Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave

Naturally we still do not know for sure if this is a prequel or sequel. (Unless I missed something). Regardless, exploring Shamir's homeland will be fascinating. Gosh though...hearing Sothis' voice and her theme... And this enemy... a new foe or the Dagdan branch of those who slither in the dark?

Authors are not in charge

Whoever said authors where in charge of their characters was not an author, because the best characters, the ones we all remember and cherish, become real people not only to us but to the author too. People with hopes and dreams, personality quirks and idiosyncrasies, tragic pasts and hopeful ones, hobbies and loves and hates...everything that makes us human (even if, in Fantasy, not all characters are human). Therefore whenever we authors create a character we cede some control over our world away, for a well-made character will act as they will according to their nature and a good lets them do just that. We build the world, set the stage, and certainly have some control, more the more we write, the deeper we delve into our worlds, the more we find that we are just following the characters. It becomes not unlike being a Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons: the DM controls what happens in the world, but not the players characters.

As Patricia A. McKillip once so wisely said, "Like water, tales find their own paths; they go where they are needed." Goodness knows that was my experience writing The Dragonkin Legacy: as a general matter I knew what was going to happen, but I was often barely a half-step ahead of my characters and then watching their reactions. Still, one need not take my word for it. I yield, as ever, the floor to J.R.R. Tolkien. 

"I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlorien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horselords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fanghorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystefied as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22." – J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955

In a different letter, he also noted that Faramir's appearance toward the end of The Two Towers startled him no less than the readers, saying: "I am sure I did not invent him. I did not even want him, though I like him." Case in point that authors are not in charge, for if the measure of greatness is creating something with a life of its own then the stories/worlds given life end up calling the shots.

LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

An inveterate Magic: the Gathering player, I pay close 
attention to the lore and THIS STORY,  Not for a Stranger, 
is the one for this month. A toast to Huatli and Saheeli.

"Hail royal June, sun-bright with poppies crowned" said John Cowper Powys, the English philosopher, lecturer, novelist, critic and poet. But I echo that hail today for another reason in addition to joyous Summer. It is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, and with it let me continue to offer my undying support for the LGBTQIA+ community and reiterate the role Fantasy literature plays in supporting them by, to start, inviting people to read my LGBTQIA+ in Fantasy page. As I state on the just mentioned page, I personally am not LGBTQIA+. However, I have students who are and one year I told them – quite truthfully, by the way – that I was writing a Fantasy book in which one of the key characters is lesbian. Their eyes lit and they were on their feet in less time than it takes to say it. But it is the moment when I told them that the character is a Queen that I shall forever remember, for the glow on their faces out-shown the lights on the ceiling by a leap and a bound. They began questioning me about the character, wanting to know her name, what she looked like, all about the land she ruled and, most importantly, when the book was coming out. To this last I gave them a disappointing answer, for an unfinished rough draft of a 500+ page book is naturally years away from publication, and they asked me how they were supposed to wait that long for a book with a gay Queen. They want to see the rough draft as it stands and one who has some artistic skill began drawing this Queen based on my description. The moral of the story? Representation matters, people. Seeing yourself in literature matters in a huge way. Indeed, when I found these students they were eagerly pursuing the school library's LGBTQIA+ Pride Month book display. Speaking of, I mentioned once that I like using AI to see if it can make good library posters and the results have been amazing, the below image being, I think, proof of that (and, since it is AI and thus not subject to any copyright protections, feel free to use it to your hearts content.) 

On that note, let me also reiterate that I utterly condemn such people as seek to ban books, and they feel the full force of my contempt so hard it ought to frost their windows. So if you are anti-LGBTQIA+ and are reading this, do not even THINK of commenting on this or any other Stars Uncounted page or post spouting your intolerant drivel, because I will take one look and delete it. It will never appear, and I will lose no sleep over it. Rather, I will be laughing at how you are so insecure that you feel the need to rant on a Fantasy blog while reflecting on the truth of a Mercedes Lackey quote: "Make someone a devout, fanatical anything, and his brain turns to mulch." Then I will stop laughing and forget all about you, because I categorically deem anti-LGBTQIA+ people as a class of idiot so utterly unworthy of respect that I will not waste any more minutes thinking about you. You are a mosquito whose comment was a bite on this blog, and I will flick your comment away with as little thought or care as I would an actual mosquito misguided enough to try to get at my blood. Less care, actually, since, unlike true mosquito bites, deleted comments do not itch after the fact.

My father and I just finished The Season of Flames, the first of Anna James' Chronicles of Whetherwhy

My father and I just finished The Season of Flames, the second of Anna James' Chronicles of Whetherwhy.

Thirteen years have passed since Juniper and Rafferty foiled a dark cult in Stormgrove, yet the magical balance of the island of Whetherwhy is still off. How to fix it? One has heard of running to the circus before, but away is the direction Elio and his friends must go to evade the scheming Queen's inspectors and discover the secrets of his pendant, missing mother, and the curious town of Firehollow. Friends new to Elio but old to us as they found the answers they sought but... Well, I have never been fond of deceptive tyrants willing to kill to gain the power of Dragons. Fortunate that Summer arrived the nick of time, but dark times lie ahead, and not only for the Thistledown Academy of Enchantment. I only hope Elio gets to Dragonsrest before the knot of trouble becomes to large, to violent, to untangle.

I have started Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire by Don Martin

I have started Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire by Don Martin.

"The rules here are simple: Don’t look in the trees. Don’t whistle in the woods at night. Don’t answer if you hear your name called. And remember... everything wants." Including a magician who, decades prior, arrived at the old mining town of Foxfire in the Appalachians, taking things other than coin for his services. People always talk about witches' curses, but now it is up to Verity Vox, witch-in-training, to break the one binding the land around an ancient mountain in hunger, isolation, and desolation. Preferably before this fell magician adds her to the list of those who have vanished seeking him.

This has been on my reading list for months and my original intention was to hold off until October for obviously seasonal reasons, but the glamour of the book already had me quite bewitched and, now that I have begun, I am quite content to stay that way. Foxfire calls.

10th Anniversary of Stars Uncounted!

Did I hear myself correctly? Because it sounded like it has been ten years since I wrote these words:

"Greetings Fantasy book lovers and/or guests!! Welcome to my Hall. Come, sit back and relax – maybe have a mug of ale (though I prefer water and apple cider) – while I tell you about myself.

My name is Ian, called the Riddle Maker due to my love of inventing riddles, and I have begun this blog because so many of my friends have said that I should (or would be good at such) that I can ignore them no longer; their statements derived from my Facebook posts regarding my reading and general obsession with Fantasy books and the genre at large. I cannot promise that this blog will be any more edifying that my Facebook posts, and it certainly will not be a bunch of standard Fantasy book reviews. Think of this thus as a public diary of sorts – a record of my subsequent and continued journey through the Realm of the Fantastic."

 

Honestly I can scarcely believe I am writing this. As stated in the quoted Welcome Post, I first started Stars Uncounted - Ian's Fantasy Bookshelf at the ceaseless urging of my friends to do so back in college and, despite my bold tone, I never believed the blog would last this long – much less gain any kind of audience. Now I am a school librarian, an author of Epic Fantasy, and someone whom other authors very occasionally ask to review their books. Had anyone told me this was my mostly humble blog's fate (because it began as entirely if not below humble) I would have thanked them for their faith in me while laughing on the inside. Even now, at the beginning of every year, I am amazed I find enough to write about each month! I guess, as usual, J.R.R. Tolkien spoke true: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

So here we are and, much as I would like to wax poetic about this monumental 10th Anniversary moment, I actually wrote this post back in January and set it to automatically publish itself today because I was afraid I would forget when the time came. Point of order, one of the reasons Stars Uncounted has seen a decade when most blogs never do is because it is not a standard review site. Because it is a public diary of sorts, it relies only on me. As Sarkhan Vol said: "Do you understand that you must always fail, as long as your goal is not truth, but guidance? That as long as you seek dragons around you, you will never become the dragon within you?" Wise words, even if the man in question took the whole "dragon within you" part a bit too literally. So I will simply say: a toast to another ten years! Goodness knows I am not going anywhere.

"Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold...The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveler who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien

“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” - C.S. Lewis

"Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look." - Diana Wynne Jones 

I have finished The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan

I have finished The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan.

“And the Old Matchmaker of the Moon said to the lovers, 'This red thread I bestow upon you. It may stretch and it may tangle, but it will never break. Across cycles and worlds and lifetimes, your souls are now destined,” wrote Amélie Wen Zhao, referencing the ancient East Asian legend of the Red Thread of Fate – an invisible red cord tied by the gods linking Fated Ones, soulmates destined to be together. 

But destiny is never clean and, in this case, the threads are not limited to humans. Alas, there is truly almost nothing I can say that would not qualify as a major spoiler. So I will simply note that those who seek to quash the immortal love and power of Dragons, those whose give in to boundless greed and realize too late how soul-destroying it is, will always fail. It may take lifetimes and near mind-crushing heartbreaks, but those thread-bound will find and fly with each other again, finally free of a seriously mad Emperor. (Oh, and my Dragon-related instincts proved correct again.)

Fare ye well, Sai & Jyn. I would wish you a long and happy life but for the fact that it is already a forgone conclusion, so no wishing required.