While I did not grow up there, I spent many years living in Florida, in the Tampa Bay area. With a series planned (now dropped, sadly) focusing on the Caribbean, Mesoamerica, and pirates, I decided to use a temporary return…
The term “mana” has become popular in fantasy gaming as a kind of “magic points” systems, deriving from Larry Niven’s use of the Polynesian word in his classic fantasy. While not entirely inaccurate, this belies the sophistication of the term.…
Wotan. Woden. Odin. He’s got twelve names. Except it’s more like a hundred. Or several hundred. The most enigmatic god in Norse and Germanic mythology became the primary protagonist of my Gods of the Ragnarok Era series for good reason.…
Pandora (“all-gifted” or “all-giving”), famous in pop culture for opening the “box” of troubles she can never close, has long captured imagination. The conception of Pandora’s jar as Pandora’s box dates to the Renaissance, and has since become the iconic…
I think I first heard about this SPFBO finalist via the Grimdark Readers and Writers Facebook page, the premise catching my eye. A cosmic horror story set in the midst of the Opium Wars. Yes, please, don’t mind if I…
The term “shaman” comes from the Tungusic and most appropriately applies to mediums and healers within the Evenki culture (found in modern Russia). Nevertheless, lacking a more generalized term for such practitioners of animistic worldviews, anthropologists use the term as…
After two and a half months in Albania, we had cause to head back to the Western Hemisphere. Based on the timing of certain external factors, we decided to make a stopover in Mexico on our way back to Florida.…
We spent two and a half months staying in Tirana, Albania. During that time, we decided to take a day trip to North Macedonia, given that it was in easy driving distance. We hired the same guide who had taken…
Tirana In early January the Larkin family traveled to Tirana, Albania, where we’ve been for almost two months. This Balkan nation had the advantage of being open to travelers on US passports (unlike most of Europe), having low covid cases,…
Edinburgh Sometime around the first century AD, the local Scots in Edinburgh built a fort upon a hill to defend against Romans. It worked, and if you’ve seen how steep the hill is, you’d not be surprised. Later, a full…