Daniel E. Olesen's Blog

I keep encountering the term ‘literary fiction’. I felt it was finally time to shout that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes, and that calling anything literary fiction is nonsensical. Before my opinion is dismissed as the sort of drivel to be expected by the unwashed masses whining about their favourite book being disrespected, I would point out that I hold a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature. When I reject the term ‘literary fiction’, it is not because I am too ignorant or unedu...

As worldbuilding and mythology are two of my great interests, I snagged a guest blog from K.S. Villoso that deals with both. This time, we venture outside our typical Indo-European haunt and all the way to the Philippines!Get your copy before they run out of stock! At the... e-book store.I’ve always been fascinated with Philippine mythology. I didn’t call it then growing up, of course; to me, they were just stories, passed down by friends, family, and other caretakers. The stories were fright...

I have the pleasure of being acquainted with the Bard (of Australia, not Avon). You no doubt remember him from his video explaining why Heroquest is the best game ever. The Bard is not only a master of the video format, however. He was approached the write the novelisation of eponymous game in the Dungeon Saga franchise, entitled The Dwarf King's Quest. It is a harrowing tale of four adventurers descending into a decrepit, derelict fortress in pursuit of a necromancer to keep him from placing...

A brief intermission from the typical blog content to have the news stored in a more permanent location than my FB page - the first draft of my sequel, The Raven's Cry, is complete. A lengthy editing process lies ahead - last time, I spent about a year and a half on this, and it could easily take as long this time around. Besides that, there is also formatting/layout and book cover to worry about.If you want regular updates on how The Raven's Cry is progressing, you can join my patreon. The s...

Some weeks ago, I participated in a podcast discussion concerning fantasy and its European tropes. While fantasy thankfully has diversified enormously in terms of plot, setting, characters etc., the very name of the genre still often evokes connotations of knights, sword fighting and battles, castles, and the like; in other words, what is considered a stereotypical, European medieval world. I am obviously not dead set against this, as the setting of my own books leans heavily on such concepts...

I have not one but two videos to share with you. One is a recording of a podcast I participated in, while the second is an audio short story based on chapter 9 of The Eagle's Flight.The Fantasy Fiends discuss topics related to fantasy literature along with a guest author each week. My proposed topic was cultural diversity outside of medieval Europe, which I will also be making a blog post about. I also demonstrate how to wield a scimitar on horseback for maximum killing effect, we do a live r...

I have occasionally seen readers, including my own, ask how to support their indie/self-published authors, which of course is a trend I would very much like to encourage. This is a list of everything I could come up with, which readers can do to support authors such as myself, other than the obvious “read/buy the books”.It should be noted, nobody should feel obligated to do any (and certainly not all) on this list. Just by reading our books, you are already doing what every author hopes for....

Following a precarious chronology in our catalogue, we go from mythology to legends, from gods to heroes. I call this chronology precarious as we cannot necessarily be certain that the stories of the gods analysed in the previous post are older than the stories that will be analysed here; add to this, some of these heroic stories involve the gods to such a degree, they can be construed as mythological in nature themselves.It is useful for the sake of understanding to imagine the concept of th...

The mythologies discussed in previous articles are the earliest examples of both stories and of heroes in the cultures of our world. Before we move from the realm of mythology and gods to literature and men, it is time to delve into the analysis of heroic archetypes. This blog post will look back at the previous post for examples of these archetypes and lay the groundwork for future discussions of heroes and how our perception of the hero has changed. The other, previous posts in the Catalogu...

This will be the last of the introductory entries in this blog series. While I previous employed the aid of others well-versed in mythologies less known to me, we have reached the Norse subject matter. A major influence on much fantasy literature and one of my own areas of interest. It is possible that the catalogue will be expanded to include Slavic mythology if I can do it justice, but for now, Norse gods will conclude the introduction to the catalogue before the actual analysis begins.The...