Over on Book Brouhaha, a site dedicated to the short story, The Pit got reviewed, receiving 4/5 stars, which is high praise indeed given most short stories reviewed there seem to get a lower rating.
Posts Tagged ‘minotaur’
The Pit Reviewed
Posted: May 21, 2011 in fantasy, Pure EscapismTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, minotaur, Pure Escapism, Short story
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The Future of the White Bull
Posted: May 5, 2011 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, minotaur, Pure Escapism, writing, writing update
I’ve been doing some planning on the future of The Chronicles of the White Bull collection of stories and have come up with a bit of a outline.
In all, including the four stories written so far, there are going to be ten in total. The next four will be written and released in pairs, like the first four, and then I’ll read a prologue and epilogue story, the start and the end of Nhaqosa’s story, and release them all as an anthology, comparable in length to a full novel. Hopefully I’ll even be able to get some proper artwork for the cover. Of the remaining six I have plans or have started writing four of them.
While doing all that I’ll also be working on the Peregrine and Blade stories, but once the Nhaqosa series is done I’ll be starting on a new one – The Halir Ashford Expeditions. Halir Ashford, professor, explorer, historian and adventurer, was just meant to be a bit character to help the plot in a story that barely got started before it was set aside but Halir survived and thrived, and is a central character in two novelettes (The Tomb of the Tagosa Kings & Gifts and Sacrifices) and both novels (Tears of the Mountains & Winter Wolves), as well as being in an unfinished novellas (Dawn of Wolves). The collection he will be in will help flesh out the history, both past and present, of the world of Sharael.
Now just to get it all written…
A New Nhaqosa Story: Wisdom from the Ashes
Posted: December 3, 2010 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, minotaur, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
The next chapter in The Chronicles of the White Bull is now on the site, entitled Wisdom from The Ashes.
It follows on from the events of Echoes of Dark Reflections and Nhaqosa is not in a good state physically or mentally from the encounter in the dark crystalline tower. His band is starting to fray without his leadership, and worse are the dreams that haunt him both day and night.
Coming Soon
Posted: October 6, 2010 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, minotaur, Pure Escapism, Short story, Tears of the Mountain, writing, writing update
Just a quick update of what is in the works – besides the work on the website.
Secondly, and possibly more importantly, I need to complete Wisdom from the Ashes, the forth story in the Nhaqosa series, The Chronicles of the White Bull. The sooner the better, so that I can update the compilation for Smashwords and make it premium.
I also need once last look over Tears of the Mountain and to start approaching agents to see if I get any interest.
Plenty Of Minotaur Fans Out There
Posted: September 21, 2010 in Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, minotaur, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
Since I started this blog almost two years ago I have made some 300 posts. Of them one post – simply entitled The Minotaur – has been responsible for more hits from search engines than any other. By a massive amount. Minotaur has resulted in almost 7 times as many hits as the next highest term, which is ‘fantasy clichés’. In fact seven of the top 10 hits from search engines have to do with minotaurs, and even the Cyrillic spelling of minotaur rates a mention on the list.
Maybe most of my posts haven’t been interesting or maybe there is a bigger pool of Minotaur fans than I realised.
I’d like to think it is the second, and if it is so then it would seem a good idea to expand on the stories of Nhaqosa the Minotaur, of which three have been written so far.
So with that in mind I shall work hard on completing the next in the series and ponder further stories beyond that.
A New Idea
Posted: August 24, 2010 in fantasy, Pure EscapismTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, gladiators, minotaur, pulps, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
I’m midway through the rough draft for the new Nhaqosa the minotaur short story, untitled as yet. The very first story I put on this website – The Pit – was about him (though it wasn’t initially meant to be so) and is still one of my favourites.
I’ve just rewatched Gladiator, and doing so reminded me of what it was the inspired The Pit – that and the D&D Dark Sun setting (which at the time hadn’t even been announced as being re-released.)
It got me thinking about Nhaqosa and his story and a few ideas sprung to mind, mostly to do with how he ended up a gladiator to start with, and his life – and fights – in the world, especially about how he came to command such respect amongst the other gladiators. So at some stage I plan to write about that, and explore more the grim nature of the setting he is in.
The Minotaur
Posted: August 18, 2009 in fantasyTags: fantasy, minotaur, minotaurs, World Building, writing
As may have been noticed in some of the short stories, I like minotaurs. While many races have been culled from the world of my writings, the minotaurs survived and thrived.
I am not sure exactly where my fascination for the minotaur comes from. In Greek mythology the Minotaur was a singular creature, not a race, and was something of a violent monster that ate dwelt in the labyrinth of Crete and devoured young men and maidens. He was slain by Theseus of Athens (though this being a Greek story, it ends in tragedy for Theseus as well.)
Every since, minotaurs have generally been depicted as being rather violent, barbaric and evil creatures. Mostly. Yet despite this, I had a soft spot for them. When I first started writing fantasy at a young age, one part of the world had what I refer to as the half-men; minotaurs, centaurs and satyrs. At the time C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books were one of my main influences, hence the centaurs and satyrs. While minotaurs did rate a reference at times, they were on the White Witch’s side.
I think I may have wondered why the half-man/half-bull creatures were bad while the half-man/half-horse and half-man/half-goat creatures were good, so I included them all in together. Since then the centaurs and satyrs have been culled (reluctantly, and they may return as creatures of one of the Otherwords) but the minotaurs remained. My biggest concern is that I may have made them a little too good.
Recently minotaurs have been seen in a more positive light, one of the main reasons being Warcraft. In Warcraft III a race of bullmen made an appearance – the Taurens. They were minotaurs with an Amerindian influence. They were wise and calm and lived in balance with nature and became an integral part of The Horde. They are seen by both sides as being probably the most ‘good’ of any race. Hardly surprising then that in WCIII and World of Warcraft that I turned out to be an avid Horde player – and my main was a Tauren Druid called Kwatalani.
So here is to the noble minotaur and be on the lookout for further appearances of them in my stories.
The Merchant’s Legacy Completed
Posted: July 21, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, minotaur, minotaurs, Pure Escapism, Short story, writing, writing update
I have finished off the editing for the latest short story in the Pure Escapism collection; The Merchant’s Legacy.
This is a follow up to the short story The Pit, though picks up the action some time afterwards and follows Nhaqosa, the giant white Minotaur and escaped gladiator, as he seeks the long roads to his home. The lands that he and his followers tread though are in the grip of drought and lawlessness, beset by bandits and monsters and seldom does he find a welcome. A chance encounter with the merchant Kythias may change all that…
It is the longest of the stories to date, coming in at around 11,000 words in length. I’m quite happy with the way it turned out, and the character of Nhaqosa. He is a fierce warrior when he needs to be, yet has a gentle side to him and at times can be a touch philosophical. I look forward to writing more stories with him in it in the future.
Mist and Shadows 