Category: adventure

  • The lure of Lost World adventures

    The lure of Lost World adventures

    “Who was this extraordinary woman, Queen over a people apparently as extraordinary as herself, and reigning amidst the vestiges of a lost civilisation? And what was the meaning of this story of the Fire that gave unending life?” She, by H. Rider Haggard There was a moment at Machu Picchu…

  • Why I never became a travel agent

    Why I never became a travel agent

    The Cambridge Dictionary describes an adventure as “an exciting, unusual, and potentially risky undertaking. It often involves stepping outside your comfort zone, embracing unpredictability”, and mentions the “psychological thrill of a daring journey”. My hubby and I began our adventures before we even embarked on our honeymoon. We’d just gotten…

  • How quickly things change

    How quickly things change

    This is not a political blog post. It’s about how countries evolve, develop problems and work them out. Authors pay attention to these things when we’re crafting the worlds our stories play out in. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention in May, when the protests in Bolivia began –…

  • Irish travel: inspired by books

    Irish travel: inspired by books

    When I turned the final page of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I wanted to crawl back inside. While the books are overly-descriptive for some people, I found the details of Middle Earth so fascinating that I couldn’t get enough of them. I wanted to visit Middle Earth, follow…

  • Being a bold woman today

    Being a bold woman today

    “And I may say, once for all, carefully weighing my words, that in no part of the world have I seen stones cut with such mathematical precision and admirable skill as in Peru, and in no part of Peru are there any to surpass those which are scattered over the…

  • The Lost Ark, a real-life treasure hunt

    The Lost Ark, a real-life treasure hunt

    If you were going to bring back the early adventure epics to the big screen, what better story than a roguish professor and archeologist searching for the greatest lost treasure in history? The Ark of the Covenant was the most important artifact of biblical times – the repository of God’s…

  • Fantasy jobs: Treasure hunter for the British Museum

    Fantasy jobs: Treasure hunter for the British Museum

    In 1998 I, my hubby and my in-laws got to pretend we were Indiana Jones for a few hours. Hubby & I had driven down to Florida to join his parents for a week at a family condo in Clearwater, and in the news before we left I saw a…

  • The End of a Train Era

    The End of a Train Era

    In Egypt, there were miles of sand, which refused to remain pleasantly flat. It made the tracks undulate so much that it gave our train a pronounced sway – so much so that at times it felt like the car holding our cabin was going to tip right over. There…

  • Curses! It’s a Mummy!

    Curses! It’s a Mummy!

    Death will come on swift wings to whomsoever opens this chest.“It’s the curse! It’s the curse! Beware of the curse!” Beni.“Stupid, superstitious bastard.” Daniels.The Mummy, 1999 “CARNARVON’S DEATH SPREADS THEORIES ABOUT VENGEANCE; In Egypt, England, France and Here, Occultists Advance Stories of Angered Gods.LONDON, April 5.—Genuine regret is expressed here…

  • Inspired by Ancient Mythology

    Inspired by Ancient Mythology

    Along with the eerie literature and movies that were big influences for me as a child and early story-teller (Edgar Allan Poe, The Twilight Zone, etc.), I also grew up on what I loosely call ‘sword-and-sandal’ movies. Officially, the term ‘sword-and-sandal’ refers to a popular genre of Italian knock-off movies…