Fantasy is something that I have wanted to enter for sometime now, yet I am afraid that if I do so, I will constantly screw up. Too much fantasy is cliché; a knight/errant boy/etc. helped out by a wise old magician who is not all what he seems seeking a woman or a ring (why is that so? Wouldn't you think that the guy would want a '68 Mustang once in a while?)

What I like to do is to take those elements and twist them, warp them just a little. For instance. What if the wise old man didn't know everything? Supposing that the wise old man was just a tired old man? And the boy is set amongst all enemies; nobody to help him, everybody wanting something for their own ends and purposes. (I thought about making the boy a girl, and I still might do that, but right now I am more comfortable in my own gender).

I believe that speculative fantasy (which is what I lump sci/fi and fantasy under) should be just that. Startrek, while being a fine show, often shows us only blurred mirrors of ourselves in aliens. Get a few bumps on your head or have a plastic surgeon on cocaine work on you and you become an alien. Aliens should be more than just humans with strange ears. They should be totally different in form and figure, and in philosophy as well.

Well enough of my rants for now, but more to come.

John Meyer, while lurking in his private dungeon, often brings out many strange and dark things.