Some of My Favourite Media:
ROBIN
Hi, I’m Robin! I’m a twenty-something year old who loves all things bookish. As a child, I liked nothing more than to disappear completely into the magical worlds of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and so many others. While the bulk of my reading right now tends to be in genres other than speculative fiction (mostly contemporary fiction), I still regularly love to dive into a good Fantasy or Science-fiction book to take a break from real life.
The one thing that really makes or breaks a story for me are the characters. I can accept pretty much anything from a book as long as the characters are well written. Because of this, I tend not to be a very picky reader: I can appreciate almost all genres (except horror/thriller), and I am rarely put off by flaws that others might consider quite major (like plotholes). However, if I can’t connect to any of the characters in a story, I will have a hard time engaging with it no matter how well-crafted it is.
While books are definitely my main area of expertise, I do also love to play board games, listen to audio dramas, and watch a movie or tv-show whenever I can find the time. I am not a gamer, so you probably won’t be seeing many video game reviews from my end. Luckily we have several other curators who can fill in that gap!
I think that’s everything you need to know about me for now. I hope my reviews will help you find something you enjoy, because life’s too short to read bad books!
Diverse representation
Fantasy blended with real-world mythology
Intertexuality
Natural settings/elements
Strong (realistic) female characters
Beautiful book covers
Stories with little or no plot that focus only on the characters
Graphic violence
When scars/disfiguration are used to mark a character as evil
Depressing characters with no redeeming qualities
Endless and needlessly detailed fight/battle scenes
When a conflict between two characters is caused by an obvious misunderstanding that would be solved by a simple conversation
Dust jackets
Reviewing common Fantasy/Sci-fi tropes
- The Chosen One – ★★★ – Overdone, I know. And yet, even now there remains something alluring about the idea of being chosen for greatness, so I cannot bring myself to really hate this trope.
- The Mentor Character – ★★★★★ – It’s hard not to love someone whose sole purpose is to guide the main character to fulfil their true potential. If only real life could be that simple and comforting.
- The Evil Overlord – ★★ – I prefer my villains to have a bit more depth and ambivalence.
- The Quest – ★★★★ – A trope so classic it goes all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia, and yet a good quest still never fails to satisfy.
- Enemies to lovers – ★★★ – While you can often see the ending coming from a mile off, it is still far better than the kind of instalove where two people can’t bear to be separated after knowing each other for like five minutes.
- Damsels in distress – ★ – I don’t think it is necessary to elaborate on this one any further.
- Sentient spaceships – ★★★★ – Yes, please! What is even the point of a spaceship if it doesn’t talk?
- Found family – ★★★★★ – Heart-warming, every time.
Recent Contributions
Curator Question: 2025 Resolutions
Our Curators discuss their 2024 New Year’s Resolutions – what is on their to be read/watch/listen/play list for the coming year?
Yearly Wrap-up: 2024 in Review
Our curators look back at their 2024 resolutions, and their favourite fantasy and science fiction media of the past year. Which media on their to be read/watch/listen/play piles got their attention? And what else did the year bring?
Review: The War of the Rohirrim – Kenji Kamiyama
200 years before the War of the Rings and the other events of the Lord of the Rings, Helm, king of Rohan, slew a Dunlending lord who sought a marriage between his son Wulf and Helm’s daughter Hera. In the ensuing war between the Rohirrim and the Dunlendings, not just Helm but also his daughter Hera will make a name for themselves that will go down in history.
Review: Prophet Song – Paul Lynch
From the cover:
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.
Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and Eilish can only watch helplessly as the world she knew disappears. When first her husband and then her eldest son vanish, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society.
How far will she go to save her family? And what – or who – is she willing to leave behind?
Curator Question: Will you watch The Rings of Power season 2?
Another question for our curators: How do they feel about the second season of Amazon’s The Rings of Power? They watched season one together, to generally mediocre reviews…