If you go to your bookshelf and pick up your favorite gaming book, whether it’s from Apophis Consortium or Evil Hat Productions, reread the fiction or flavor text that’s used as chapter breaks or to enhance the setting. Now, check out your other books and see how many World of Warcraft-inspired novels or Forgotten Realms stories you have.

Do you remember what you liked about them? Disliked?

USA Today bestselling author Yasmine Galenorn writes the Otherworld/Sisters of the Moon Series for Berkley (Witchling, Changeling, Darkling, etc.). In the past, she wrote the paranormal Chintz ‘n China Mystery Series, the Bath & Beauty Mystery Series (the latter written as India Ink) and eight nonfiction metaphysical books. With Darkling, she hit the extended NYT bestseller’s list.

Yasmine has been in the Craft for over 28 years, is a shamanic witch, and describes her life as a blend of teacups and tattoos. She lives in Bellevue WA with her husband Samwise and their four cats.

In this interview, we sit down with Yasmine to talk about her success on bestseller list, how her nonfiction work has influenced her writing, and her involvement with an online auction, created by writer Brenda Novak, to raise funds to find a cure for diabetes.

Ravens of Avalon is the type of fantasy novel that also falls into the realm of historical fiction. The tale is a sequence of events about the Roman invasion of Britannia, threaded together with a cast of characters focused on Boudica, an Iceni Queen who united Britannia and led a bloody, short rebellion against their Roman invaders.

Having read some of the other “Avalon” novels, I expected certain conventions to remain true to this story. For one, this is a story told from the point-of-view of a priestess from Avalon, the Druid tradition. This alone makes the story different, more colorful to read as you travel back to the time of early civilization, and are able to understand not only what the goals of the characters are about, but what life might have been like during those ancient times.

When I say that I’ve read a lot of fantasy novels over the years, I mean that there was a time in my life where I was reading about the equivalent of a book a day. As a lightning fast reader, I’ve read everything from C.S. Friedman, Margaret Weiss and Tracey Hickman to Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, Melanie Rawn and Tad Williams. Included in that bucket of work, were novels I picked based on their size and whether or not there were several books that followed in a series. After a while, I got burnt out on traditional fantasy (with the exception of a few authors) simply because I got tired of the formula. A waif-like character (male or female) ends up saving the world time and time again, but not before becoming ungodly powerful in the way that only fantasy characters can.

You may recall that we recently posted a call for suggestions to review horror webcomics. Well, I’m happy to report we’re digging deep into all things gory and illustrated to provide you with a list of the best places to visit on the web. One work of horror comedy art turned up in a place […]

Great for writers and game designers, I’ve never come across a more thorough and massive work detailing creatures so rare you may not recognize them. There are two, other books in the series entitled, The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells and The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. If either of those two books are as down-to-earth and fact-filled as this one, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy either one to add substance to my fantasy stories.

Michelle Belanger lends her soprano voice to this musical selection by Nox Arcana.

Like their other selections, Blood of Angels is based on a theme. In this case, the idea that the “Watchers” alluded to in myth and religious texts were angels that fell from Heaven to fall in love with humans.

Whether you have tried to publish one piece of fiction or 100, chances are you visited Ralan.com’s SpecFic and Humor Webstravaganza for better listings of publishers than the Writer’s Market has to offer. In this interview, we hear from Ralan himself about his work and the thoughts behind offering free information for all writers to access.

If you’re not familiar with the site, Ralan does offer this invaluable information for free and survives off of donations and the kindness of others. This massive source of publishers, webzines and contests features everything from Weird Tales to Ralan’s Flash Fiction Contest. So sit back and hear from the man behind Ralan.com about his fiction, freelancing and other projects.

Independent films often struggle with their ability to attain audiences and garner recognition. I like to think that some of these lesser-known films are self-aware, either stretching their boundaries to be a “great” film, or toying with conventional filmmaking to experiment with the media.

Review by Monica Valentinelli

As the last of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the finishing touch to a series full of magic, mystery and friendship. Having read all of the books, I’m sure that fans of the series have either already picked up this book or will shortly. Still, there are interesting things to point out here that have left many readers feeling a little bit unsatisfied with the events that have happened here.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I picked up The Fountain; I had read some other reviews of it before I went out and got it and was intrigued by Darren Aronosfky’s writing and film style. Going into it, I had thought it was a film about the fountain of youth, about a couple who were possessed with finding the mythic “fountain” to restore and heal Izzy (played by Rachel Weisz) from her terminal illness.

Do you enjoy fright in your InBox every morning? Do you jump with glee when blood splatters all over your web page? Well, new to Flames this year will be reviews of the good, the bad, and the horrific in new media formats that we haven’t covered before. We couldn’t think of a better place […]

Sometimes the best in horror comes from the most unlikely of places; some of you might remember Franklin W. Cain’s Lego® Cthulu. While building horror images with Legos® can be a lot of fun (my favorites are the Darth Maul Lego® Sculpture Kit and the Viking Fortress against Fafnir Dragon) Brick Films knows that Legos® […]

When Wizards first announced it’s new Open Game License (OGL) for publishers, a flurry of forum activity like this thread on RPGnet covered concerns from fans, contributors and publishers. Wizard of the Coast’s new OGL license for 4th Edition Rules hardly resembles the previous, free-flowing version, and while you may (or may not) agree with the way that Wizards has handled this aspect of their business, I still feel that it’s important to point out that this change could affect freelancers workflow and payment schedules.

Having read quite a few “compendiums” and “how-to” guides, some take a very emotionally-filled and visual approach, to tap into and encourage your belief in this form of divination. For me, I am attracted to a more pragmatic approach because I primarily use or research these tools for my writing. In my opinion, neither method is “bad” or “good” for, like all books, it depends upon what you want to get out of it.

If you’re in your car on the way to work, you might do as I do and invest in audiobooks. This particular audiobook was a rare find; I managed to get my hands on a copy of two plays for voices without ever knowing it existed. In fact, when I picked this up I had no idea what it was about, I just bought it on blind faith, hoping that Gaiman’s work would not disappoint me. I was pleasantly surprised.

In Marvel’s continued Ultimates series, this particular feature is a re-imagining of Doctor Strange. This film focuses heavily on eastern philosophy and mythic influences, adding several characters that emphasize a larger setting.

Billed as a “young adult” novel, Ironside is the conclusion to a three-part series written in the modern fantasy genre. I’ve chosen to write this review without providing spoilers, for those of you who enjoy being surprised. Although this is officially a “YA” novel, with several awards to boot, there are a lot of adult themes that are appropriate for mature readers. For those that make the distinction between happy fairy tales and dark fantasy, Ironside definitely falls within the realm of dark fantasy and, at times, is full of horrific scenes. I feel that these distinctions are important to make, simply because as a reader you should know that this novel is not a light and airy tale, fraught with happy brownies and delightful pixies. The fae within this series are akin to the tales of old; beautiful yet cruel, terrifying yet bound by their own set of rules.

The Dresden Files, a series of novels penned by Jim Butcher, came to the small screen in 2007 on the SciFi channel bringing with it some variations – both good and bad. This is a difficult review to write for two reasons. First, the series was canceled after only twelve episodes. In such a short period of time, there wasn’t a lot of ability for the directors to explore the setting in this format. As a result, the events in this series loosely resemble only a few, choice events from one or two books. Secondly, this television series didn’t feel like a literal translation from the novels and, as a result, could easily stand alone on its own merits.

Vampire: Dark Influences is a stand-alone card game set in the world of Vampire: the Requiem, designed by Michael Miller and David Raabe and developed by Ken Cliffe and Steve Wieck. First and foremost, this is a strategy game that includes several thematic elements from the RPG. You’ll notice that the artwork is consistent with the corebook; many of the same signature characters are used for gameplay.