I’ve admired it since I first saw it!

Toy soldier struggling through long grass while dawn breaks

Great picture!

Another April and another day
with all the seasons in it, with lapwings
falling out of sunlight into rain…

—James Aitchison, “Landscape with Lapwings”
in The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry, @edinburghup.bsky.social 2005
#poem #poetry
edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edi...

My latest illustration!

Thrilled to have contributed to this lovely book, 'Brian Froud's Green Women', along with many distinguished writers, some of whom are friends. It'll be published 6th October this year, and fans of Brian Froud will love it - as will anyone who loves fantasy. More at Brian's website: bit.ly/4cOoxUT

Brilliant!

Tao Te Ching – Verse 31 Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them. Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint. Peace is his highest value. If the peace has been shattered, how can he be content? His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn’t wish them personal harm. Nor does he rejoice in victory. How could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men? He enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if he were attending a funeral. (translation by Stephen Mitchell, 1995)

A decent man (from
the Tao Te Ching).

Westminster School I think!

R. F. Kuang, Babel (2022) The peculiar properties of colonial space Fantasy was born in Oxford. There the mathematician Charles Dodgson devised the adventures of Alice underground, the precursor to Alice in Wonderland, as h…

At The City of Lost Books today: a long-gestating post on R.F. Kuang's Babel.
thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/r-f-kuang-ba...

My latest illustration for the Little Toy Soldier saga. The mood darkens!

Karel Čapek, War with the Newts (1936) [This essay-review by my mother, Elizabeth Maslen, was published in the journal Science Fiction Studies in 1987. My father worked on it with her, as linguistic adviser for Czech, Polish and Russian…

A new post over at The City of Lost Books: Karel Čapek's War with the Newts (1936), an essay by my mother, Elizabeth Maslen, with help from my father, John Maslen. Will appeal to all who love the Slavic fantastic!

thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/karel-capek-...

Great building.

The BBC’s Small Prophets is a very beautiful show. Please give it some love if you can!

An excelllent post on the impact of place, viewed through the lens of fantasy literature:

Sin chicken

The magnificent Romanesque nave of Dunfermline Abbey!

Seize your chance!

This one was intended for Christmas but took too long so it’s the first picture for 2026. Christmas tree darts!

The River Has Roots ebook by Amal El-Mohtar - Rakuten Kobo Read "The River Has Roots The Sweeping, Magical Solo Debut by the Best-Selling Co-Author of THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR" by Amal El-Mohtar available from Rakuten Kobo. Follow the river Liss to t...

If you’re in the UK & are so inclined, from Dec 25 to Jan 5 you can get the Kindle edition of THE RIVER HAS ROOTS for 99p as part of their 12 Days of Kindle event! This means in the UK you can also get that price matched at other etailers, like Kobo! Merry Christmas!

www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...

Thank you Adam!

If you’re working on any area of fantasy and the fantastic, come and join us at Glasgow in June 2026 and do consider presenting or running a workshop! All the info you need and the full CFP is here:

fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20...

@uofgfantasy.bsky.social @uofgartshums.bsky.social

✨GIFCon is back for 2026! ✨
We’re very excited to launch the Call for Papers for GIFCon 2026, with the theme “Technologies of the Fantastic”
You can find out more here: fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20...

Jo Heaton, Red Button: A Story for Christmas (c. 1984). Illustrations. In about 1984, at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, I had thoughts of trying my luck as an illustrator. Unfortunately I’d concentrated nearly all my efforts up to that point on black-and-white p…

Over at The City of Lost Books: Christmas illustrations for the most colourful of books in dazzling black and white. A despatch from the past, when I thought of being an artist. With compliments of the season!
thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/jo-heaton-re...

I kissed a woman in this stone circle in 1992. Didn’t see her again till 1994. The following year we were married. The power of the stones is real!

in case you missed our announcement

We're seeking short stories in Jan 2026 for our upcoming anthology, Modern Decadent, which embraces the fin de siècle literary & arts of the decadents, along with 19th century symbolism and aestheticism. We also welcome stories with a good dash of proto-Weird 🖤

Bats need a belfry.

Elizabeth Maslen: Poems on Death [My mother, who died in September, was interested in death for much of her life. She wrote a number of poems on the subject in the 1970s, some of which were published by Chatto and Windus in a book…

Over at The City of Lost Books: Elizabeth Maslen, Poems on Death. They're much more cheerful than the title suggests!
thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/elizabeth-ma...

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Edinburgh Looking for a new job opportunity in academia? Check out this job opening for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on jobs.ac.uk!

And we are hiring! We have been incredibly lucky to get this funding and are very grateful for the opportunity to work on this. Please circulate to people who would be interested in applying. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPN147/p...

A reminder that we're hosting the first European Conference on the Fantastic, Fantasy's Present Pasts, in Glasgow next summer (23rd-25th June 2026). The Call for Papers and Sessions can be found here: fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20.... Closes 12th December. Please do consider submitting!