My father and I just finished The Lost Fairy Tales, Book Two of Anna James' Pages & Co. series

My father and I just finished The Lost Fairy Tales, Book Two of Anna James' Pages & Co. series.

We all know and love fairy tales... but Little Red Riding Hood wielding a giant axe (a woftcutter instead of woodcutter, as it were)? Prince Charming being anything but and Rapunzel not needing or wanting rescue? Obviously something is wrong with fairy tales, and things are not much better at the British Underlibrary. Leaving Tilly, Oskar, and the rest of the Pages & Co. crew to sort out plots both literary and otherwise. But tis the two blended that is the real threat to book magic and British bookwandering, and when things take a turn for the worse it is time to find help. Fortunately, that is what maps are for, and Britain's is hardly the only Underlibrary out there.

I have started The Silver Gryphon, book #3 of The Mage Wars Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey

I have started The Silver Gryphon, book #3 of The Mage Wars Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey.

Time passes and those heroes who do not die in a blaze of glory retire basking in it, leaving and training the next generation to take up the reigns. So, two millennia hence, it will be with Kethry and Tarma training Keth's granddaughter Kerowyn; so did Talia raise Elspeth from royal Brat to Herald-Mage. Mercedes Lackey has always been excellent at these time shifts, and now, twelves years after the Eclipse Ceremony that brought Haighlei and k'Leshya together, Tadrith Skandrakae and Silverblade – children of Skandranon & Zhaneel, Amberdrake & Winterhart – seek to escape their parent's very long shadows. After all, what can possibly go wrong in an isolated outpost weeks away from home? Certainly no magical disasters or nameless terrors possibly unleashed or formed by the Cataclysm in the unexplored jungles of the south. Oh no.

 

I have finished The White Gryphon, book #2 of The Mage Wars Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey

Winterhart, Lady and trondi'irn

I have finished The White Gryphon, book #2 of The Mage Wars Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey.

If it is not sadist-mages it is sadists working with mages, and in a time of change both magical and cultural for the Haighlei Empire that is a dangerous combination. Particularly if you are Skandranon Rashkae and Amberdrake and families in a foreign, alien court where you have to learn the rules before you break them and your enemies are quite, quite insane. But against the Black Gryphon few can stand, and justice tends to find those who deserve it. Of course, it is the time of change and that goes far beyond custom for Haighlei and k'Leshya alike, for the impact of the Mage Wars is far from over.

6th-grade Riddle Masters

My students are eating my riddles for breakfast this year. Seriously, I have NEVER seen such skill; what has in the past taken people weeks if not months they solve in less than a day. (If this sounds like bragging, so be it. Teachers are permitted to feel vain about their students.)

Duty Song and Lessa's Ride (Dragonriders of Pern) - Anne McCaffrey

I am the first person the acknowledge the dangers of AI (Artificial Intelligence) but, that being said, one can also have a lot of fun with it. Such as applying music to the lyrics of the Masterharpers of Pern. Tolkien was not the only one to write music for his work, after all, and Anne McCaffrey's for her Dragonriders of Pern deserves far more love than it gets.

My father and I just finished The Bookwanderers, Book One of Anna James' Pages & Co. series

My father and I just finished The Bookwanderers, Book One of Anna James' Pages & Co. series.

Ever love a book so much you feel like you're really there and with just a tiny step you could jump inside? Ever wish you could talk to book characters in real-life? If you are half the reader Matilda "Tilly" Pages is, the answer is an unequivocal yes. The difference is that Tilly, her family, and many others can actually DO both. People called bookwanderers for whom the magic of reading becomes actually magical. And with magic comes danger, whether you are a character in a book talking with characters in another book or in the real-world talking with those or other characters or are a real, non-fictional person dealing with them in other books. If this makes your head spin, I know the feeling; both Dad and I felt a bit disoriented at times as Anna James' takes meta humor to strange levels and breaks the third wall in ways I have never seen.

Regardless and as Pablo Picasso says "everything you can imagine is real," meaning Tilly, Oskar, and all bookwanderers have a very real enemy lurking both within and without literature's pages.

 

I have started The White Gryphon, book #2 of The Mage Wars Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey.

I have started The White Gryphon, book #2 of The Mage Wars Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey.

Rebuilding after Cataclysm is hard, much less in uncharted and untamed wilderness, but the Kaled'a'in Clan k'Leshya has never faced it a task it was not up to; "We can do this" and "Soonest begun is soonest done" as the Hertasi and Gryphons says respectively. But the (initial) death of Ma'ar did not end every sadist-mage in Velgarth. Even in the new city there is a lurking – hopefully soon culled – evil, and goodness knows what dwells in the mysterious southern Haighlei Empire, realm of the Black Kings. An Empire whose resident and hopefully anomalous blood-mages will soon test the skills and threaten the lives of Skandranon Rashkae and Amberdrake as they fight for k'Leshya's future.