Category Archives: fantasy

New Book, Conventions, and an update

Posted on July 4, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Occasionally, just occasionally, everything all comes at once. Which is why I have an ear infection, am currently deaf on my left side, feel like curling up in a dark room under a blanket, just as I have the busiest … Continue reading →

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Maybe Tuesday

Posted on June 19, 2025 by Mark Hayes

In another universe, where a man in a small lab in China didn’t drop a non-descript vail on the floor (allegedly) on a Tuesday in late 2019, the release of my 2020 novel ‘Maybe’ might have gone differently. It must have been a Tuesday when he dropped the vial, these things always happen on a Tuesday. No one ever accidently changed the course of history on a Monday. Continue reading →

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Cogkneys, Minoan’s and Devilish Preludes

Posted on June 11, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Anyone following this blog over the years will be aware my taste in reading can be a tad ecliptic. Well buckle up buttercup, ecliptic was three turns back. Continue reading →

Posted in amreading, book reviews, druidry, fantasy, humour, pagan, steampunk, urban fantasy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Researching Lovecraft

Posted on May 12, 2025 by Mark Hayes

So here me, back up to my neck with old tentacle hugger, getting annoyed at him. Just like old times… thus here are a few ‘notables’ which will probably find the cutting room floor in the end but have amused me for one reason or another in the meantime. Continue reading →

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Quiddling for Quizzels

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Mark Hayes

(This is originally something I wrote for Hopeless Vendetta, in November last year. It is something of an autumn story, so entirely out of place mid spring… But I republish here because I want to, and readers of my blog … Continue reading →

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Tales from the notepads

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Mark Hayes

“And todays date is?”

Grunted laughter… “it matters not.”

“It matters not? We are in the third decade of third millennium, yet you speak of observing a battle in the first. By my reconning some fourteen hundred years ago.”

“it is still no dream.”

“What is it then, if not a dream?”

“A memory…” Continue reading →

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Research and the novel

Posted on April 5, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Research is one of the most important aspects of the fiction writers toolbox, I am aware this may seem counterintuitive, after all its fiction. We just make it up don’t we? Well yes. But when ‘just making things up’ research is often far more important than you might imagine. Continue reading →

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The Leaf in the night time

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Mark Hayes

For reasons I don’t entirely understand, posts involving things form my scrap folder seem oddly popular. Admittedly I suspect having now said that, no one will read this post, as my audience is as predictable as a British summer. Bless … Continue reading →

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It Watches…

Posted on March 7, 2025 by Mark Hayes

I have no recollection of writing this, it is just a thing that exists in the scraps folder on my one drive. I know I wrote it but not when or why. Sometimes my mind is delightful… Others… Well, I … Continue reading →

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Post-Newtonian Magic

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Mark Hayes

When writing fantasy, be it high, low, grim dark, romantic, steampunk, urban or whatever, a writer can’t just throw words at a page and see what sticks. Well, that is not entirely true, that is in fact quite often the … Continue reading →

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