A Summer of Sword and Sorcery
Crafting fantasy adventures for fiction, film and comic-books. Plus, ladies with swords, why nostalgia is death, and who would win in a fight between Conan and the Bloody Nine
Agent of Weird: Exploring the Write Fantastic
The craft of writing horror, sci-fi, fantasy – and all the weird that’s in-between! For readers, writers, role-players, connoisseurs and creators, from the writer of Judge Dredd, Warhammer, Star Wars, TMNT and more.
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Latest episodes
Six Things I’ve Learned About Plot and Story Structure from 20 Years of Freelance Writing
Lessons from a recovering plot-addict
Invaders From Mars (1953): The Terrors of Childhood Through a Sci-Fi Lens
From the 'kids on bikes' of Stranger Things to the monster matinees of the Atomic Age
Excalibur (1981): The Weird Wisdom of Epic Fantasy
Still a masterclass in movie mythmaking, knowing when to print the legend, and why the lessons of fantasy can only be learned by letting go
Saving the Writer’s Soul from Work-for-Hire Hell
What creative ownership really means, writing a sword and sorcery tale I can finally call my own, and how it all went wrong when I wasn’t writing for money
Audio of Weird: A Clutch of Christmas Ghost Stories
Snuggle down, drink up and listen in to a read-aloud of ‘Rats’ by M.R. James and ‘Over Before Christmas’ by Alec Worley
Who Dies First? Conan the Barbarian vs. The Bloody Nine
Fantasy writers, learn how to keep your fight scenes sharp with two classic examples of sword and sorcery
We Need To Stop Being Weird About Theme in Stories
What your story is really saying and why you need to stop saying it
Lessons from Hannibal Lecter: How to Write a Human Monster
Can horror be scary without the supernatural?
The Best Scene in 'An American Werewolf in London' (1981) Isn't the One You Think
How to write a comedy of terrors
Audio of Weird: The Red Room (H.G. Wells, 1896)
Listen to a classic ghost story from the father of science fiction
Superman (2025): Telling a Superhero Story the DC Way
How James Gunn chooses myth over Marvel
Building a Labyrinth of Liminal Horror
Checking into Daisy Johnson's The Hotel (2024)
28 Days Later (2002) vs. 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Predicting a bloody future without stating the bloody obvious. How Danny Boyle and Alex Garland reinvented the reanimated
How to Build a Haunted House
Constructing chills and building liminal beauty in House (2007), a wordless graphic novel by Josh Simmons
Who Goes There? (1938) vs The Thing (1982)
John W. Campbell's classic novella of Golden Age science fiction and John Carpenter's modern horror masterpiece - both absorb new meanings in the age of Covid, identity politics and generative AI
Cronos (1992): Vampires Don't Have to Be Horrible
How Guillermo del Toro subverted the bloodsucking genre
Fantastic Beasts and How to Write Them
Some Jurassic examples of great monster-writing
The Green Knight (2021): Make Camelot Weird Again
How David Lowery brings strange new meaning to an antique fantasy text. And, yes, it’s a Christmas movie. Fight me.
The Furry Folk Horror of Watership Down (1978)
How the animated adaptation of Richard Adams’s novel terrified a generation and builds a non-human epic fantasy that casts a dark and enthralling spell