Dan Koboldt

It’s some pretty standard non-fiction. Each essay is only a few pages long, but none of them will really help you make that novel about your Dungeons and Dragons games more realistic. It’s more there to give you ideas on what to think about when writing certain aspects. Or to check yourself before you wreck yourself (i.e. bust some common myths). There are overviews on medieval life and things that people get wrong. And it gives you some suggestions for lesser-used options in fantasy, such as 900 A.D. Mesopotamia or Black Vikings. I guess I’m glad I read it, but don’t pick it up thinking “Oh, this is going to write my novel for me.”… (more)

Koboldt, Dan, editor. Putting the Fact in Fantasy: Expert Advice to Bring Authenticity to Your Fantasy Writing. Foreword by Scott Lynch. Writer’s Digest Books, 2022.
Putting the Fact in Fantasy is a collection of short pieces by writers with knowledge in areas related to the sort of world-building encountered by most fantasy writers. There are articles on history, with an emphasis on life and society in the Middle Ages. A section on archeology contains a fascinating piece on linguistics and translation. Translating an ancient language is not as easy as it looks in the movies. There are pieces on ecology and one on warfare and weapons that will give you respect for the humble knife as a weapon. An article on horsemanship by Amy Perkins-McKenna, also tells fantasy novelists not to get their images of horses from the movies, because movies often use the wrong types of horses for the jobs at hand. Horse gender matters, she says, because stallions are much harder to control than mares and geldings. The mantra among riders is “tell a gelding, ask a mare, and negotiate with a stallion.” I do not intend to write a fantasy epic, but the advice offered by Koboldt and company will make me a more knowledgeable reader. 4 stars.… (more)