I love old ruins, as you surely know. Whenever I find myself walking amongst them, or even just in old streets of modern cities, my mind is only half focused on what I see. The other half sees what these places were in their prime. Makes it a bit of a chore to avoid traffic… […]
Ancient Rome
Griffins, Gryphons, and other monsters
I found this review of griffins across several cultures on Mr. P’s Mythopedia page. (Click to enlarge the picture). I find it interesting, as Murder in Absentia includes a griffin (or gryphon, in the more Greek-like spelling used in the book). It’s based on the classic type below, with the front half including the forelegs […]
Ancient Ruins
As some may know, we’ve recently visited Israel. While this was mostly about visiting family and friends, we did get to tour around a bit. Here, for example, we visited my favourite fort: I’ve posted a lot of images on my Instagram feed. More importantly, each image comes with its own little story, and why […]
Book Review: SPQR by Mary Beard
This is book I wanted to read for a while, and finally got down to sit and read it. Beard is a Professor of Classics at Cambridge, and this novel is the culmination of 50 years of love and research into Roman culture. What to expect A review of the first millennium of Roman history. […]
Historical Facts as Inspiration for Fantasy
As part of Virtual FantasyCon (that awesome event where Murder In Absentia received an unprecedented five awards ;-), we did a blog hunt. As an introduction to this site, I did a post about the historical inspirations behind the fantasy lighthouse of Egretia. This post was originally published on L.D. Rose‘s site, and is replicated […]
Research and Experimental Archaeology
I get asked often about the research I do for my novels. Even when I’m not asked, I volunteer information… Besides reading proper history books (mostly by modern historians, but the occasional translated original source as well), I particularly like what might be termed “experimental archaeology”. These are people with a keen interest, that review […]
I’m going to frame this!
This popped up in my feed, thanks to Atatoly Сastle. Made me laugh so hard! It will be framed and hung on the wall. It’s as classic a version of Felix as can be!
Of Greeks and Romans, and crafting worlds
This is a guest post I’ve written for Pure Jonel’s blog. Originally published on: http://purejonel.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/GP.AM.html Of Fantasy Worlds and Roman Gods I have a confession. It’s about one of my pet peeves. Whenever someone casually mentions the “Greek and Roman gods”, or goes on to describe a “Roman mythology” by quoting tales of the Greek pantheon, […]
FELIX THE FOX MYSTERIES 