Why study medieval history alone when you can join an online book club? When looking for a good medieval book club to join though you may see after searching that many of them are inactive or don’t have good leadership. I’m a big fan of what Michael from the Just
Today I’m officially revealing the working cover of a fantasy book that I’ll be self-publishing either in 2024 or 2025 (PS, it’ll have to be 2026, sorry): Conquest of the Cursed Continent by Timothy RJ Eveland. This isn’t the final version of the cover, but rather something to share while
When I heard that Diratia Productions partnered with Adorea to make the fighting scenes in Shadow of the Conqueror more realistic and historically accurate, I felt obligated to share the news. This is what many people have been begging for: filmmakers taking the time to consider medieval realism in movie fighting scenes!
Everything has a polar opposite–everything!–and so if such things as LitRPG, where common sense and practicality are completely ignored, can reach the market of fantasy books then so will such things as LitHEMA, where common sense and practicality are praised. This is inevitable! In other words if I don’t work towards the fruition of LitHEMA then someone else will, and this new fantasy subgenre will win its place in the market by merit whether the vast majority likes it or not.
LitHEMA takes “realism” and “grittiness” one step beyond Grimdark. Like LitHEMA, much Grimdark may also be called low fantasy, dark fantasy or historical fantasy. There is something special about it that keeps certain readers with certain tastes coming back and back again. But what separates LitHEMA from all these similar genres?
I dream of media that presents historical combat as realistically as possible, especially combat in the Middle Ages. Perhaps soon my dreams will come true. Enjoyment from debunking misconceptions in fantasy is a new but rapidly growing means of entertainment, made possible by the discovery of historical combat treatises and expressive historians like Lindybeige and Matt Easton.