This book seemed eerily fitting for my recent travels, watching England open up again, declaring premature victory over a disease that didn’t know it was fighting a war against the obese British spirit.

I read The Killing Moon on my quest to find “comparative literature” for my fantasy novel - The Three Lovers: Mirror Of Death.

As with every list, this comes with a preface that these are my PERSONAL choices, completely idiosyncratic, with all my biases.

I read these four books as I was finishing a draft of my own fantasy novel, and they were a brilliant companion.

When I’m talking about D&D modules, they are the adventures that when added together, make up campaigns. They are not settings and they are not campaigns. They don’t have to be added together, but I like to do that.

In the original AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, Gary Gygax wrote a brilliant Appendix (N), which was a list of all the inspirational fantasy and science-fiction reading for aspiring Dungeon Masters.  I’ve compiled my own list…

Hilarious story from my D&D game… a succubus, an artist and an egotistical dwarf.

No writer is without influences, without loves of other’s books that are lodged in their mind. Here are the books of particular influence for The Three Lovers: Mirror of Death. 

The Belgariad has truly loveable characters, the mythology is interesting, the names and settings are trope-laden but memorable. It’s still one of my favourite fantasy series despite all the flaws.

I thought it a beautiful series, with a charm that made the interweaving “Chosen One” storyline and Arthurian Mythology somehow shine, proving that cliches can go beyond their source material with a gifted writer who has a different take.

I think it’s very interesting to explore how everyone got involved with the greatest hobby in the world, so I’m going to share my first exposure to Dungeons & Dragons.

This fantasy series seized my imagination and became my favourite trilogy after a single read through.

In this review I will attempt to review the series as a whole, whilst also talking a little about the books separately.

I listen to music whilst I’m writing, I find it really helps me stay in the atmosphere of the genre or moment that I’m writing for, whether it’s for D&D or my novels.

The soundtrack is surprisingly important, especially to the games I run, my players have come to expect a killer soundtrack to come with it.

I never fudge (fake) dice rolls.

Players usually create backstories that make them loners. They travel alone until they find their party of adventurers who become their best buddies. It’s the story of D&D.

Sometimes a campaign just falls apart. I’ve been the DM for over 20 different campaigns, and quadruple that and more with adventures and one-shots. It just happens. 

The concept being old in fantasy, that the land grows when the king is good, that the crops flourish and the people prosper when the king and the land are united in purpose.

This phrase has become a mantra in nearly all of my campaigns. All of my players know it and are scared to revivify, raise dead, reincarnate and resurrect dead NPCs or PCs, even though sometimes they know that they must.