cooper, Travis Fimmel ETA: 3 June 2016 WORLD OF WARCRAFT IS big. Really big. In early 2015, almost 10 years after it was first launched, video game developer Blizzard’s all-conquering fantasy MMO had upwards of 10 million subscribers. Movie adaptation Warcraft: The Beginning is even bigger. Think Lord Of The Rings big. Or (whisper it) Avatar big. It’s a production that’s blending massive liveaction sets and lavishly costumed human characters with cutting edge performance capture creatures to a degree that no other film has dared attempt, let alone achieved. During our tour around Azeroth (aka the vast sound stages of Vancouver’s Bridge Studios) we’re led to the inner sanctum of Karazhan – the colossal tower of human mage Medivh (Ben Foster) – a…

Director: Alex Proyas Starring: Gerard Butler, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ETA: TBA JUDGING FROM THE SPECTACULARLY silly trailer that dropped in November, this $140m fantasy epic is either going to be so bad it’s kind of magnificent, or just plain bad. Set in ancient Egypt, when gods walked among humans (the clue’s in the title), it sees deity of darkness Set (Gerard Butler) throw all into chaos when he takes over the empire. The only hope to restore balance is the unlikely tag-team of mortal hero Bek (Brenton Thwaites) and blind god Horus (Game Of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who was actually deprived of his peepers by Set and so has something of a score to settle. Bek must retrieve magic objects, pass tests of courage and beat the…

The Huntsman: Winter’s War

Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt ETA: 8 April 2016 1 It’s a prequel/spin-off to 2012’s Snow White And The Huntsman, Rupert Sanders’ gritty, visually ravishing Grimm fairytale adap. Though Kristen Stewart’s Snow White isn’t returning, Chris Hemsworth is back as the titular wood-chopper. 2 The handy prequel loophole means Charlize Theron’s evil Queen Ravenna is still around, but it’s her sister, Ice Queen Freya (Emily Blunt), we should be worried about. “I don’t think I’ve played evil before, which is why it’s been so rewarding,” the Brit star says. “I’m surprised how much I enjoy it.” 3 Plot-wise, think Frozen for grown-ups as The Huntsman draws from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. Nursing a broken heart, Freya fashioned herself an ice palace decades ago,…

The Huntsman: Winter’s War

THOR: RAGNAROK Director: Taika Waititi Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo ETA: 27 October 2017 Described by Mark Ruffalo as a “buddy picture”, this film sees Thor (Chris Hemsworth) pairing up with Bruce Banner. Promising an apocalyptic event (‘Ragnarok’ means ‘end of the world’), it should shake up Marvel’s Phase Three. “I think they’ll probably fight,” Ruffalo concedes. “There’s no doubt everyone wants us to fight at one point.” ASSASSIN’S CREED Director: Justin Kurzel Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Brendan Gleeson ETA: 30 December 2016 Macbeth director Kurzel and stars Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard re-team for a muchanticipated riff on the actionadventure video game franchise. Creating new character rather than adapting an existing tale from the nine games thus far, expect to see The Fass play a 15th-century…

Sword & Sorcery

WITH ITS PLETHORA OF babes, beefcake, desert-locations and swashbuckling action, the sword and sorcery genre was a natural fit for both Hollywood blockbusters and low-budget filmmakers. Think about it: such A-list epics as Clash Of The Titans (1981), Excalibur (1981) and Conan The Barbarian (1982) provided audiences with incredible special effects, lavish sets and a roster of familiar faces. On the other hand, at the bottom of the B-movie barrel there was the exposed breasts and softcore sex of such VHS-era schlock-fests as Deathstalker (1983), The Warrior And The Sorceress (1984) and Amazons (1986). In other words, this was the sort of shindig which could be done as cheaply or as expensively as the filmmaker could fathom. Of course, given that the trend has made a semi-comeback of late –…

Sword & Sorcery

The good (fantasy) BOOK GUIDE

CHILDREN OF EARTH AND SKY by Guy Gavriel Kay (Hodder & Stoughton, Out 12 May) One for fans of Tigana, this new novel from Guy Gavriel Kay (Under Heaven) splices fantasy with a 13th Century setting of intrigue and war. In a story that entwines numerous lives, Children Of Earth And Sky follows a young woman attempting to get revenge for her family, plus a boy training to become a soldier ahead of a war, and a fledgling artist travelling into the dangerous realm of the east in order to paint the Grand Khalif. There’s a reason Kay has won the Aurora Award twice – this promises to be a suitably immersive read from an author who’s never been anything other than exceptional. THOSE BELOW: THE EMPTY THRONE BOOK 2…

The good (fantasy) BOOK GUIDE

THE MAGIC OF OPTIMISM

I HAVE BEEN A FANTASY FAN since I first heard about the witch who got cooked in her own oven; since I first tried to figure out what Moomins were, exactly; since I first picked up The Lord Of The Rings because it was the biggest book in the grown-up’s library and I wanted to show off. Fantasy has been with me my entire life, but it’s only in recent years I’ve started to think about where it’s going, and what state it’s in. Falling back in with traditional fantasy fiction a few years ago, I got the distinct impression that it was going through a serious period, or the titles getting the brightest spotlight were those with a gritty, even pessimistic core. It’s a divisive term, but ‘grimdark’ was…

THE MAGIC OF OPTIMISM

“DARK IS WHAT I ENJOY AND DO BEST. LIGHT AND HAPPY JUST AREN’T ME” How would you describe the world of Half Bad? It could be our world – it’s the present day but living secretly amongst us fains (non-witch people) are White witches and Black witches. The White witches think of themselves as the good guys, much as Donald Trump supporters do! Who is Nathan and is he your typical fantasy hero? Half Bad is Nathan’s story. Nathan is half Black witch and half White witch, so he doesn’t belong to either side. Nathan knows the White witches aren’t all good, but also knows that’s true of the Black witches and he’s fairly sure it’s true of himself as well. He’s small, tough and a great fighter, has suffered…

THE GRISHA TRILOGY by Leigh Bardugo (Orion) Kicking off with Shadow And Bone, Bardugo’s lush trilogy features a kick-ass heroine and some seriously cool powers as orphan Alina discovers she has a special ability that could change the world. DreamWorks bought the movie rights in 2012, so expect a film version to arrive in cinemas sometime in the near future. THE SENTINEL TRILOGY by Joshua Winning (Peridot) Monsters, massive action scraps and a talking cat all populate this gripping series, set in Cambridge and featuring the sort of scary twists that’ll give you nightmares for weeks. Fifteen-yearold Nicholas uncovers the world of the Sentinels with the help of gung-ho 70-year-old Sam Wilkins. Things will never be the same again… THE BLACKHART LEGACY by Liz de Jager (Tor) The third book…

Master of fantasy

THE TREASURE OF DAGON “I’ve been fascinated by deep-sea divers since I was in kindergarten. This scene is developed from a sketch I did some time back. I had decided to incorporate a Lovecraftian theme some 20 years before Lovecraft and the tentacle thing came into vogue. Working from some photos I took of a diving helmet and rig in the Naval Museum in Washington DC, I took pains to get the details just right.” NORHALLA OF THE LIGHTNINGS “Here is a scene I read that I couldn’t resist from The Metal Monster by A. Merritt. Merritt is underrated as an epic fantasist; his prose is ecstatic to the point of being hard to follow in places, but when you figure out what’s going on it’s startlingly visual. The scene…

Master of fantasy

LAST SUMMER SAW THE publication of Sir Terry Pratchett’s final Discworld novel, The Shepherd’s Crown. Because of a fault in reality, we’re sadly unable to talk with Pratchett himself about the book. Instead, inspired by Neil Gaiman’s moving tributes to his friend, we sought out the perspectives of Pratchett’s fellow writers on his work. Thanks to all who contributed – and to A.S. Byatt, who let it be known that her favourite Pratch novel was Small Gods but with whom we were unable to schedule an interview before our deadline. If you should ever have a moment to explain why it’s your pick, Dame Antonia… LAVIE TIDHAR THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN (1976) “You could say it’s his early science fiction book, but there’s something really charming about it,…

THE SCIENTISTS’ PERSPECTIVE

Prof Ian Stewart Mathematician and co-author of The Science Of Discworld books Equal Rites (1987) “It’s one of the early books by Terry where he’s getting seriously into social commentary. It’s about female equality on the Disc and the way he explores this is a lovely example of narrative imperative, the power of story, or in this case the power of magic, the way things happen because the magic wants them to. He has this nice set-up where the eighth son of an eighth son always has to go off to be a wizard and train at Unseen University. After a magical staff has been presented to the child, which turns him into a wizard, the midwife points out that actually it’s a girl. By the very straightforward logic of…

THE SCIENTISTS’ PERSPECTIVE

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