An awesome benefit of being a fantasy writer is that "going down interesting rabbit holes while aimlessly surfing the Web" magically becomes "doing research for my next book," which sounds much more productive. I'm a huge trivia buff, so I can end up doing an unplanned deep dive on almost anything. Missing Jeopardy in our house is a disaster of epic proportions, and I've been known to skip entire tropical islands on a Caribbean cruise to play in a shipboard trivia tournament.

While my range of interests can be politely described as "eclectic," I have a particular fascination for European history in the Middle Ages. That's a big reason why I love to read and write about fantasy worlds based on the medieval era. I'm especially into historic weapons and combat techniques, probably because I spent several years studying martial arts. (Sadly, as I got older, I found that trivia contests are less painful than karate matches, and are less likely to result in visits to urgent care, so I redirected my competitive efforts accordingly.)

As a long-time fantasy fan, I'm also intrigued by how the genre has evolved over the years. It's fun to revisit the origins of modern fantasy in the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 30s, in the likes of Weird Tales, Conan the Barbarian, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. It's even more fun to see the same themes and storytelling techniques resonating in modern classics like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and The Wheel of Time.

Which brings us back to this blog. It occurred to me that I might not be the only person who's curious about all this stuff, and other fantasy nerds might be entertained by factoids like how to build the most defensible castle (use round towers and clockwise staircases); how knights in armor mounted their steeds (it didn't involve a crane); and who invented the term "sword and sorcery" (thank you, Fritz Leiber). So from time to time, when I run across a fun bit of historical and/or fantasy-related trivia, I'll share it with you here.

There may also be occasional mini-reviews of novels I'm reading, updates on my current writing projects, and sporadic installments in The Further Adventures of Koda the Chaos Poodle. Expect about one post per week, barring orc attacks, internet outages, or emergency resupply runs for dog treats.

More coming soon—keep the drawbridge down and the portcullis open.