Flame Tree Fiction

If you're a fantasy art fan, am I wrong in assuming that you find thrill in blood, sweat, triumph and glory? You're in awe of rippling muscles, masculine grit, death and dynamism and kinetic carnage? Look no further than the works of legendary fantasy and science fiction artist Frank Frazetta. 

We've just released a digital first publication in our Gothic Dreams series: Steampunk. 128 pages of colour illustrations, packed with brilliant art from fabulous contemporary illustrators. It's available on the Apple iBookstore and is designed for the iPad Retina display which shows off the detailed and glorious art. We're absolutely delighted with it.

There’s something very steampunky about cinema itself. The medium was invented in the Victorian era, and early projectors and cameras were intricate, archaic devices with hundreds of moving parts. This ethos of incricate moving parts laced with a strong emphasis on style is what makes steampunk appeal to so many people worldwide, and why too it has capured the imaginationof Hollywood filmakers. 

The stars have aligned, oceans have parted; and now Cthulhu no longer dreaming lies dreaming in the depths, but is here. We're incredibly proud of our amazing illustrated title, now available in hardback print and also digitally via the iBookstore. The powerful and terrifying images of Cthulhu look astonishing on the iPad, each colour popping because of the device's high-res screen. These illustrations also look incredible in our print book; we've used high-quality, glossy paper, so that each image stands centre stage in all its glory.

Take weird horror storyteller H.P. Lovecraft's terrifying and malevolent creation Cthulhu, and mix with the fantastical scope of Greek mythology; and what do you get? A uniquely-imagined epic adventure, with vivid storytelling and powerfully atmospheric artworks. I'm talking about the graphic novel Apollo, written by Erik von Wodtke and illustrated by Douglas A. Sirois.

Stepping out of reality and into a world full of mischievous fairies, fantastic backdrops and spooky settings, Jasmine Beckett-Griffith’s art transports her viewers into a world where anything is possible.

'Cthulhu Mythos' is a term originally coined by August Derleth and has since come to represent the overall shared characters, themes and elements from the works by H.P. Lovecraft, his protegés and other writers influenced by him. It's an intertwined universe that spans across several fantasy fictions without being explicitly detailed or made relevant by the plot.

It's fair to say Matthew Lewis's 1796 novel is a challenging read. Even for a book so old, it's not so much the language that is hard to digest but the shocking detail in which Lewis paints a saintly figure's fall into depravity. Though religion has come be to inexorably tied to gothic fiction, The Monk is really one of the first novels that didn't shy away from the often disturbing elements of faith, and the shocking repercussions of straying from such a strict path. That is what is so interesting and compelling about this book: how religion, a universal and identifiable part of many people's lives, can be manipulated and exploited into a tale that transports us away from the security of what we know, and land us into a terrifying world of desire and bloodshed.

Book Cover Artist

Whelan's work has graced book covers from novelists like Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, Poul Anderson and, most famously, Anne McCaffrey, bringing both author and artist unassailable respect among fantasy devotees. He has also won countless awards and accolades for his work, which he describes as ‘communication’, in a sense being an intermediary between the author’s words, vision and intention and the expectation and understanding of the reader or viewer. This viewpoint means that the symbolism of his work is as important as the actions and events that make up the subject matter.

On a quest to experience the mythical, mystical, magical and macho all at once? Look no further than to the works of fantasy artist Ken Kelly. A work by Kelly is an invitation into the wonderful world of imagination, of warriors and dragon art, as he offers viewers a direct route into faraway places and primal battlefields that burst at the seams with vivacity.