Okay, now that we’ve got opinion out of the way, here’s a breakdown of the book. Lynch’s Introduction and my essay on Asking the Expert start the book. The rest of the essays are organized around central topics in six sections. Each section has a generic topic, like history, language, or world-building. The sections are:

• It Already Happened: History as Inspiration
• Speak, Friend, and Enter: Languages & Culture
• How to Make It Up: World-building
• Weapons and Warfare: When In Doubt, Add These
• You Don’t Know Horses, But We Do
• So You’re Going On An Adventure

I haven’t read all the essays from each section, but I’ve read at least one per section. For most, I’ve read several. Each essay is excellently constructed full of helpful information.

Prior to the book, I hadn’t read any of the horse essays in Dan Koboldt’s Science in Sci-Fi, Fact in Fantasy series. But once the book was put together, I read the book’s version of Rachel Annelise Chaney’s How to Write Horses Wrong. The myth busting was fantastic, and I used some of the lessons in my current work-in-progress. Horses have never interested me despite my mother’s father and my wife having owned horses in the past. But reading through these essays, I realized how much I didn’t know. The essays were informative while keeping my attention.

All the essays that I’ve read so far had the same level of quality. The more that I read, the more honored I am to be included with this group of experts.