What makes a fantasy book “cosy”

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 1 Comment
A book nestled between a mug of marshmallow-filled hot chocolate, a lit candle, sticks of cinnamon and autumn leaves.
Photo by Leeloo The First on Pexels.com

I’m currently reading a fantasy novel for a book club I’m part of that is pure autumnal cosiness. It’s called A Dark and Secret Magic by Wallis Kinney, and it’s perhaps the cosiest book I’ve ever read, barring Legends and Lattes.

When I started it, the level of cosy was almost too much for me… I felt like the author was packing in absolutely every cosy thing you could possibly think of – delicious food and drinks, a quaint cottage, a cat, a fireplace, books, festive decorations, a friendly witch, even some crafty crochet moments – and I wasn’t willing to be wooed by her obvious tricks! Soon enough, however, I found myself falling under the story’s spell and wanting to return to it every evening to mentally curl up next to that warm fire.

All this brought up a question for me that I’ve often pondered and discussed with friends – what, exactly, makes a book cosy?

Continue reading →

From The Odyssey to Interstellar: Christopher Nolan’s haunting theme of lost time

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 6 Comments
Blurry black and white close up of the clock face of a wrist watch
Photo by Nothing Ahead on Pexels.com

It’s been a few months since Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey hit cinemas, but my husband said something interesting that stuck with me when we emerged from our local screening: “Nolan really likes exploring the idea of lost time.”

When I asked what he meant, he mentioned the wave planet sequence in Interstellar – which is coincidentally one of my all time favourite scenes and inspired elements of my own novel – as well as the film Inception. I realised he was right: both movies really do play with the emotional fallout of losing time, this idea that you might waste swathes of your life you can never reclaim and how you do or don’t come to terms with that.

This made me curious how many of Christopher Nolan’s films play with this idea, so I had a look at his filmography. I found six worth taking a look at.

Continue reading →

How fantasy and science fiction writers choose character and place names

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 6 Comments
Close up photo of scrabble tiles on a table spelling QWEN
Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.com

Last year I was on a panel at Bristolcon titled What’s in a Name? about fantasy and sci-fi names and how authors create them. I’ve been wanting to write a post on the topic ever since, since not only did the other panellists make some really interesting points, but in preparation for it I wrote way too many notes, and I justified the indulgence by telling myself I’d turn it into a blog post later. Now that October is nearly upon us again, and the next Bristolcon looms, I thought I’d finally pull out those notes and dive a little deeper.

Continue reading →

How fantasy subgenres have changed in the last decade

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 25 Comments
Bookshop display of romantasy and romance books with a sign that reads "our booksellers recommend"
Romantasy and romance books on display at Avid Reader bookshop in Brisbane, 2026 (Photo: Nicola Alter)

Over ten years ago I wrote a post that ended up being one of my most read of all time. I had just come out of tutoring a course on genre fiction, and I was frustrated by the fact that when I looked up fantasy subgenres online I would get one of three things: a detailed look at a few specific subgenres that ignored all the others, a breakdown of someone’s own very personalised way of categorising things, or an epic three-digit list of every fantasy sub-genre under the sun, many of which I’d never heard of.

Continue reading →

A traveller’s guide to fictional castles

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 7 Comments
Drawing of a tall gothic castle perched on a steep mountain with pointy spires silhouetted against a stormy nighttime sky
Image source: wailingwizard on Flickr, CC BY‑NC‑ND 2.0

For those of us who like a touch of the magical and the medieval, nothing quite beats a visit to a fictional castle. But with all those trap doors, winding passageways, and changeable stairs, it’s hard to know where to start and how to make the most of your time.

Yes, you may already have Diana Wynne Jones’s The Tough Guide to Fantasyland to help you tour the fantasy realm, but fictional castles are an experience all their own, and are deserving of some closer attention. Plus, let’s face it, the internet really needed another “top ten” list. So here are ten must-see sights and experiences to ensure a memorable, action-packed, and relatively peril-free stay.

Continue reading →

6 great science fiction and fantasy books that focus on language and linguistics

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 8 Comments
The angular carved shapes of Greek script line a shadowy ancient stone tablet set against a black background
Photo by Andy Kennedy on Unsplash

I’ve always loved science fiction and fantasy stories that focus on language, translation, and linguistics. And I’m not talking about the Tolkien-esque creation of whole fictional languages to furnish invented worlds, which I’m also in awe of, but about books where the very act of communication or translation itself becomes core to the plot.

Why do these stories appeal? I think it’s that mysterious sense that something needs to be “decoded”, the bridging of culture gaps, and the unlocking of exciting new possibilities for human (or non-human) connection. The theme of language itself also just inherently feels a little magical. The fact our brains are capable, with enough effort and exposure, to transform unintelligible babble into something meaningful, is remarkable. I admire the almost superpower-like ability of polyglots to shift seamlessly between different languages, and I enjoy encountering characters like this in stories.

Continue reading →

The magic of Project Hail Mary: 5 key elements

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 12 Comments
A shiny pin badge shows a space ship soaring across a circle with sun rays and stars beneath it, text at the edge reads project hail mary
The promotional pin I received at a recent screening of Project Hail Mary

I recently saw the film adaptation of one of my favourite novels, Project Hail Mary… twice. I’ve read the book twice, too. Back when I first picked it up it was one of those rare novels where I actually felt sad when I got to the end, not because I didn’t like the ending (I loved it), but because the story was over, and I would never get the same emotional experience of that “first read” back again. With the film adaptation, however, I did get something similar: a “first watch”. I’d been looking forward to the release ever since I learned it was in production, and I wasn’t disappointed. The filmmakers did a remarkable job of the adaptation, and I enjoyed every single moment in that cinema. I confess to shedding more than one tear.

Continue reading →

Reflections on World Fantasy Con 2025

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 10 Comments
Programme for “World Fantasy Convention 2025” featuring a haunting blue forest background, shadowy trees, cobwebs, and a hooded figure with many glowing eyes.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about attending Bristolcon, which I try to do every year. This week, I wanted to reflect on the second convention I went to this October, one I’ve never been to before. The World Fantasy Convention is an annual event that, as the “world” in the name suggests, takes place in different countries or cities – though rarely outside of the USA and Canada. This year it joined forces with Fantasy Con, run by the British Fantasy Society, and took place in Brighton on the weekend of Halloween.

This is not the first large international convention I’ve been to – my first was actually Worldcon in Dublin in 2019, and I went to Worldcon again last year when it came to Glasgow. I was curious, however, to see how WFC would differ, especially being a more UK-focused affair with the inclusion of Fantasy Con, and perhaps also a more fantasy-focused affair, given that Worldcon’s full name is actually ‘The World Science Fiction Convention’ and that it has a strong science-fiction focus.

I was also simply curious what it would be like to do two cons back-to-back, and wanted to join other friends who were going. So I set off to Brighton, keen to find out.

Continue reading →

Reflections on Bristolcon 2025

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 13 Comments
Blue front cover of a printed convention programme reads "Bristolcon: booklet of mildly useful facts and fiction of dubious value, best before Nov 2025."

I’ve been a bit quiet recently, but for a good reason at least – a few weeks ago I attended two fantasy and science fiction conventions in the UK. The first, Bristolcon, is a favourite I attend pretty much every year. This October, however, the stars aligned to put the World Fantasy Convention only a week later in Brighton. What’s more, this particular World Fantasy Con joined forces with Fantasy Con (an annual UK-based convention run by the the British Fantasy Society) in a sort of extra-large affair, so it seemed worth going to both.

If you’re getting confused by all the extremely similar con names, you’re not the first… a few times when drafting this post I accidentally wrote “Worldcon” instead of “World Fantasy Con”, which would be an entirely different con yet again.

Anyway, I wanted to share a few personal reflections and highlights from both conventions, but in this post I’ll just focus on Bristolcon to keep things short. I’m also not going to write extensively about everything I attended, because the mere thought is exhausting and because I didn’t take diligent enough notes, so I’ll simply pick out a few highlights that stayed with me.

Continue reading →

My top 5 steampunk destinations in Germany

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 11 Comments
Exterior view of the Ferrodrom at Völklinger Hütte, showing rusted towers, smokestacks, and green flags atop historic steel structures.
The Völklingen Ironworks in Germany’s Saar region—a warren of rusted towers, smokestacks, and steam-age machinery now preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

While I was writing a previous post on the origins of steampunk, inspired by a trip to Wuppertal, it occurred to me that I’ve actually been to several other very “steampunk” locations in Germany since moving here. As a country that boomed during the industrial era, it has a lot of these to offer, but they’re sometimes off the beaten track and not the first attractions listed among the ‘must-sees’ of a region (often displaced by castles or quaint villages, which I can completely understand!).

As a writer of science fiction and fantasy, however, these places filled me with a particular kind of thrill and wonder, as if I’d been transported into another century or stepped into the pages of a novel. Steam-era architecture, giant cogs, brass finishes, steel rivets, historic machines, old fonts… it all felt like fertile inspiration just waiting to be transformed into a steampunk tale or artwork.

Continue reading →