Fantasy Faction Fantasy Book Reviews & Community http://fantasy-faction.com
About
You can contact us via: Marc [at] Fantasy-Faction.com
Before 2010 I’d never been a big reader. However, I found myself with a bit of time on my hands so decided to try something a bit more substantial than the short biographies I typically picked up. It just so happened that I’d just completed Assassin’s Creed on the PS3 and so after walking into Waterstones (UK Bookshop) and seeing The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks for sale, I was tempted into picking it up by the similarities in the protagonists visible on the cover. I read through the book in two days and then tore through the two sequels just as quickly. I couldn’t believe that a book could put you through so many emotional states and have you care so deeply about characters. The epic story and vividness of the non-existent struck me. That said, at the time I was sure this was pure luck: that Brent Weeks was simply the most talented author to have ever lived and that I’d never experience this level of writing again. I decided to test this theory. I walked back into Waterstones and came across Peter V. Brett’s The Painted Man. Once again, I flew through the book in about two or three days and was stunned by all the same things that Brent’s books threw at me. I realised that the feelings that these novels can give you and the places they can take you weren’t exclusive to one or two authors, but were provided by all good work within the genre. This was something that I wanted to share with people. That grin that you take on as you read about a character as cool as Durzo Blint. The pain in your heart as Scott Lynch kills some of
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Fantasy Faction Fantasy Book Reviews & Community http://fantasy-faction.com
your favourite characters. The jaw dropping moments you have whilst reading prose as beautiful and poetic as Mark Lawrence’s. The suspense you feel as you wait for the thirteenth book in a series to arrive. The mob-mentality you become a part of as you demand George R. R. Martin hurries up and finishes ASOI&F or while you tell the rest of those ungrateful gits to shut up and let him take his time…I wanted to share all of it. I started this website to encourage people to read what I, and our staff members, consider good books capable of giving readers the feelings discussed above and to investigate the genre in an academic and enjoyable way through articles. To me, my job is to tell readers which books will rock their world and the articles are a way of investigating how this is achieved or how, as an author, you may achieve those same effects. I have never had an interest in telling a reader, “This book didn’t do anything for me.” There are plenty of other sites that do that. Fantasy-Faction is the name I chose to do this. A faction, for those who don’t know, is basically a grouping of like-minded individuals. The first goal I had was to add as many good quality reviews to the site as possible. The second was to build up a forum community. And the third was about adding content in a variety of mediums.
As of July 2013, Fantasy-Faction has been running for almost four years. It’s actually difficult for me to fathom how far we’ve come in that time. The figures make it a reality though: I’m honoured to say that on an average day we get around 2000 visitors and in the four years we’ve been running we’ve had over 3,000,000 page views to the website alone. Just think about that for a minute: 3,000,000. I know it is immodest of me to say, but in the four short years that we’ve been running we’ve grown to become one of the largest fantasy communities on the web. In addition to a sustained amount of hits, we’ve held two Fantasy-Faction events in two of London’s top bookshops, been awarded the Reddit’s Fantasy Site of the year award, nominated for the British Fantasy Award (twice), the World Fantasy Award, and were the only genre site to reach the Goodread’s Independent Blogger Award Finals. I’m always happy to hear from fans, authors and publishers, so, if you have any questions, drop me an e-mail at: Marc [at] Fantasy-Faction.com
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Fantasy Faction Fantasy Book Reviews & Community http://fantasy-faction.com
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Things We Are Proud Of: Reddit’s Best Fantasy Website Winner - 2013 World Fantasy Award Nomination - 2014 British Fantasy Award Nomination - 2013 & 2014 Angry Robot Blogger Nomination - 2013 Goodread’s Book Blogger Finalist - 2012
Fantasy-Faction In / On Books: Fantasy-Faction is always really proud when a quote from one of our reviews makes it onto a book cover or within the pages of the book itself. If you spot one please do send it over to us. So far our favourite spotting is the one on Adam Dalton’s latest novel from Gollancz, check it out:
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Fantasy Faction Fantasy Book Reviews & Community http://fantasy-faction.com
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