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The author of Skulls in the Stars is a professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. -
Category Archives: Fantasy fiction
Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Part 4
Time for another edition of Old School Dungeons & Dragons! I did soooooo many of these threads on twitter, I’m kinda amazed and appalled. Still have many to catch up on here… DDA1: Arena of Thyatis (1990), by John Nephew. … Continue reading
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Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Part 3
Working hard to make my old school D&D posts catch up to the ones I’ve done on twitter, which were a lot! Part 1 of Old School Dungeons & Dragons on the blog can be read here, and part 2 … Continue reading
Posted in Entertainment, Fantasy fiction
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Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Part 2
As long as I’m still on an old school kick, let me try and catch up with all my posts from twitter! Part 1 of Old School Dungeons & Dragons on the blog can be read here. Without further ado, … Continue reading
Posted in Entertainment, Fantasy fiction
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Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Part 1
In recent months, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with my early years of Dungeons & Dragons. I got into the hobby around 1981, the year that the red box Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set came out, and was a pretty hard … Continue reading
Posted in Entertainment, Fantasy fiction
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An Ode to the “Tomb of Horrors”
(NOTE: Updated the post to include one additional Tomb-related adventure, which I completely forgot about while first writing!) Part of this feeling on my part is certainly nostalgia, but there really isn’t anything quite like the original Advanced Dungeons & … Continue reading
Posted in Entertainment, Fantasy fiction, Horror
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The Broken Earth Trilogy, by N.K. Jemisin
Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things. So begins the beautiful, haunting, and apocalyptic Broken Earth Trilogy, written by N.K. Jemisin. It begins with The … Continue reading
Posted in Fantasy fiction, Science fiction
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Fred Saberhagen’s Swords Trilogy
At the end of 2017, we were treated to the news that Amazon was planning a new series based on Tolkien’s classic Lord of the Rings series. The response on the internet seemed to be a bit of a collective … Continue reading
Posted in Fantasy fiction
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The Sword of Midras, by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott
I’ve been getting very nostalgic recently for the video fantasy role-playing games of my youth, most notably the Ultima series of games. I played Ultima I – V when I was young, and even watched a complete walkthrough of Ultima … Continue reading
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E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros
If you were to ask most people to name the truly classic works of fantasy fiction, you would almost certainly hear J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” (1954-55) and “The Hobbit” (1937), as well as C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” … Continue reading
Posted in Fantasy fiction
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