Contributors
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Raymond E. Feist
Raymond E. Feist is the celebrated author of the Riftwar Cycle. Since the series began with Raymond's groundbreaking debut novel Magician back in 1981, it has sold more than 15m copies worldwide. Celebrating a career spanning four decades, Feist's legacy is clear: he took fantasy's familiar tropes, injected them with pulse-quickening stakes, and built universes that readers can truly live in.
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Sir ian livingstone
Truly a titan of interactive storytelling, Sir Ian Livingstone is one of the founding fathers of the UK games industry. Having co-founded Games Workshop in 1975 with Steve Jackson, which launched Dungeons & Dragons in Europe, the pair also created the phenomenally successful Fighting Fantasy book series, which has sold 21 million copies worldwide to date.
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peter v. brett
Peter burst onto the fantasy scene in 2008 with The Painted Man (The Warded Man in the US), and never looked back. The novel was the first part of the Demon Cycle series, which has sold more than four million copies in twenty-seven languages worldwide. Now he’s back with The Nightfall Saga, proving this visionary storyteller shows no signs of slowing.
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Scott lynch
Scott’s bestselling Gentlemen Bastard sequence of novels, which began with his 2006 debut, The Lies of Locke Lamora, announced a major new voice in Fantasy literature. With his bold, cinematic vision, packed with morally grey heroes, Scott established himself as a prominent member of a new generation of fantasy writers reinvigorating the genre in the 21st Century.
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max gladstone
Since the release of his debut novel Three Parts Dead in 2012, Max has established himself as a unique voice in modern fantasy fiction. Alongside his celebrated series The Craft Sequence, he has worked with George RR Martin on the Wildcards anthology and co-written the bestselling, Nebula and Locus Award-winning novella This is How You Lose The Time War with Amal El-Mohtar
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ellen kushner
Ellen is a trailblazer in fantasy fiction. With lush prose and razor-sharp dialogue, she redefined fantasy with her debut novel Swordspoint, the first part of her Riverside series. Her subsequent novels have seen her win the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award and the Mythopoeic Award. Whether in print or audio drama, in Kushner’s hands, fantasy is pure, seductive theatre.
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theodora goss
World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Award winner Theodora Goss is a genre-bending author whose work blends gothic fantasy, fairy‑tale lyricism, and feminist flair. Having established her reputation with her acclaimed series The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club, she also shares her passion as an English professor at Boston University, specialising in 19th and 20th Century fantasy literature.
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elizabeth bear
A multiple Hugo and Locus Award-winning author, Elizabeth is renowned for her bold, innovative and genre-blending approach to speculative fiction. Her acclaimed novels have spanned Science Fiction (The Jenny Case Trilogy) and Space Opera (The White Space Trilogy) to Steam Punk (Karen Memory) and Fantasy (The Promethean Age series).
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dmitra fimi
Dmitra is a trailblazing scholar of fantasy literature, myth, and folklore, renowned for her groundbreaking work on J.R.R. Tolkien and children's fantasy. She is Professor of Fantasy and Children’s Literature at the University of Glasgow, and Co-Director of the Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic.
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dan jolin
Dan Jolin is a seasoned British film journalist and contributing editor to Empire magazine. A lifelong Fantasy enthusiast and D&D player, he is also the editor and co-founder of the award-winning Senet Magazine, about the craft and culture of board gaming. Whether he’s analysing a Fantasy epic or rolling dice over a dungeon quest, Dan combines encyclopedic genre knowledge with infectious enthusiasm.
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david m. ewalt
David is an award-winning journalist and author. A life-long fantasy fan, his authoritative book Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who Play It tells the definitive story of the most significant game of the 20th century.
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robert maslen
Professor Robert Maslen is co-founder of the Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic at the University of Glasgow. Through his boundless enthusiasm for the genre, he celebrates Fantasy as dynamically rich, endlessly imaginative and gloriously impossible. If magic has an academic guardian, it’s Professor Maslen.
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Helen o'hara
Helen has carved out a magical niche in film and TV journalism, in which she’s been able to bring her lifelong passion for the Fantasy genre to the fore. Empire magazine’s resident ‘Geek Queen’ and Editor‑at‑Large, she has enthusiastically covered every Fantasy blockbuster and franchise with an expert critical eye.
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brian sibley
A writer and broadcaster who made his name with the landmark 1981 BBC radio adaptation of The Lord of The Rings, Brian has since established himself as a sage of the Fantasy genre. His work has covered Middle Earth, Narnia, Oz, Wonderland, Disney and Harry Potter, and he is also director Peter Jackson’s official biographer.
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scott mendelson
Scott is Hollywood’s sharpest box-office analyst and an astute film critic who's been obsessing over cinema for nearly two decades. Having made his name as Forbes’ resident film industry expert, Scott brings charisma, wit and unapologetic candour to his work, making him a unique voice in pop-cultural commentary. And he thinks The Fellowship of the Ring is the best film ever made!
Creative team
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tom o'dell
Tom O'Dell is the writer, editor, director and producer of over 20 feature docs. Focused on the arts, entertainment and history these include: How The Beatles Changed The World; Manson, Music From An Unsound Mind; Rise Of The Superheroes; Gone With The Wind: The Rise And Fall Of Lynyrd Skynyrd; The Murder Network and Kraftwerk and The Electronic Revolution.
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Elio españa
Elio España has been producing arts, music and history documentary features for over 20 years. His previous work alongside Tom O’Dell includes Banksy & The Rise of Outlaw Art, Rise of the Superheroes, the Brian Wilson: Songwriter series, the six-part Discovery series Wartime Crime and Down in the Flood: The Story of Bob Dylan & The Band.
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Chris Ingham
Chris is a seasoned composer who has been a key part of our team for over a decade. The driving force behind the acclaimed jazz ensemble The Chris Ingham Quartet, he is a Mercury Prize-nominated song-writer who melds genres and styles, from avant-garde to contemporary classical. His score for Fantasy Rising is steeped in both Medieval and Hollywood Traditions.
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Wayne Reynolds
Wayne has joined the Fantasy Rising team to produce exclusive artwork for the limited edition Blu-Ray. A British illustrator renowned for his dynamic fantasy artwork across tabletop RPGs, comics and collectible card games, Wayne is best known for his iconic Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder covers and vibrant illustrations for Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone. Wayne was ranked #2 in the Best RPG Artists of All Time list by Black Gate. In 2024 Wayne's art was featured on a set of Royal Mail stamps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons.
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Joe Wilson
Joe is an award-winning illustrator specialising in highly-detailed, hand-drawn illustrations and print. His unique artwork has graced the covers of Esi Edugyan's international best-seller Washington Black, Adrian Tchaicovsky's acclaimed High Fantasy series The Tyrant Philosophers and Arrow's Ray Harryhausen 4K box-set When Titans Ruled The Earth. He is designing the cover art for our exclusive Phantastes hardback edition.
Wayne reynolds classic d&d and pathfinder art
Joe Wilson artwork
