Netflix has announced the cast of "Shadow and Bone", an 8-episode TV series adapted from Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse fantasy novels - "Shadow and Bone" and "Six of Crows". Cast includes Westworld's and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian's Ben Barnes (as General Kirigan), Pennyworth's Freddy Carter (as Kaz Brekker), Jessie Mei Li (as Alina Starkov), Archie Renaux (as Malyen Oretsev), Amita Suman (as Inej) and Kit Young (as Jesper Fahey). The star of the show, Li, appeared on Ivo van Hove's stage adaptation of "All About Eve" and is set to appear in Edgar Wright's Last Night in SoHo film (2020). Anyway, the Netflix series is produced by Eric Heisserer (who wrote the screenplay adaptations for films like Bird Box and Arrival) and directed by Lee Toland Krieger.

The movie adaptation of the Eisner-winning comic series by David Petersen, Mouse Guard, has been cancelled.

According to several news sources from here and here, the cancellation was confirmed by director Wes Ball in a tweet, which had originally included a walkthrough video (supposedly a pre-visualization of scale models and concept art meant to illustrate how the movie will "feel", but not how it will "look". It was meant to be recreated by WETA Digital with photorealistic computer graphics thereafter). Ball, known for directing the film The Maze Runner, said in his tweet that 'Seems it's too big a risk. It's a damn shame really'...before ending with 'May the Guard prevail!'

There's a scene, early on in the beginning of the film John Wick 3: Parabellum where Wick (played by Keanu Reeves) fights a bunch of Asian gangsters in a narrow knife collectors' shop using just blades - knives and axes mostly. The fight scene has been praised for its intensity and choreography.

Yet, just a year after the first John Wick film burst into the scene in 2014, there was one Chinese film, The Final Master, that had an amazing knife/bladed weapon fight scene (also along a narrow corridor), where Grandmaster Chen (played by Liao Fan) has to defeat eight masters of Tianjin's nineteen martial arts schools, using a dual-handed bladed weapon known as the 蝴蝶刀 (hudiedao or butterfly knife). 

We're familiar with the medieval fantasy theme of knights in shining armor riding their horses with their lances, broadswords and shields. We're also familiar with the hobbits, elves, orcs, crown-wearing kings and queens with bearded wizards leaning against their magical quarterstaff wearing conical hats and long robes. Well, thanks to Arthurian legends, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games and books, and more recently, George R.R. Martin, these fantasy images are now etched in popular culture especially to a broader audience beyond books and into television shows and film.

Yet, what about fantasy novels with secondary worlds that do not draw on these medieval Western European or Arthurian images? What about stories and myths that draw on the folklore of the Russian rusalka, the Polish story of Rokita and Boruta, the Middle-Eastern night hag or baxtak, the king of goats or takam, or the myriad of stories from Asia from the Chinese Jade Emperor and superstitions to the Japanese yokai. Well, thanks to the Chicago Public Library, they've compiled a list of 13 fantasy novels that draw on these inspirations here. Let's take a look at what they're about.

George R. R. Martin has posted a blog entry titled An Ending. It's to cap off more than a decade of his involvement in HBO's Game of Thrones eight season series with show-runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Apparently, in his blog post, he mentioned that Benioff and Weiss already knew who Jon Snow's mother was when they sat down for lunch/dinner at the LA Palm. Confidential much? Hope the diners seated nearby weren't listening then.

Ahead of the season finale of HBO's Game of Thrones this coming weekend, Nuno Battencourt (Extreme), Tom Morello (Rage against the Machine & Audioslave), Scott Ian (Anthrax), Brad Paisley (singer/songwriter), Dan Weiss (HBO's Game of Thrones' showrunner) and Ramin Djawadi (composer) got together with Fender Custom Shop's made-to-order electric guitars (dubbed House Stark Telecaster, House Lannister Jaguar and House Targaryen Stratocaster) and re-interpreted Djawadi's GoT opening theme. It's actually amazing to watch Djawadi (who also composed for films and TV shows like Pacific Rim, Clash of the Titans, Westworld and Prison Break) shred along with the guitar rock gods.

If you prefer to download this compilation, click here.

There have been several discussions on how long fantasy authors usually take in finishing their sequels after the debut of a series. While authors themselves do not owe their fans a deadline (or an explanation for any delay), fans do grow weary if they wait too long, and well, they just gotta learn to move on with life or read another book instead of waiting or complaining.

There should also be a clear distinction between when an author finishes his or her sequel and when that sequel gets published, as there is still a time gap between those two - so a caveat here is that it may not entirely be the author's fault if the eagerly anticipated book reaches the shelves or your e-store late. However, yes, it is highly likely that the long gap in time is due to the author's turnaround. So what I've done is basically scour the web and put together a sort of reference to some of our favorite fantasy authors and how long each of them took to complete (and publish) sequels to their famous fantasy series.