Really Quite Useful Things

Ever so often, I find some Really Quite Useful Things.

Here are three:

The Mythic Scribes Newsletter has never bombarded me with emails, but when their articles do pop up in my inbox, it is always an interesting read (have a peek at Racial Diversity in Speculative Fiction, for example).

I’ve been subscribed to Helping Writers Become Authors for a while now, and K.M. Weiland is currently in the middle of a series of ‘Creating Stunning Character Arcs’. It’s well worth checking it out.

And last, but in no way the least, comes Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast. He is a born storyteller and listening to him is fascinating. No dry and crusty ol’fount of knowledge there – he speaks with thoughtfulness and passion on a subject which he clearly loves.

I’ve finished his Wrath of the Khans series and am nearly at the end of Death Throes of the Republic. I would really recommend them, however, I will warn you that parts of the Wrath of the Khans series can get quite gruesome. Because the Mongols were not a … delicate people with squeamish stomachs when it came to vengeance and crushing their opponents. To put it lightly.

(Do you know how many people they killed? The terrible price their foes paid? How the Mongols could have conquered all of Europe and later, Egypt but each time they were stopped by nothing less than Providence. But what that Providence was I’m not telling you. Don’t you dare Google it – go listen, be swept away to another time and a very dangerous place).