Tag: fantasy

Review of Return to Wonderland, by Tanya Lisle

.

.

Tanya Lisle’s Return to Wonderland catches up to Alice years after she first fell down the rabbit hole. She has since endured a barrage of doctors and learned to put her adventures in Wonderland behind her. She’s finally free to attend the prestigious Lucena Academy to get a fresh start—and make friends her own age.

Unfortunately, a purple-haired boy appears at the school, revealing himself to be the Cheshire Cat. He speaks in riddles about how Wonderland is a much different place than when Alice last visited and tempts her with a visit back.

Lisle managed to modernize the world in and around Wonderland in a way that doesn’t detract from the story. It feels like a legitimate expansion of the original and, though a children’s book, is not boring or cumbersome for the adult side of the reader equation. It’s a very quick and easy read. The quality of prose is engaging, and the book has great pacing overall.

Alice is an easy character to cheer on. Her moments of doubt and her bout of nerves when meeting new people are easily relatable during the target age-range for this book, and her strength makes her all the more endearing. The supporting cast, Adrianna and her brothers specifically, feel like parallels of characters in Wonderland—so they are at once new and familiar. The Cheshire Cat himself seems to represent the changes in Wonderland. As the story progresses, Cat’s actions mirror in the normal world the changes occurring in Wonderland.

There are, of course, familiar faces in Wonderland, as well. As Alice goes through Wonderland she begins to see the changes of which the Cheshire Cat hinted. Although she is more prepared for Wonderland this time around, the changes present fresh new problems for Alice to navigate.

.

Review of Countryside: The Book of the Wise, by J.T. Cope IV

.

.

Hello there, guys and dolls. I’m going to do something a little different today. I’m going to talk to you about Countryside: The Book of the Wise, by J.T. Cope IV.

Countryside is a book written for ages 9-12, according to Amazon. Personally, I’d stretch that range to about 14. Also, do not judge me, because I know all of you heifers read Harry Potter into your old age-ness.

Countryside is about an 11-year-old boy named Luke Rayburn. Strange things start happening to Luke about the time his father is requisitioned to go overseas. This is the catalyst for Luke, his mother, and his four siblings to go live with Luke’s grandparents in Countryside. Countryside (the place in the book, not the book itself) is equal parts Narnia and Hogwarts. The atmosphere and aesthetics of Countryside are reminiscent of that of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series (a little cowboy/western, a little medieval high fantasy).

Before I get any further, I want to say that if you (or an age appropriate person you know) picks this book up, skip the prologue. Not only is the prologue confusing, but the information it contains is in the body of the book and explained with much more clarity. Now, the first ¼ or so of the story is a bit slow. In my opinion, too much time is spent building up to the journey to Countryside (and even the catalyst that drives the family there). There is a good deal of unnecessary info to wade through and it could stand to be cut down so that the focus is primarily on Luke’s relationship with his father.

Now, once we get to Countryside? Whole different story. When Luke arrives in Countryside, the pacing is faster and there is this hint of mystery that’s fun to unravel as you go. It’s easy to get more invested in the characters of Countryside, as well as Luke’s relationship with them. Readers can more clearly feel the bonds he’s making and relate to his struggles (being an outsider, being bullied). The story hits all the major tropes of a fantasy for youngsters.

The description of Countryside is written in such a way that it feels like you’re there, walking down Main Street or Hanover with Luke and his friends. While the dialogue can, at times, get a bit expositional, it’s believable for the most part. The further along you get in the story, the more engaging it is overall.

I would have no problem recommending this to one of my nieces.

Let’s face it. You might not trust me, se head over to Goodreads to learn more about Luke’s adventures in Countryside.

Of course, if you do trust me (shut up, Dave, I heard that!) then check Countryside: The Book of the Wise on Amazon.

Villain Series: Part II

.

.

For the first time in centuries, Chernabog is too surprised to be angry. He digs one long claw around in his right ear before angling toward Belobog

“I thought you said go out. On a date,” Chernabog says. He wrinkles his nose and draws his lips away from his teeth, brow furrowed.

“Yes, yes. I did,” Belobog says, waving away Chernabog’s incredulity. “You spend all year in solitude brooding over the myriad injustices you think have been done you—”

“Injustices you brought about!” Chernabog roars, wings striking out around him. Ignoring the interruption, Belobog continues.

“—and then when you finally do come out of solitary, you spend your time with these… creatures. You need to spend some time away from your precious mountain. And with someone who isn’t a whipped minion.”

“They are whipped minions, brother, because they are weak,” Chernabog explains. The brothers look at one another. Belobog gives a long, slow blink. “I’m going to bring chaos with me if I go out there.” Another long, slow blink from Belobog. “I don’t need a human to be happy.” Blink.

Chernabog’s jaw tightens, teeth grinding as he feels the anger rise back to full force. “Fine!”

Belobog’s face breaks into a smile, the light emanating from it blinding Chernabog before he can react. Chernabog snaps his eyes shut against any further potential damage and waits for the white dots to stop dancing. His forefinger begins the little circles on his thumb pad. His clawed feet no longer press against stone.

“Belobog,” he growls. “We have you brought us?”

“Sorry about that. Wasn’t thinking. All ready for you to open your eyes again.”

Chernabog tentatively complies. He looks around, unimpressed by his surroundings. The room he’s in is large, open, and decorated in soft, light colors. Large windows overlook a city Chernabog doesn’t recognize. A glass and chrome table is set under a mutedly artistic chandelier, marking the room’s focal point. On the table is a single item.

Belobog crosses to the table and pulls a chair out, motioning Chernabog to take a seat. Grumbling, Chernabog complies.

“This,” Belobog says, motioning at the item on the table, “is a—”

“It’s a laptop. I’m not that out of touch.”

Belobog purses his lips and nods. He takes a seat across from Chernabog and opens the laptop, pulling up the website he saw in an ad several days ago. The page loads a little more slowly than he’d like. Once it’s finished, he spins the laptop toward Chernabog.

Chernabog voices frustration in strangled noises as he looks at the screen. Second Chances, it says. “Finding love for the disadvantaged?” Chernabog is unable to keep the outrage from his voice. “I am not disadvantaged, brother, I am unjustly abused!”

Belobog leans across the table, catching Chernabog’s fist mere centimeters from connecting with the glass. Even so, the force behind the blow causes spiderweb cracks in the table’s surface. “Calm down,” Belobog demands, shaking his brother by the wrist. “Calm down. It’s just marketing. They aren’t the most sensitive lot. This isn’t a dig at you.”

Chernabog pulls his hand back—Belobog lets him. Chernabog sits and studies the website. He tries to scroll but the touch pad doesn’t recognize his finger as touching it. He tries to use the keyboard, but his claws glance off uselessly. He looks over the laptop at his brother as a soft keening begins in the back of his throat. Belobog snatches the laptop away and smiles at his brother.

“Hadn’t thought about that. So sorry,” he says, letting out just enough of his light to distract his brother before the keening becomes another mountain crumbling roar. “I’ll just do the typing, shall I?”

Chernabog listens to the soft clicking as Belobog begins to register an account.

“You need a name,” Belobog says. “Something less… you.”

Chernabog looks around as though he might find inspiration from inside Belobog’s apartment. “Scott,” he says finally, spotting the word on some packaging in a partially hidden room to his left. Belobog follows his brother’s gaze.

“Yes. Scott. Very fitting. Very abrasive, Scott. Perfect,” Belobog says, the words tumbling out to hide his mirth. Belobog types the name in and moves on. “Age and ethnicity are next.” Chernabog opens his mouth to answer, but Belobog interrupts. “You know what? 35-year-old native sounds perfect.”

Chernabog folds his arms across his chest and scowls, but nods for Belobog to continue.

“Looking for…” Belobog looks up and studies his brother for a moment. “Long-term relationship.”

Chernabog growls.

“Children?” Belobog mentally kicks himself for even reading the question aloud.

“I was wondering if you had anything to eat here,” Chernabog says. Belobog gives him another slow blink. He clicks “undecided.”

“Body type…” murmurs Belobog as he reads off the next question. Chernabog knocks a hand against his chest, the sound like two boulders rubbing. Rock solid. “I’ll just mark bodybuilder. Let’s see… Religious preference, political preference… I’ll just leave those blank. Sexual preference?”

“Alive,” Chernabog says eagerly.

Einar, the Ungelīc: A Character Development Draft

.

.

Einar sat back on his haunches, elbows resting on his knees. The view from his perch on the scorched black hill showed him a valley of the dead. Heat rose in soft waves from open bodies, turning the cold air foggy. Even the rain took on a red glint as it crossed the warm front. His head swayed back and forth on his long neck.

“And for what was this done?” Einar asked the air.

“Blood feud,” the androgynous wind hissed behind him. “Wergild unpaid.”

Einar stood, his tall body stretching out. His limbs and neck were unnaturally long. Darkness pushed through nearly translucent skin, giving him an incandescent-ashen appearance. Dark red veining began at his narrow waist, wrapping undiscernible patterns up his broad back, over his shoulders and around his heart, up the sides of his neck and head. Smaller, more intricate veining wound up his jaw, over cheekbones, truncating at the outside of blank, white eyes.

Just as Idun, Einar was born into slavery. His was of a different kind. His ears were his branding, ears that were too long at the top and had chunks removed as if a rat had made a meal of them in the night. He could change form, and often did in the presence of humans, but he could never hide his demarcation.

“What has this to do with me?” Einar asked the air.

The air pressure changed sharply and Einar shivered.

“There are others,” said the wind.

The air in front of Einar moved, mini-cyclones distorting the scene before him to show him something new. The ice country. Ísigstān castle. Two figures.

“The king,” the wind whispered. “And the slave.”

Einar contemplated the scene before him. An old, haggard king, with white skin and whiter hair and eyes as black as coal, so insecure he wore his crown in his own bedchamber. He squirmed and thrashed atop a young, painfully thin woman. She stared out with dead eyes at nothing. Her muscles looked stiff with the attempt not to move, not to push the elderly king away. Her silver-white hair spread around her head like a fan, the ends dipped in black. A scar ran along her face, from cheek to cheek, right across the bridge of her nose.

Einar touched the ragged edge of one long ear, not even noticing the motion until the wind laughed from behind him. He brought his hand slowly around to the front of his neck, scratching just below his chin. He dropped his hand to his side and cocked his head.

“Let the feud end here,” Einar said, motioning to the valley below.

“It will not,” hissed the wind. “It cannot.”

“Then find another. This is beneath me.”

More laughter at this. Laughter that started at one shoulder and blew to the other. He felt the wind become solid enough to touch his face with threatening fingers. Then nothing.

“Nothing is beneath you. Go to the slave. Take her to the eard-stapa wiga.”

Einar looked over sharply, trying to pin the voice with his gaze. It was a useless movement. The wandering warrior. Einar spat at the thought.

“You’d have me run in circles. For what? Kill them both and be done with this.”

“No!” the wind picked up to a whistling scream with the word, then almost as suddenly, it died. The quiet unnerved Einar. “The slave must kill the king. After, can the slave be killed.”

Einar’s chest tightened, the muscles in his mid back locking up in preparation for swift movement. He breathed deep, commanding his body to relax.

“Send another,” Einar said through a clenched jaw. His lips peeled back from his teeth, the upper right corner turning into a snarl.

The wind screamed. It howled. It spun down the hill, picking up the dead and throwing them aside. Einar watched this tantrum with a smile. In the end, he would do as he was bid. He would be given no reason. He was never given a reason. But defiance was irresistible. Even considering the punishment to follow. So, he watched and smiled and enjoyed the whirlwind of corpses.

He would go to the slave.

He would take her to the eard-stapa wiga.

And once she killed the king, he would wash his hands of her.

Idun Verdandi, an Ísigstān Slave: A Character Development Draft

.

.

Idun Verdandi was born in the Ísigstān kingdom. Idun was born a slave in the house of the Vetr Sun, living in the very same castle as the hēahcyning himself. This knowledge was no comfort. Idun had once been told the story of her beginning. Her mother, also a slave, had tried to first hide Idun, then to smuggle her from the castle. Although Idun’s father wasn’t complicit in this act, both he and Idun’s mother were killed. A warning to any who would try to deprive the hēahcyning of his property.

Idun hugged her knees to her chest and leaned her back against the ice-flecked stone wall of her chamber. The other slave girls slept. She could not. The night fevers often interfered with her sleep. Idun raised a thin hand perched atop a thinner arm and brushed her long hair toward the front of her face, making a vail. The silver-white strands making up the first foot of hair from scalp to shoulder looked dull, stringy. The other foot and a half, from shoulder to waist was in worse shape. The black dye, which marked slaves, dried her hair. Turned it brittle.

Ísigstān natives were born with three distinctive traits. The silver-white hair, pale skin, and black irises. These traits were adaptations to the frost-bitten land. The paleness of hair and skin to better hide from natural predators, and expanded pupils with dominantly black irises (more night hours). The slaves were made to dye their hair. The more valuable slaves could keep half of the growth—and only half—their natural silver-white. It wouldn’t be long before Idun would have to add more dye.

Another, more permanent demarcation was inflicted on slaves in early childhood. This was the brand that ran from one cheek to the other, curving over the nasal bridge in a turned down crescent shape. Many of the slave children died from the brand.

Idun touched the rough, raised skin before letting her hand fall away. Sleep would take her soon.

She grabbed the piece of cloth she had ripped from her bedding and placed it in her mouth. She let a corner piece of the cloth stay pressed between her lips so that once she awoke, she could yank the rag out. For almost a month, she slept that way. If her night screams ever woke the hēahcyning again, she was told, she’d pay with her flesh.

Idun lay back, almost curling in on herself. As she began to drift, she felt the skin of her arms start to burn, handprint shapes glowing along her biceps.

Every night, this is how it began.

Music is the Muse

.

.

I took a break from writing a blog for which I’d need to indulge in research. I started today off doing something I had zero desire in ever doing. Or, rather, it began last night.

I was driving home, listening to an album. Every time I listen to this album, I feel it building a story. Maybe not the one the musicians are trying to tell, sure, but a story that won’t go untold. It refuses. For months, I’ve resisted. Never, ever, have I had the desire to write anything on the same plane as a work that could be called epic, nor have I had interest in world building. But, what do I know?

.

  • mountain-941507_640
    Now, we just add a little bird right here…

.

Language, Please…

I see why Tolkien was so keen on using dead languages. Particularly Old English. It’s beautiful, it’s melodic (an educated guess, on account of it being a… well, a dead language), and it feels epic. So, as I sat down to outline the first few chapters for the first book in this tale, I realized I needed to brush off my Norse sagas, my Old English texts, and my Celtic mythology. I realized this mostly after I spent three hours coming up with a couple of character names and the name of the land the protagonist is from. I must have taken a severe linguistic inflection dump after college.

.

  • head-806232_640
    That’s the face of someone who just took a massive brain dump.

.

Sweet, Sweet Resolution

So, I rounded up my linguistics sources, settled on character and (one) place names, and jotted the outline of the first nine chapters for this first installment. It feels great. It feels daunting. It feels terrifying. And boy, I can’t wait until I really get to dig in. I’ve set a happy pace I can keep, because once the outline is done, there’s no stopping the creative juices.

While writing (and editing and touching base with fifty people a day) for a magazine as my day (read: paying) job and writing blogs eat up time, there is an hour per day somewhere in all that for which I can spare a moment of world building, one sentence in a hybrid dead/new language, one action scene or touching moment.

.

  • cheers-839865_640
    I think I can be bribed.