Be a Bookwyrm

A Book Dragon or, of course, a Bookwyrm.

"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?" - Sarkhan Vol

 

A Valdemar TV Adaption with a gay protagonist!

Vanyel Ashkevron

Truly HBO's Game of Thrones deserves a vote of deepest thanks, for not only has Amazon created TV adaption for The Wheel of Time and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth in the Second Age, but now Radar Pictures is bringing Mercedes Lackey's The Last Herald-Mage trilogy to the TV screen! I have little doubt as to the huge potential for success this has, for I have favorably compared Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books to George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, for like GRRM she makes a brutal and often graphic point of showing the extremely gritty elements of the world, the key being that she counterbalances them with characters of the highest ideals; characters who ultimately, if not unscarred, prevail. In short, while I have not read The Last Herald-Mage trilogy I absolutely love Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books! From Vows and Honor to The Heralds of Valdemar trilogy to The Mage Winds trilogy, and I intend to read more! However, I am not at all surprised that it was The Last Herald-Mage trilogy that made the cut for its main protagonist is none other than Vanyel Ashkevron, who will grow up to become the greatest Herald-Mage, Herald period, and hero the Kingdom of Valdemar has ever known, a legend in the centuries following his death for the characters in the Valdemar series I have read. But he is also gay. Aye, a Fantasy series with a Queer protagonist is finally coming to television! The Fantastic is typically only written, read, and in this case watched, by the open minded, so this represents another victory in Fantasy's battle for all inclusiveness to honor the essential humanity in all of us. Huzzah!

Mercedes Lackey had this to say about the trilogy finally being adapted for television: “I have hoped for decades that The Last Herald-Mage would be adapted for television. Now that Radar has optioned the trilogy, I am nearly breathless with excitement. I could not have chosen a better organization to take my work in hand, and Kit and Bri, the producers, absolutely know both their stuff and the material. I love the fact that this is going to be a longform series: episodic TV gives the story all the room it needs. I hope our fans will be as thrilled to see their favorite characters come to life as I am.”

And the importance of adapting a fantasy series featuring an openly gay protagonist is not lost on producer Kit Williamson: “Vanyel in The Last Herald Mage series was one of the first gay characters I encountered, and as a recently out 16-year-old I can’t stress enough the impact that these books had on me. The Valdemar series was far ahead of its time in the portrayal of LGBTQ characters, and Lackey’s writing afforded them a level of depth and complexity that is still very rare, especially in genre storytelling."

Omicron

Turns out the cold I am getting over is no cold at all. I just rapid-tested positive for COVID-19. It is Omicron. Worry not, as the symptoms – courtesy of my being fully vaccinated plus a booster – are those of a minor head cold. Actually, I got this 'cold' last week but did not realize until today that it was something more.

Get the vaccine, folks. I know this post breaks by Fantasy Only, no real-world affairs, rule, but I have spoken of the Pandemic once before and feel this matter is important enough to speak of it again. Get vaccinated, folks.

Side note: I can never hear the word Omicron without thinking of how Star Trek's Lieutenant Commander Data was constructed on the planet Omicron Theta.

Fun fact

Horror, Dark Fantasy, Sci-fi author Joseph Hillström King took up the pen name Joe Hill for his name in 1997 out of a desire to succeed based solely on his own literary skill rather than piggybacking off his father Stephen King's fame. After achieving a degree of independent success, Hill publicly confirmed his identity in 2007, the year his first novel came out, after an article the previous year in Variety reported his identity. Not that I have never read eithers' books, but I love this sort of thing as it perfectly displays The Power of Names. It reminds me of how J.K. Rowling secretly published as Robert Galbraith for years without anyone being the wiser, before even The Casual Vacancy was published – which was and is funny since that was the book that got all the publicity of being Rowling's first post Harry Potter and non-Fantasy book. I half suspect she used The Casual Vacancy as a decoy to keep people from wondering what else she might be writing and stumbling on Robert Galbraith.

New Year's Eve

Well, 2021 has been a busy year. I wrote a new personal record of 95 posts (my previously highest being 71 in 2020 and 2017), one of which was my first official book review; Fantasy reached new highs with the release of Amazon's The Wheel of Time TV adaption while I tried and stopped one its grimdark lows, and RuneScape & Golden Sun celebrated their 20th anniversaries. Thus as 2021 rolls away I think it only fitting to look back on this year's accomplishments.

I read for the first time:

• The Sacred Hunt Duology by Michelle West
• Juniper Wiles by Charles de Lint
• House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
• The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint
• These Witches Don't Burn series by Isabel Sterling
• Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore, the fourth and newest book of her Graceling Realm Series.
• Flame by Sharon Shinn, the final novella in her book Quatrain, which returns to the land of Gillengaria and its Twelves Houses, making it a prequel of sorts to her Twelves Houses series.
• Winterlight, book 7 in the Green Rider series by Kristen Britain
• New Spring, prequel novel to The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
  

I reread:

• The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip
• The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
• The Cygnet Duology by Patricia A. McKillip
• The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin

Jólabókaflóð

 

Quote of the month

"Some people have an unconquerable love of riddles. They may have the chance of listening to plain sense, or to such wisdom that explains life; but no, they must go and work their brains over a riddle, just because they do not understand what it means." - Isak Dinesen

(This quote describes me well enough. I enjoy plain sense and value wisdom above all else save perhaps love, yet I have found that both stick better, make a deeper impression as it were, if they are found as answers to riddles.)