H L Petrovic

Reviewer of Fantasy, Reader of Fantasy, Writer of Fantasy

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Author Interview: Sharita Russell, author of original SINNER

Author Interview: Sharita Russell, author of original SINNER

Greetings Brave Adventurers, I’m very excited to have Sharita Russell, author of Original Sinner on my blog today for a chat. Sharita Russell HLP: Hi Sharita, and welcome to my blog!  SR:  Hello, thank you for inviting me! HLP: Tell us a bit about yourself. When did you start writing?  SR: My earliest recollection of writing is around the age of 6. I wrote a story about a dragon in a cave…

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Living on the Other Side of the World

Living on the Other Side of the World

It’s been a year since we moved to the OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. February 2019, we packed up our house and our life in Sydney, Australia and moved to Zagreb, Croatia.

People said we were brave. We’ve always thought (and still do) that bravery had nothing to do with it. Both sets of our parents – my husband’s and mine – left their homeland for life in other countries (my mother is Australian, my…

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Book Review: The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Book One of the Long Earth

336 pages

Published 2012 by HarperCollins

“Normally, when there was nothing to do, he listened to the silence”

Greetings Brave Adventurers,

I found this book enjoyable, but a little, well, meh. It had some lovely writing, and I thought the premise was really interesting, but I often find with sci-fi, that if I have issues with the premise, then I just can’t enjoy the…

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Book Review: The Hunt for Pierre Jnr by David M Henley

#scifi Book Review: The Hunt for Pierre Jnr by David M Henley @DavidMHenley http://wp.me/p3n6qt-8b

Book 1 of the Hunt for Pierre Jnr trilogy

Paperback, 416 pages Published  by Harper Collins Australia

Greetings Brave Adventurers,

This sci-fi political thriller by debut novelist David Henley is an intelligent and enthralling read.

The Hunt for Pierre Jnris set in a world that felt to me as though it could be scarily prophetic. Global warming has caused worldwide famine, and the resulting…

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Book Review: The Casual Vacancy by J K Rowling

Book Review: The Casual Vacancy by J K Rowling http://wp.me/p3n6qt-5p

505 pages Published 2012 by Little, Brown and Company

Greetings Brave Adventurers,

What, you may ask, is a review of J K Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy doing on a site that revels in all things Fantasy? You do know it’s not a Harry Potter book, right?

Yes, I do. And I did before I read the book too.

In fact, I was surprised how many Goodreads reviews expressed their disappointment that The Casual…

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Book Review: The Sum of All Men by David Farland

Book Review: The Sum of All Men by David Farland http://wp.me/p3n6qt-33

Book One of The Runelords

Do you ever start reviewing books in your head before you’ve even finished them?

Me at 100 pages: Great premise but I’m not totally sure I love it.

Me at 200 pages: Characterisation, story getting better, maybe not a bad read after all.

Me at 300 pages: Are we there yet? No. 300 pages more to go…

Sometimes a premise can be so big, it can cast such a big shadow it really…

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Book Review: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Book Review: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Book 1 of The Wheel Of Time

Published by Tor Books

With the release of the fourteenth and final instalment of The Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light, at the beginning of this year, I thought it fitting to go back to the beginning of this epic series and review the place where it all began, The Eye of the World.

I first read The Eye of the World way back in 1992 as a young teenager. I picked…

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Book Review: Dragonclaw by Kate Forsyth

Book Review: Dragonclaw by Kate Forsyth http://wp.me/p3n6qt-1a

I was lucky enough to attend an author talk by the inspirational Kate Forsyth a few weeks back. She was talking about her new Historical Fiction novel, The Wild Girl. Kate’s talk began with a discussion of her quest to become a writer, and the success of her very first published novel, Dragonclaw.

Sadly, Kate has now moved on from the High Fantasy genre which gave her career wings, but the…

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Hardcopy 2018: Canberra here I come!

Hardcopy 2018: Canberra here I come!

I’m thrilled to announce that with my YA fantasy novel, TAMED, I’ve been selected as a participant in HARDCOPY 2018. This is a very exciting opportunity with writers from around Australia applying for only 30 places (plus this year 10 digital places).   What is HARDCOPY? Run in Canberra each year, HARDCOPY is a six-month national professional development program that helps emerging Australia…

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On Winter Olympics, Steven Bradbury and *that* gold medal

On Winter Olympics, Steven Bradbury and *that* gold medal

Although I haven’t watched much of the Winter Olympics this year, I did happen across an article about Steven Bradbury talking about *that win*. He seems destined to have his story pulled out of the proverbial closet and given a dust off every four years. And why not? It’s a cracker of a story and has become somewhat of an Australian folktale – the incredible string of luck that led to a…

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Happy Valentines!

When we think of Valentines Day, for most of us our thoughts go almost immediately to romantic love. St Valentine himself is often associated with romantic gestures, marrying couples in secret and sending love letters. But love isn’t all about romance. Do you know that the ancient Greeks had six different words for love? They did! Here they are: Eros for sexual passion and desire Phlia for deep…

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My first week as a full-time (part-time) writer…

My first week as a full-time (part-time) writer…

It’s a sad/happy/emotional/awesome week this week. My smallest child went off to school for the first time for the whole school day on Monday. She left me in the playground with a hug, a smile and a wave. School is going to suit her down to the tips of her shiny new black shoes – she’s going to have a wonderful time, make friends and learn so many new things (these are the three ‘jobs’ I tell my…

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New Year’s Resolutions (and other nonsense…)

Yes, I know it’s nearly February. But January is not the time to make New Year’s Resolutions in Australia. The air smells like barbeque and beer, the kids are home for summer, and the days slide away one after the other in a blur of beaches, pool and 40-degree (celsius!) heat. No, January is not the perfect time to make New Year’s Resolutions. Nor has it, for me, been a particularly good month to…

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Conflux 2017…Grimm Tales (Canberra’s Annual Speculative Fiction Convention) Wrap Up [Part 3: Sunday]

Conflux wrap-up part 3 - Sunday!

  Part 1 (Friday) is here. Part 2 (Saturday) is here. I’m going to try and keep this post short and sweet. By Sunday, my brain was nearly full to overload and I didn’t take a lot of notes! (Did I also mention the VERY late night – thanks Rik!) I started Sunday with a workshop: Writing Interactive Fiction for fun and profit with Felicity Banks. Felicity knows what she’s talking about – she makes a…

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Conflux 2017…Grimm Tales (Canberra’s Annual Speculative Fiction Convention) Wrap Up [Part 2: Saturday]

Conflux wrap up part 2

  So – this is a very late post, but I thought I’d finish my Conflux wrap-up… If you haven’t read my Part 1 wrap-up of Conflux you can do so here. Otherwise, let’s move on to Saturday: Saturday morning 10am saw me heading to the conference rooms for a workshop: Writing For Games with Rik Lagarto.  I’d never really considered how much writing there is in games before (in hindsight, it seems so…

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December Raves: Book Review: The Iron Line by L. M. Merrington

December raves: the iron line by L. M. Merrington. Delicious Australian gothic murder mystery

Digital: 177 pages Published by PAC books Blurb: “There’s a ghost train that runs along here at night. They say it carries the souls of those bound for hell.” Jane Adams is only twenty-three, but she’s already a widow. A daughter of the railway, after her husband’s death she takes a job as a level crossing gatekeeper in the little town of Tungold, out at the end of the line. But all is not right…

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Conflux 2018…Grimm Tales (Canberra’s Annual Speculative Fiction Convention) Wrap Up [Part 1- Friday]

Conflux 2018…Grimm Tales (Canberra’s Annual Speculative Fiction Convention) Wrap Up [Part 1- Friday]

My first Conflux is over, and I’m looking back at the weekend with a sense of pure post-con joy – what an amazing, talented, and downright awesome group of writers, editors and publishers I had the pleasure of meeting and seeing speak over the course of my three-day attendance! The line-up of special guests was impressive – International Guest of Honour, Ellen Datlow; Australian Guest of Honour,…

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