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I've just come across the remarkable and his entertaining look at the . It's as good a potted history as I've seen, and well worth a look.

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I love this one.

'Self-defence? All this is for self-defence?'

She shrugged. 'I got carried away.'

This is how you do it.Ìý A poster from 1913 where the great Norton (the name says 'magic' to me) is helped by a pianist and 'assistant phenominator' (now, there's a job title worth having) named Bruno. And, naturally, Mrs Norton is there to lend a hand as an illusionist.

Who could resist all that? I'd buy a block of tickets, stat.

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Just to let you all know, next week I'm part of the Voices on the Range festival at Fairholme College, Toowoomba. A great line up of authors, too, and I'm looking forward to catching up with them. If you're in the neighbourhood on August 17th, pop in and say hello!

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Nice hats.

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I write Fantasy because I'm an incurable and unabashed, romantic. I want a world where good can triumph, where virtue can be rewarded, nobility and self-sacrifice are lauded, not scorned. I want a world where honesty, loyalty and friendship are prized possessions, not causes for embarrassment. I want a world where the extraordinary is a challenge, where might is not right, where brave deeds are honoured. I want a world where horizons are unlimited, where something grand could lie on the other side of that mountain range, where adventures are waiting.

I write Fantasy because I love using my imagination. I love going beyond the here and now, leaving the constraints of the mundane world behind. I love the challenge of creating whole new worlds, while also taking care of characterisation, plotting and prose. I love the sense of working with a canvas as large as I want.

I write Fantasy because it lets me explore questions that are big, not small. Writing Fantasy lets me ponder questions that are universal and eternal, questions that have been with us forever, questions that make us think about things beyond the here and now. Writing Fantasy gives me permission to grapple with profundities.

I write Fantasy because I love reading Fantasy, and I always have. From my early days reading of lions, witches and wardrobes and wondering about round doors in hobbit holes through to today's reading about lost kings and doomed female warriors, I've been a Fantasy reader.

I write Fantasy because it's the closest I'll ever come to doing magic. When I write Fantasy, I create whole new worlds from nothing. I invent names for things and thereby make them real. I bring characters together who would never, ever meet if it were not for me. I conjure an experience for a reader and help them step into the world of their own imagination.

I write Fantasy because Fantasy is the home of Story. In some types of writing, the lure of narrative is seen as old fashioned or lame, but in Fantasy (and other genres such as Crime, Romance and Horror) we can re-engage with our fundamental need for a Story, our desire to find out what happens next, our excitement to turn the page and keep turning to make sure that our favourite character will survive, or triumph, or find what they are desperately looking for.

I write Fantasy because I love it, and because it's important.

The Indonesian edition of 'Blaze of Glory' has just landed on my desk. Shiny!

Blaze of Glory, Indonesian

Here it is: the cover for my upcoming book, 'The Extinction Gambit', the first in 'The Extraordinaires' series! Look for it in December!

'The Extraordinaires' cover

I had to post a screen shot of my current watchingness, 'Reilly, Ace of Spies'. It's practically antique (from the early eighties?) but it's a gem. A much younger Sam Neil having dashing adventures in the early twentieth century, getting involved in espionage, WW1, the Russian Revolution and sundry other imbroglios. Nice clothes, too.