When I reviewed issue #5 of the visual effects journal Cinefex, I had this to say about stop-motion animation legend Ray Harryhausen: "I’ve always found it astonishing that the man who invented the Dynamation process (whereby models are animated frame-by-frame in front of a screen projecting a previously-shot live-action plate) seemed reluctant to embrace newer … Continue reading Ray Harryhausen – Knowing When the Monster’s Coming
The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Meteor Crater
My novels might be fantasy, but many of the locations in them are real. Welcome to part 4 of this handy travel guide to a mythical world that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. Towards the end of Dragonflame, the final book in the Dragoncharm trilogy, opposing dragon armies clash in the skies above an enormous … Continue reading The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Meteor Crater
Wide Angle Writing
I hated history at school. Except for the drawing. I liked some of that, especially the diagrams of motte-and-bailey castles. I was utterly bored by the endless lists of English monarchs, the sleep-inducing accounts of meaningless wars, tedious revolutions and labour marches within which no one thing related to anything else, much less to my … Continue reading Wide Angle Writing
Revisiting Cinefex (31): Spaceballs, The Witches of Eastwick, Masters of the Universe
Want to see a Winnebago zooming through space? Just park yourself in front of Mel Brooks's 1987 sci-fi parody Spaceballs. Alternatively you could take a look at the front cover of Cinefex #31. The celestial camper in question goes by the name of Eagle 5 and is in fact a detailed miniature photographed on Apogee's … Continue reading Revisiting Cinefex (31): Spaceballs, The Witches of Eastwick, Masters of the Universe
The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Cheddar Caves
My novels might be fantasy, but many of the locations in them are real. Welcome to part 3 of this handy travel guide to a mythical world that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. In chapter ten of of Dragoncharm, a dragon called Cumber is tasked with finding a waterfall hidden within a labyrinthine … Continue reading The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Cheddar Caves
The Storyteller Eternal
Nobody knows exactly when the first stories were told. I'm going to stick my neck out and pitch in at 250,000 BC, but only because it's a nice round number and I don't have a time machine. It feels like a fair guess. The "Out of Africa" theory of human evolution suggests our early homo sapiens ancestors may … Continue reading The Storyteller Eternal
The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Mount Teide
My novels might be fantasy, but many of the locations in them are real. Welcome to part 2 of this handy travel guide to a mythical world that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. Every good quest story needs a final destination. In the case of Dragoncharm, it's the Plated Mountain, an ancient volcano … Continue reading The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Mount Teide
The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Kimmeridge Bay
My novels might be fantasies, but many of the locations in them are real. Welcome to part 1 of this handy travel guide to a mythical world that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. The opening scene of my fantasy novel Dragoncharm is set in one of my favourite places on the globe: Kimmeridge … Continue reading The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Kimmeridge Bay
Revisiting Cinefex (30): Little Shop of Horrors, The Gate, The Golden Child
Ellen Greene's looking worried on the front cover of Cinefex #30, and why wouldn't she? She's face to face (or is that lips?) with carnivorous space-plant Audrey II in a scene from Frank Oz's 1986 musical Little Shop of Horrors. The voracious vegetable was created live 0n-set by Lyle Conway in a tour-de-force of puppetry. … Continue reading Revisiting Cinefex (30): Little Shop of Horrors, The Gate, The Golden Child
Revisiting Cinefex (29): Star Trek IV, King Kong Lives, Top Gun
It's hardware all the way on both the front and back covers of Cinefex #29. Up front is the Klingon 'Bird of Prey' spaceship swooping under the Golden Gate Bridge in Leonard Nimoy's 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The back cover shows a missile strike on a MiG fighter from Tony Scott's … Continue reading Revisiting Cinefex (29): Star Trek IV, King Kong Lives, Top Gun
Graham Edwards – Author & Journalist 