Valar morghulis. To be, or not to be. Valar dohaeris. All the world's a stage.

"Robert had been jesting with Jon Arryn and old Lord Hunter
as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the
final tilt to claim the champion's crown. Ned remembered the
moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen
urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell,
to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap.
He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost."

Apparently George R.R. Martin is to do a Broadway show about the Great Tourney at Harrenhal. My reaction? The short version is give my disregards to Broadway. The long is that Ser Barristan Selmy once noted that "Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna and thousands died for it," so what could possibly go wrong in a play that sets the stage (no pun intended) for the carnage to come? 😓 The Tourney at Harrenhal just reinforces Maester Aemon's unwise words that "love is the bane of honor, the death of duty." 

Beyond that, GRRM has signed a New Five Year Deal with HBO and HBO Max for a new drama series entittled the House of the Dragon, which is based on his Fire & Blood prequel to A Song of Ice and Fire, which chronicles House Targaryen 300 years before the War of Five Kings.

I just started Harpist in the Wind

"Beware the unanswered riddle." 

I just started Harpist in the Wind, book #3 of Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master Trilogy. 

Who is the Star-Bearer, and what will he loose that is bound? What will one star call out of silence, one star out of darkness, and one star out of death? War has come, born of riddles and wizards and shape-changers out of the sea, the hope of victory lying in the answers, three stars, and the efforts of Morgon and Raederle and their friends. And the truth about a certain harpist. 

"Beware another riddle-master."

My father and I just finished The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

My father and I just finished The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. 

Interestingly, this was the first time we read a book that I had already read before yet he had not - and I am happy to say that he had as grand a time in the Four Lands as I did the first time and again on this return visit to end anew the awesome power of the Warlock Lord. 

Farewell Shea and Flick Ohmsford, Hendel the dwarf, Durin and Dayel of the Westlands, Balinor, Menion Leah, Panamon Creel & Keltset, and last but anything but least Allanon.

I just finished Heir of Sea and Fire

"Beware the unanswered riddle."

I just finished Heir of Sea and Fire, book #2 of Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master Trilogy.

By the unconquered Kings of An I had forgotten how brilliant this book was and is, and that oath stirs quite a bit a trouble in a land where ancient grudges will pull themselves, bones and all, from the grave. Including a sea-born sorrow that makes Raederle of An quite the riddle herself as questions and wizards move to the destroyed Wizards City. War is coming, one that even the hate-filled dead have a stake in. A war that will test the very strictures of riddlery.

"Beware another riddle-master."

Quote of the month

"The law is that the hungry must be fed, and the homeless must be housed, and the sick must be healed. That is the way of the Light." - Silvia of Innail

Just started Heir of Sea and Fire

"Beware the unanswered riddle."

 

I just started Heir of Sea and Fire, book #2 of Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master Trilogy.

Who won the riddle-game with Peven of Aum? Morgon of Hed, and thus did he win the right to marry Raederle, the second most beautiful woman in the three portions of An. But wining that riddle-game began another, and now Raederle must find the farmer-prince as deadly riddles gather like blood-crazed crows in and for a battle barely understood.

 

"Beware another riddle-master."

I just finished The Riddle-Master of Hed

"Beware the unanswered riddle."

 

I just finished The Riddle-Master of Hed, book #1 of Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master Trilogy.

Never let your enemies build walls around you, least of all walls of ignorance propped up by truths and knowledge. Thus is the first part of the riddle of Ghisteslwchlohm, and the fate of the Wizards' City of Lungold, solved, a tad late, by Morgon the Star-Bearer as a war long silenced begins anew. A war that is the ultimate Riddle Game.

 

"Beware another riddle-master."

Began playing Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology

Back in 2012 I finished playing the DS game Radiant Historia, marking it with the facebook post:

Radiant Historia...a gameboy game with a book-worthy storyline, character you love, and a moral lesson that you never forget. I just finished it. Thank you Raynie, Marco, Aht, Rosch, Gafka, Eruca, Sonja, Kiel, Viola, Lippti & Teo.... And above all, Stocke. Thank you for your lesson and commitment to your friends.

Like the best books, it was one of those games that stay with you. Yet I was never wholly satisfied with the ending, not because it was not well done but rather due to the fact that the wound causing the desertification was again bandaged instead of healed – and at great cost. A 'solution' Stocke was frustrated by long before the price was paid. 

Well, now it is time to see if that changes, for I just began Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, the remake of the original. As I said in my first post on the matter, I am less than thrilled with the redesigned artwork, but this not enough by a longshot to stop me seeing if, this time, history will play out the way it truly should. Whether this really is a perfect chronology. Already I see slight different, and one major one upon who I have placed a large amount of hope: the mysterious historian Nemesia. As Lippti said, "Countless possibilities fade into the darkness. Yet there exists a razor-thin path of light." A path I am determined to find so as to avoid the price paid before or, if paid it must be, make it heal instead of bandage the wound. To, in the long term, prevent the sands from engulfing everything.

Take the Black

It appears that the phrase "take the black" meant something in Fantasy before GRRM's admittedly brilliant use of it regarding the Night's Watch. Back in 1976, to "take the Black" at the College of Caithnard means one has achieved the highest rank of riddle-mastery, for there Riddle Masters wear black robes. (How I had forgotten this fact I do not know.)

What is the first and last rule of riddle-mastery? Answer the unanswered riddle.