Thursday, May 26, 2016

The Nature of Heroes

It is important to remember that Fantasy, when done per the Spirit of Tolkien, is a wise genre regardless of the medium used to show it. As such, when I find video and/or role-playing games with a truly deep and complex storyline full of heart, I call them book-worthy

Take RuneScape - the world's largest free MMORPG game, and my personal favorite - for instance. Its introduction describes the Nature of Heroes with near perfection.


The only thing I would add is that those heroes of unlikely origins typically have heroism thrust upon them; as innumerable friends of mine, made across the Multiverse, could testify.
And some heroes even thrust others into it. (Yes, I am looking at you, Allanon[1])



[1] From The Original Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Another of the Many Worlds of Diana Wynne Jones

My father and I just finished The Game by Diana Wynne Jones, the Mistress of the Multiverse and Lady of Endless Surprises.

As always, Jones Fantasy books delight and surprise in ways and via plots that no other author could possibly think of - and she literally ALWAYS fools us!! Tis a wonderful thing when a Comet plucks a Golden Apple within the endless story-strands of the Mythosphere. (That and a bowl of the Three Bears' porridge.)

Stellar work (figuratively and literally) Hayley, Harmony, Troy, Flute and Fiddle, Atlas, Merope, Baba Yaga, and all the rest of stars and the Mythosphere.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

A return to the wondrous world of Velgarth

Just started Winds of Fate, book #1 of The Mage Winds Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey.

It is SO delightful returning to Valdemar and seeing old friends (and their children) again!! Queen and Queen's Own Selenay and Talia, my dear Kerowyn (and Need), Princess Elspeth, Skif, Daren, Alberich, and all the rest of the Heralds and their Companions. Star-Eyed strike me but this will be fun! (Of course, Fantasy books always are, but I have a special place in my heart for
Mercedes Lackey the Unexpected)

And maybe this time Ancar the Sadist King will finally be put out of our misery. Let High Magic and the lost Herald Mages return!!

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Welcome to my new blog- Stars Uncounted!!

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. 




I invite you all to travel with me on that journey. I invite you all to share the magic and mystery of parts unknown and the human heart. I invite you all to dive into wondrous lands and explore the Multiverse and Faerie with me. Just remember to come with all the wonder and curiosity of a child, for experience has taught me that children are the best riddle-solvers.

“A question like ‘How big is Faerie?’ does not admit of a simple answer. Faerie, after all, is not one land, one principality or domain. Maps of Faerie are unreliable, and may not be depended upon. We talk of Kings and Queens of Faerie as we would speak of the Kings and Queens of England. But Faerie is bigger than England, it is bigger than the world (for, since the dawn of time, each land that has been forced off the map by explorers and the brave going out and proving it wasn’t there has taken refuge in Faerie; so it is now, by the time that we come to write of it, a most huge place indeed, containing every manner of landscape and terrain.) Here, truly, there be Dragons.”   
- Neil Gaiman

Feel free to comment and debate here, but please try to mind your tongues as, being a Child of the High Fantasy, I loathe swearwords with every fiber of my being.