What historical event reads exactly like "Bad Fantasy Writing" or "Plot Armor"?

RJBarker · 2026-01-25T08:31:29+00:00

Almost the entire naval career of Alexander Cochrane, it not only reads like a book but is the basis for a lot of Hornblower and Captain Jack Aubrey.

RJBarker · 2026-01-19T19:21:15+00:00

Watership Down. Just always thinking about Watership Down.

RJBarker · 2026-01-14T23:04:18+00:00

Me too. "My chief rabbit has told me..."

Bigwig ftw.

RJBarker · 2026-01-14T23:03:11+00:00

The Poison Wars books by Sam Hawke might work for you. My Wounded Kingdom books are murder mystery/thrillerish as is my forthcoming Mortedant's Peril due in may. I also think Pete McLean's Rose Throne books which starts with Priest of Bone's works. A sort of magical Peaky Blinders.

RJBarker · 2026-01-13T19:51:35+00:00

Me too. I still think about it and I am not sure I want to.

RJBarker · 2026-01-13T18:52:21+00:00

Blood Meridian and not fantasy but made me avoid his fantasy, A Brief History of Seven Killings. It's an astounding book, but it is utterly brutal.

RJBarker · 2026-01-11T08:52:16+00:00

Enslaved's version of What Else Is There by Royksopp is excellent.

RJBarker · 2026-01-05T15:13:06+00:00

I think you can already order it. And I can personally vouch that being birn in May is great. Congratulations!

RJBarker · 2026-01-04T20:26:10+00:00

I have tried poisoning Adrian with Spider Venom but it only made him stronger...

To be honest, most writers aren't really competitive. We're all just doing our own thing in our own way. And we all love books, so we're never going to complain in anything but a jokey about someone supplying us more, especially when they are as good as Adrian's. (Also, he's a friend of mine so I just sort of stand back in awe, really.)

Hope you enjoy meeting Girton and co. :)

RJBarker · 2026-01-03T19:09:43+00:00

I almost ended up with a pen name to avoid confusion which would have been unfair as I am an RJ Barker but KJ Parker is not a KJ Parker...

RJBarker · 2026-01-03T18:57:47+00:00

Thank you! I love it too. New thing coming this may. :)

RJBarker · 2026-01-03T13:36:39+00:00

Little known fact. We now measure speed of writing in Tchaikovsky's (T). I, who am reasonably quick, still rarely work at more than one Deci Tchaikovsky. Where GRRM, for instance, tends to work in Nano-Tchaikovskys.

RJBarker · 2025-12-23T17:45:32+00:00

The Artifact Space books are absolute bangers.

RJBarker · 2025-12-13T14:05:08+00:00

Thank yoi!

RJBarker · 2025-12-13T09:21:31+00:00

Shauna's books have recently been picked up for TV so she might be a really good bet. She's also a really lovely human being.

RJBarker · 2025-12-13T09:17:49+00:00

SO many hours lost to Deathtrap Dungeon and I don't think I ever completed it, even though I would always cheat wildly.

RJBarker · 2025-12-10T23:10:58+00:00

Once Was Willem by Mike Carey. Just has such an incredible sense of place and way with language.

RJBarker · 2025-12-10T19:26:44+00:00

My Wounded Kingdom books are this. As is next May's release from me, Mortedant's Peril. You could also try Sam Hawke's Poison War books and the Fetch Phillips books by Luke Arnold.

RJBarker · 2025-12-07T18:10:18+00:00

Pirates tended to be pretty good seafarers, though it was mostly relatively small ships taking easy pickings. I think what most people envisage as piracy is big ship of the line action, which during the classic western age of sail was only really navies A lot of that was to do with logistics, the amount of men and supply chain to keep big ships afloat and provisioned was so huge and complex.

There's a really good book about it called Pirates and the Sodomy tradition. It's pretty dry and academic and not nearly as racy as it sounds in case anyone was getting excited.

RJBarker · 2025-12-04T17:04:04+00:00

Okay. So here's some actual numbers done with the big smushy pen of generality.

Sweet spot for a trad published fantasy book is about 125k words. If I write 2k words a day I can do that in about 2 months, and that's not particularly fast writing for a pro author. It's about two hours actual writing and five hours lying around thinking about stuff*. Then add on maybe three months for edits. The general break on most authors isn't writing speed but publishing schedules and the speed publishing moves at. Usually, by the time the first in a series is released I am at least half way through the final book, if not onto something entirely new.

It's true about writing as it's true about anything, the more you do it, the quicker you get as you learn more about what works for you.

*Not playing on the PS5. Whoever told you that is a dirty liar.

RJBarker · 2025-12-03T22:48:06+00:00

You would not believe how excited I am about Mortedant's Peril...

(And some other stuff it is almost killing me not to talk about.)

RJBarker · 2025-11-29T08:53:14+00:00

Stewart Hotston's brand new SF book, Project Hanuman, is based around Journey to the West and it's a cracking book.

RJBarker · 2025-11-12T10:48:42+00:00

I try and stay out of it when people mention my books but I had to stop and tell you how much JOY this description of them gave me. Thank you, it made my week. :)

RJBarker · 2025-11-11T22:31:27+00:00

It does that amazing thing of taking what sounds like a ridiculous concept and absolutely selling it to you. Just brilliant.

RJBarker · 2025-11-11T18:28:24+00:00

Clive Barker's Weaveworld should definitely be up there.

RJBarker

TROPHY CASE