I have finished Dragon Magic, Book Two of Ava Richardson's Deadweed Dragons

I have finished Dragon Magic, Book Two of Ava Richardson's Deadweed Dragons.

There is an intelligence behind this evil: this Deadweed that hunts the living like tentacles and the Water Wraiths that are a bubbling, drowning, malice. A power, a will, a person far from the South yet seeks to consume them all and has nearly succeeded. Akeem, his Wild Company, and even the Dagfan Training Hall Riders did well, yet it was Dayie and Zarr who turned to the trick. One has heard the phrase "fighting fire with fire", but fighting water with water is a new one on me. Yet the victory is a pyrrhic one, and it will take a witch to fight a witch. A Dragon Witch, to coin a phrase, for Akeem is right: there is none like Dayie in all the Southern Kingdom.

hoofbeats...

(The sound of distant thunder drawing ever nearer) clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop...hoofbeats...

A little over two months and counting until Falling in a Sea of Stars, book #8 of Kristen Britain's Green Rider series comes out! By all the gods of Sacoridia, it will good to see Rider Swordmaster Sir Karigan G'ladheon, Dama Cearing Asai'riel a'Santanara, again!!

Clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop...hoofbeats... 

20 years a proud RuneScape player!

20 years ago this week I began the game RuneScape, beginning, unbeknownst to me, a continuing age of my life. An MMO of deep (book-worthy) plots augmented by rich characters and the wondrous ever expanding world of Gielinor, I want to thank Jonah (Evilspirit44), and Sam and Henry for convincing me to play (which was no easy task, if I recall aright).

The game has changed much over the past two decades years in countless ways, with graphic improvements, vast thickening of plots, and a "new" combat system that drove away many close-minded players alongside several new skills and geographical locations. Yet even not Questlines that began before I started playing are at last coming to triumphant conclusion. I view the game - a continuing relic of my early childhood - as I would a dear book, making it an important part of my life. Indeed, it was critical Escapism during the COVID Pandemic.

A toast to Jagex and the game they created! A toast to another fabulous decade!

I have started Dragon Magic, Book Two of Ava Richardson's Deadweed Dragons

I have started Dragon Magic, Book Two of Ava Richardson's Deadweed Dragons.

Training Dragons is hard work, specially after they have had a nasty time of it, and the Dagfan Training Halls is still filled with hard-headed people who seem to think Dragon Riding is like horsebreaking and riding. So tis off to the Fury Mountains to work with Akeem and his Wild Company who seem to have a process that at least works. Add Binshee tribal and Council of Southern Lords politics and prejudice though, to say nothing of the Deadweed which is definitely higher than humans on the food chain and can even best Dragons... Well, Dayie and Zarr will have to turn on the charm and learn her magic before the South is overrun.

I have finished Dragon Called, Book One of Ava Richardson's Deadweed Dragons

I have finished Dragon Called, Book One of Ava Richardson's Deadweed Dragons.

Well, those Dagfan Training Halls have got to be the most disgraceful and perverted mockery of a 'Dragon Rider school' I have ever had the misfortune to see. Fortunately Dayie, Rider of brave Zarr the Crimson Red has turned things in the right direction alongside Akeem and Nas of all people. Yet even as the label witch becomes truth instead of insult and a way to stop the Deadweed, it is a dangerous one still and the Southern Kingdom, its Riders, and Dayie, still have a long way to go if they are to save themselves and become truly great Dragon Riders.

AI Library Poster Experiment

As is known, I try to avoid discussing real-world issues here on my not always entirely humble blog. However, just as I performed a deep-dive experiment regarding AI's potential in world in Fantasy literature and art, I wanted to see was use it could be in allowing librarians to truly customize their workspace. So I tried using AI to see if it can make good library posters using my favorites quotes... and the results have been amazing. Here are two of the best. 

Again, I am very well aware of, and share, the concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence. Yet I also believe that, like anything, its potential for good can be incredible if used with integrity – and I will use any tool available to me that benefits my students.

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." - Alan Cohen 

My father and I just finished rereading The Dark Is Rising

My father and I just finished rereading The Dark Is Rising, book #2 of the Sequence of the same name written by Susan Cooper.

As Louisa May Alcott said, "Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again." Such is the case here, The Dark Is Rising (both the book and series) being for is one of our highest and holiest pinnacles of Fantasy, an Arthurian Epic that helped forge our love of the genre and, for me, crafted my view of the world almost as much as The Lord of the Rings. Thus reading it again, walking and questing ones more with Old Ones of the Light Will Stanton and Merriman Lyon was and remains the among highest of literary joys.

"When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long;
Wood from the burning, stone out of song;
Fire in the candle-ring, water from the thaw;
Six Signs the circle, and the grail gone before.

Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold
Played to wake the Sleepers, oldest of the old;
Power from the greenwitch, lost beneath the sea;
All shall find the light at last, silver on the tree."