Ancient Priests: Practical Impacts of Early Experts
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the role of ancient priests and how temples helped early civilizations thrive. As a culture, we do a pretty poor job of looking beyond the...
Tagged: rome
Maritime Empires: the Phoenician Gap
We in the West seem to spend a lot of time tracing our cultures back to the maritime empires — thalassocracies — like the Greeks and the Vikings, but we spend very little time talking about the civilization that inspired Greece to consolidate its military power.
Giants in War: Frost Giants & Firbolgs
When I attended Balticon 50 over Memorial Day Weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing an amazing panel that looked at created religions in science fiction and fantasy. I arrived...
Exaggeration: History Becomes Myth
It was the Black Company series by Glen Cook that made me realize how often history becomes myth, exaggerated beyond meaningful belief. The Books of Glittering Stone detail a religion...
Religion & War in Myth Cycles
As I research background for my novel, I’ve noticed that many of the stories from which we’ve gained our understanding of ancient cultures have fundamental similarities. There is, for example, often war...
Fictional History: An Exercise in Loglines
I believe that the history of a fictional world should be compelling in its own right. Our history is frequently made into stories, be they wildly exaggerated ancient epics like...
