Covid-19 is far from the first pandemic the world has faced. The bubonic plague first emerged in history during the sixth century CE. Called the Plague of Justinian, it spread rapidly around the Mediterranean, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire, killing off an estimated one-third of the population. Some estimates put the death […]
Fantasy lovers, despair not. I’m making good progress with the sequel to my first-published novel, The Bones of the Earth. As regular readers will know, it’s titled The Triumph of the Sky. It continues the story of Javor, the young Sklavenic man who was pulled into a strange war he could not have imagined. […]
As we approach what would have been the hundredth birthday of my father-in-law and the subject of the Eastern Front trilogy, here’s a sample that describes life during the Nazi German occupation of Ukraine, 76 years ago. Kalush, western Ukraine 1943 The first Friday night dance was held at the newly established Prosvita Ukrainian Reading […]
Writing can go fast, and then you run headfirst into a wall: how did ancient people live? What did they eat? What kind of clothes did they wear? What were their houses like? This gets more challenging the more obscure you get, particularly when you’re dealing with pre-literary cultures. I’m deep into writing The Triumph […]
Since the publication of Wildfire last month, I have returned to the work-in-progress that I have been promising for so long: The Triumph of the Sky, the sequel to The Bones of the Earth and Book 2 in the Dark Age trilogy. A story set more than 1,400 years ago, requires a lot of historical […]
By J.L. Oakley This is an amazingly good book. The Jossing Affair reminds me of Dr. Zhivago: it’s a story that helps us understand a world-changing, vicious conflict through a close focus on a few people caught in it. At its heart, it’s actually a realistic love story. Janet Oakley is an author I admire. […]
Patriotism is a strange thing. It has always seemed to me to be a little artificial to claim some personal credit for things that other people do in the name of the group or country you come from. But at the same time, the shame on behalf of your country feels very real. This weekend, […]