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With a strong flavour of Peake and touches of Moorcock, this darkly brilliant story of a young boy’s rise to greatness is a standout novel in a bloated genre
Culture comes in clumps, like queues of No 7 buses. In the 1590s everyone was writing sonnets; in the 1950s cinema was wall-to-wall westerns. Soon enough a new vogue catches the public imagination – gothic novels or misery memoirs, Biblical epics or science fiction – but it’s tricky to be a writer in the middle of such a craze. Write the first sonnet and the world beats a path to your door. Write the millionth and it’s liable to be derivative, and so ignored.
Consider fantasy. Bookshop shelves groan, nowadays, with tales of magical realms and magical cities and magical schools, from JRR Tolkien and his many imitators to Terry Pratchett, JK Rowling, George RR Martin and NK Jemisin. What if you want to write your own fantasy novel? How to avoid being just one more orc in the horde? Continue reading...