Kell Shaw
Kell Shaw
Kell Shaw
Kell Shaw is an author and avid tabletop roleplaying gamer, whose lifelong passion for fantasy—especially Shadowrun, the Lord of the Rings, and the World of Darkness—inspired him to create the Vestiges of Magic urban fantasy universe. Kell’s fascination lies with the modern world colliding with magic, and his stories explore the lives of individuals caught between these realms.
Latest Posts
James Stark is back in town, and he's pissed. Eleven years ago, Stark’s magician ‘friends’ turned against him and sent him to Hell, where Stark spent all of that time battling demons in an arena. Oddly, each time he got torn apart or...
A few weeks ago, I went to visit my mother, who lives in northern New South Wales, Australia. Tweed Heads is like the retirement capital of the universe. Maybe like Florida, for those American readers, but much more low-key. (I am not...
I have this love/hate relationship with LGBT fiction. Either it's too sugary sweet for me, or so bitter and miserable that I want to lie in bed with the covers pulled over my head and not turn another page. I was trying to describe this...
Imagine waking up in your favourite fantasy world. Except, what if it's Game of Thrones? And what would you do? Try to warn Ned? “Don't take the job!” Help Tyrion? Try not to change the plot? Except portal fantasy is deliberately...
This is a crisply written book. It’s short and pacy, and I loved how it got straight to the action. (It's also another entrant in the SPFBO XI contest.) Amara is a seamstress, and a threadwitch, with the ability to awaken memories in...
This is the first novel by AM Kvita. Overall, fun, a touch of cozy, with queer found family tropes. I had some world-building hang-ups, but it's more of a character piece. Our protagonist, Joan Greenwood, comes from the ruling witch...
I’m a messy reader. I’ll start a book, put it aside for a bit, and either abandon it or look at it again a few months later. Or I’ll pick up a book and binge it, and its sequels, in a matter of days. What I’d like to do is track these...
Well, here I am on Easter Sunday, past the first quarter of the year. From my writing/publishing perspective, I’ve made my major goal, which was to finish editing and entering beta feedback/rewrites on The Demon’s Peace and submitting it...
Daughters of Darkness by Samuel Chatman is a comic book in prose form, which mixes technology-based superheroes with standard urban fantasy tropes like vampires, werewolves and demons. (It's also another entrant in the SPFBO XI contest.)...
I know a few self-published authors who are quitting the business. It's not the writing that's the hard part, it's selling the books, it's marketing, it's managing their own online shop, it's struggling to find readers and fans for your...
This is a review of an indie book from the SPFBO XI competition, which hooked me from the first preview chapter. Summary: Two young outsiders, each with a mysterious heritage, get involved in court intrigues in an Indian-themed fantasy...
A very slow film festival Have you heard of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off Contest? (SPFBO)? Now it its eleventh year, it's a contest where three hundred self-published books are selected at random to participate in a book death...
I've changed my website again! Last year, I was tired of how bloated and ad-soaked Wordpress had become, so I moved to Joomla. And while that was a fantastic CMS, it felt a bit like driving a huge truck. I wanted a website that was a bit...
Knights on campus! Brianna's mother has died, and to escape, she goes to college with her best friend Alice. While still processing her mother's grief, Brianna stumbles onto a secret society on campus. An order of people descended from...
Quadruple Feature! It takes a while for a series to get good, to reach a level where you can't wait for the next book. It all varies, of course, depending on who you ask. Discworld doesn't kick off until the third books, Equal Rites,...