European folk tradition has placed quite a strong emphasis on the connection between the shadow and the soul; this connection can be found in German and Portuguese folklore, and in non-European folk belief as well.

The natural connection between pen and sword is solidified by the language of fencing, wherein the fencer’s repertoire of movements is called a conversation of blades, or a judge will “read the phrase” of the action before awarding a touch.

The Weird West goes back to the earliest days of the Western: to the dime novels and serial stories in weekly gazettes that turned the American west into a mythic land even before it stopped being a place you could move to

Stories require a common consensus to become popular and to spread: When the stories in question concern the restless dead, the possibility of an angry past haunting us, what, precisely, does that say?

Whenever you see a trick performed you know from the outset that you are going to be tricked, so you set up certain mental safeguards, trying to see where and how the conjuror could possibly deceive you.

This week, we at Fantasy Magazine bring you five aquatic organisms that could easily be confused for alien or paranormal life (but are actually real).

Dating a deity has a certain ineffable appeal—the carefree demeanor, the kinky shapeshifting, the supernatural transportation options, the lure of immortality.

When people stumble into the pirate world—like drunken sailors stumbling into a seedy dockside tavern—they do it for one reason, the same reason that men and women became pirates in the golden age of pirates: Pirates are cool.

Quenya, Tsolyáni, Láadan, Klingon, Kesh, Na’vi, Dothraki … this is not a magic spell, nor a litany from some ancient prayer book, but just a few just a few of the invented languages that have made it into print or onto the screen.

Steampunk as a genre is about traversing the edge of that level of technology. Characters have weapons and gadgets that are conceptually similar to things we have in the modern day, but work in entirely different ways.