#hollow star saga book 3

[itachi86]

“I like your new friends,” Harlan said softly. “And I’m even more glad that it seems they’ve helped you finally remember that, as awesome as dark-haired fae princes are, there’s more to life than romantic love; more to fight for than one boy.”

-A Grim and Sunken Vow

[bookaddict24-7]

New Young Adult Releases! (September 26th, 2023)

___

Have I missed any new Young Adult releases? Have you added any of these books to your TBR? Let me know!

___

New Standalones/First in a Series:

The Scarlet Veil by Shelby Mahurin

The Prince & the Coyote by David Bowles

A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes & Heartbreak by Laura Taylor Namey

If I Have to Be Haunted by Miranda Sun

Mermaids Never Drown by Various

Down Came the Rain by Jennifer Mathieu

Find Him Where You Left Him Dead by Kristen Simmons

Firsts & Lasts by Various

The Changing Man by Tomi Oyemakinde

A Pretty Implausible Premise by Karen Rivers

This Dark Descent by Kalyn Josephson

Thieves' Gambit by Kayvion Lewis

Roses & Violets by Gry Kappel Jensen

Mall Goth by Kate Leth, Diana Sousa, & Robin Crank

New Sequels:

A Grim & Sunken Vow (The Hollow Star Saga #3) by Ashley Shuttleworth

Foul Heart Hunstman (Foul Lady Fortune #2) by Chloe Gong

Cage of Dreams (City of Nightmares #2) by Rebecca Schaeffer

___

Happy reading!

[profiterole-reads]

2022 Favourites

In no particular order. This is content I've read and watched in 2022, not necessarily content released in 2022.

Books

1. A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland: m/m heroic fantasy + non-binary characters. This was one of my most expected novels of the year and I was fully satisfied with the result. One of the protagonists suffers from severe anxiety.

2. [French] L’Héritage des Rois-Passeurs by Manon Fargetton: portal fantasy with a lesbian protagonist. The French language in the secondary world is different, but I don't know if the author invented the variations or based them on something real.

3. Sword Dance by AJ Demas: m/nb historical fantasy. This trilogy takes place in a fictional world based on Ancient Greece. It's a delightful mix of intrigue and domesticity shenanigans.

4. The Hollow Star Saga by Ashley Shuttleworth: f/f and m/m urban fantasy (YA). This series about the fae also includes a touch of Greek mythology. I care a lot about all the characters.

5. Youngblood by Sasha Laurens: f/f urban fantasy (YA). This is my favourite queer vampire novel. It's an excellent mix of vampire lore, romance and mystery.

6. The Magic Between by Stephanie Hoyt: m/m magical realism. The characters have superpowers, but it's not superhero fiction. It's a fun bi4bi romance.

7. One Verse Multi by Sander Santiago: m/m/m science fiction with a trans male protagonist. This is my favourite read of the year. I loved the science in this story and how the author played with the Mandela effect (false memories shared by many people).

8. Safe and Sound by EM Lindsey: m/m romance. This is a very moving hurt & comfort novel. This author always does a great job with the intersectionality of queerness and disability, deafness and vertigo in this case.

9. If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So: f/f romance. This novel is about identity (queer, but also British and Cantonese) and fandom.

10. [Spanish] Anne sin Filtros by Iria Parente and Selene Pascual: f/f/m romance with a trans male protagonist (YA). This novel is also about queerness and fandom. I've read several books by these authors and this is my fave.

 TV shows

1. Ancient Detective: murder mystery/wuxia with BL vibes + a non-binary character in the last few episodes. While this c-drama is mostly m/f, I appreciated the queer touches, as well as the complex plot.

2. Legend of Yunze: GL wuxia. This c-drama is a quick watch, with episodes that are only a few minutes long. What's nice is that the f/f is not very censored for a Chinese show.

3. The Lost Tomb/DMBJ franchise: adventure/fantasy with BL vibes. This c-drama franchise kept me busy for a good part of the year and I estimate that I've seen about half of it. It covers a genre that is relatively rare in Western shows.

4. Bulgasal: urban fantasy with a queer-coded villain. Sure, queer-coded villains aren't the best form of representation, but the one in this k-drama is very well-written. The reincarnation plot is fascinating as well.

5. Vampire Academy: urban fantasy with some f/f and some m/m (YA). I loved the movie way back and I'm glad that they've added queer representation to the show, even though it would have been even better if they had made the Lissa/Rose subtext canon.

6. Wednesday: murder mystery/urban fantasy with a probably a-spec protagonist (YA). This is a delightful adaptation of the Addams Family, true to the old movies.

7. Love in the Air: BL romance. This addictive Thai drama is my favourite show of the year. Payu/Rain are my fave couple, they're so playful and loving. For Prapai/Sky, there's a lot of hurt & comfort, which gave me so many feels.

8. Semantic Error: BL romance. This k-drama's protagonist is on the autism spectrum. It's enemies-to-lovers, or rather annoyances-to-lovers.

9. She Makes My Heart Flutter: GL romance. This k-drama is a quick watch. I love that it mostly focuses on sapphic friendships.

10. Heartstopper: m/m romance with some f/f and a trans girl (YA). I love the webcomic and the adaptation is really well done. It's such a sweet story.

[thehollowstarsaga]

Hollow Star Saga Book Four Predictions

okay so since i've finished agasv it's time for my predictions for the next book:

the CeLeTheo polycule

so i remember Ashley mentioned that there's possibility for a polyam and the moment i heard that i was just immediately like, 'oh, they're definitely talking about Theo, Celadon and Lethe right?'

like i'm not the only one who thought Celedon and Theo had insane levels of chemistry in both agasv AND acafl???

and Celedon and Lethe are already super cute and canon by the end of agasv too??

I'd honestly love it if Lethe and Theo end up being into each other too like the dynamic sounds super fun.

anyway that's the prediction Celedon x Theo x Lethe is canon next book (i'm gonna look like such an idiot if i'm wrong)

2. dragon Theo???

now i'm not too sure about this one but maybe (just maybe) Theo's a dragon?

i remember i made this prediction all the way back when adahs was released and there was that random paragraph in the beginning on how people can be dragons without realizing it. i was like 'okay, so one of the characters we care about has to be a dragon right??'

by process of elimination i reached the conclusion that Theo was the dragon out of all of them.

i remember when we found out that his grand aunt is a dragon i freaked out like i was so proud of myself for reaching that conclusion cause there's a high chance that he inherited those traits.

buuuuuuuuuuuut i'm not too sure whether that's actually going to be explored or bought up or even be true in the next book so this is a very tentative theory.

3. if Riadne dies, then who's killing her?

okay so i'm not too confident about this because i don't actually know if Riadne will die in book 4, at least in the traditional sense. but if it does happen the potential candidates are;

Theo: NO LISTEN I'M NOT BEING BIASED ACTUALLY FR HEAR ME OUT; Theo wants to rule over seelie summer, and if i'm not mistaken you need to defeat the existing head in order to do that so... maybe? admittedly its not very likely though cause there aren't enough emotional stakes. unless Riadne just murders his parents or smth in the first half lmao. i'll say 5% chance

Arlo: since we're talking about murdering parental figures... yeah. i'd say there's like a 10% chance that it's Arlo who kills Riadne maybe?

Celadon: 25% chance it'll be Celadon simply for the emotional stakes... and murdering parental figures. but actually if we're talking about someone who needs to stab their mom in order to get over their mommy issues...

Vehan: him having some kind of arc in which he's vaguely unhinged would go so hard. sadly, however, it probably won't happen. he's still most likely to kill Riadne at 50% chance, because the angst would be so good.

others: this is just me covering up my tracks in case my top guesses are wrong so that i don't look like a total idiot. Lethe, Nausicaa and Aurelian take up the remaining 10%. although i seriously doubt it'll be any of them. if it is though, Lethe's most likely to and Aurelian's least likely to.

honestly the more i think about it Riadne probably won't be killed by someone else. either she'll manage to get herself killed in her quest for power or she won't die at all. it doesn't feel like all the loose ends would be tied up if she did (watch as she dies at the hands of someone i didn't mention on this list.)

5. Vehan does some insane shit

this actually isn't me pushing my let Vehan go batshit crazy agenda. i mean insane as in he's going to have a major battle or show off some huge feat of power.

extra points if it happens in front of Riadne.

i think the best case scenario is a Riadne vs Vehan fight scene.

6. Who's the big bad?

see this is more of a discussion than a prediction cause i know Riadne's our main antagonist but i feel like there might be an overarching one as well.

easiest answer to this is Cosmin, and honestly, yeah it probably is him. however, Luck seems like they have a good head on them and that they might stop him from doing anything that would harm Arlo, so i actually think that maybe, just maybe it's someone else.

Fate, maybe? i'm not sure, but it seems we don't like them.

it could be another one of the titans but i'm not too sure they'd introduce a completely new major antagonist by the fourth book.

7. Theo has a bigger role.

there's no evidence no nothing i'm just manifesting stfu

[lovefrombegonia]

MORE RAMBLING ON THE 3 BODY PROBLEM NETFLIX SERIES

⚠️ Spoiler Warning for the series & books ⚠️

Unfortunately, this is mostly gonna be negative ranting because I am discovering that I am, indeed...a book purist... *CONFESSION 😔* yes, my fellow mortals...I am one of those "but that's not what happened in the novel" kind of person.

This series is low-key pissing me off with what they are doing with ye wengjie. You know....the most crucial character of the whole saga! Why is she all of a sudden in love with Mike? Ok. And why is she trying to save people all of a sudden? She wanted to destroy humanity for what was done to her. And then it was implied she changed her mind along the way...still having enough badassery in her to leave a crucial theory behind with Luo Ji, which, ultimately, did secure humanity's survival. Atleast, for some centuries. They also didn't do so much of her backstory properly. But they be throwing those easter eggs around like "HA-HAA YOU GET IT?!" Why is she in love with Mike Evans?! Why did the show make her look like she got influenced by him rather than the other way around in the books and cdrama. Why did the show make her feel so shallow... They did make it feel like so much of her strength and character did not exist. They took away so much depth and complexity from her, making her look like she did what she did 'in the heat of the moment'. There is SO MUCH that she endured in the source material. And she made all her decisions knowing FULLY what she is doing, under no one's influence. It's like...they villainized her more when there was no need to do that. She is already a great villain. She is literally the phrase "sympathy for lady vengeance" personified. Netflix 's 3 body problem just made her a simple bitter woman.

Also, genderswapping wang miao as auggie salazar. Cool, cool. I like it. What I would have liked more is if they didn't write auggie to be so annoying. Idk if it's the actor or the character writing but this is the worst performance of the cast in terms of acting. You know what, no...this is the writing's fault. I have decided. TBH the only interesting characters right now is Jin and Wade. I am not sure it's because of the actors performing great or the writing is really good for them tho. Also...the Will buying a star for Jin didn't hit me as much as it did in the book. Kinda disappointed in myself with that. Am I getting cold-hearted? Jin's boyfriend is that character I think...hmm. Will, Saul and the rich dude, they all acted like I was watching a YA Netflix series. Oh wait...

Idk how else to say it but they have netflix-ified all the characters 😂😂

I think those who didn't read the books or watched the cdrama would like it better. I am either too biased to like this watered down version of the original story or the show really is underwhelming.

They have "simplified" or dumbed down the whole story.

And I find that low-key offensive because the sciency parts and philosophical parts were not that complicated. General audience could have understood it. If I can get it then all can get it, and I could understand almost all of it. But the creators don't got enough fate in us. SHAME. They also completely slipped the part about how China's political and social environment had influenced the characters. So much meat from the story is just hollowed out. They basically took out all the seasoning that made the story's flavour stand out so much. And gave us...this...jam and butter sandwich. It's not bad food. It's just not the feast it should have been.

I feel like I am only saying bad things about the show, so, here are the positives: the series is, in the end, an entertaining sci-fi so far, with great visuals. Especially, in episode 2 and 5. The gore is GOOD. Most of the actors do good job. The VFX is pretty fantastic. They have crunched the story but I don't think it's gonna be confusing for new viewers. The screenplay adaptation is done well enough imo. As well as a usual good Netflix show can be. You will enjoy it more if the original books would stop whispering in your ear the whole time 🤭

Either way, I will still say, it's a solid sci-fi thriller on its own as a Netflix series.

As a fan of the source material, I will give them 4/10.

As its own thing, I will give it juuuuuuust below 7/10.

[queerstudiesnatural]

i was tagged by frank @soupstiel thank you wormstie <3

rules: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you are contractually obligated to get to know better.

name: rain

star sign: taurus

height: 5'4 / 1.64 m

time: 1:45 am

birthday: may 10th we had a party

favourite bands/artists: see the thing about me is that i don’t feel shame. taylor swift, louis tomlinson, 5sos, luke hemmings, hozier. glee cast.

last movie: dancing queens, it’s a swedish movie about a girl who introduces herself as a boy to be able to dance with a group of drag queens. the dancing wasn’t amazing but the gay people were. leave it to scandinavian movies to give you actually realistic queer characters (or like, characters in general tbh). 

last show: currently watching good witch, and i liked the gilmore girls vibes at first but now i’m halfway through and i’m kinda bored tbh. cassie is my ideal woman though. 

when did i create this blog: september 2021 but i’ve had my main for 10 years

what i post: here u go

last thing i googled: “rrr movie” because that’s what frank said he watched and i thought he was talking about the french movie by that name but his description of it didn’t match so i looked it up and apparently it’s a different movie. the french movie is called rrrrrrr. hilarious movie if you understand french. 

other blogs: my main is @ghost-roads and i have lots of old side-blogs for old hyperfixations that i don’t use anymore but haven’t deleted bc i’m a hoarder

do i get asks?: sometimes. not enough :( i wanna hear from u guys! 

following: 1010 apparently. that’s too many. in my defense i do have several blogs. but i might need to do a bit of a cleanse bc the dash has become A Lot

average hours of sleep: 6 which is soooo not enough for me

instruments: um. a lot. my main instrument is the viol (or viola da gamba) but i also play the recorder, guitar, piano, harpsichord, and then i can find my way around a cello, a double bass, most percussion instruments, and i just bought a violin so i’m gonna try to learn that next. oh and voice.

what im wearing: a floor length flowery dress hashtag summer

dream job: tbh, what i already do (music teacher) but like. less underpaid.

dream trip: not much of a traveller, but i would like to visit more european countries, but not by myself. i need a travel companion otherwise i won’t enjoy myself

nationality: no comment

favourite songs: that’s difficult because when i like an artist i’m usually obsessed with their entire discography and it’s hard to pick favourites. so here are some songs that are iconic to me personally, but that isn’t to say i don’t also like other songs just as much. would you come home by tyler blackburn. long live by taylor swift. the night we met by lord huron. starting line by luke hemmings. movement by hozier.

last book i’ve read: good thing i know no shame. new moon from the twilight saga, which i finished almost a year ago and had been reading for the past three years. yeah

top 3 fictional universes i’d like to live in: stars hollow from gilmore girls. middleton from good witch. and the shire from lotr. i realise those are places inside the universes in question but i mean if i were to live in those universes i’d have to pick a place and well i pick those places specifically. also yes i do just wanna live in a small town where everyone is friends and nothing bad happens.

i’m pretty sure that wasn’t 30 questions lol. i’m not gonna tag 20 people either so i guess fuck the rules. 

tagging the besties, sorry if you’re already been tagged, and of course there’s no pressure to actually do this <3

@sarcasmisalifechoice @roublardise @knifelesbianjo @girlbossdean @lesbianjoannaharvelle @charlie-bradbury @supersapphical @michaelcoded @dylfnatural @angelsdean @freakwiththeknifecollection

[thy-mothers-little-weirdo]

tagged by @zmeess one of the greatest artist alive in this time and age, who tagged everyone on tumblr 💜

last song listened to: my recents are Fleetwood Mac - the Chain (listening to it rn bc tumblr reminded me it exists), but for the most part i keep to same songs: Nightwish - Storytime (the mv about Alice in Wonderland specifically is playing on repeat), lots of In This Moment, Linkin Park, BTS, Maneskin (but atm Valentine), Disturbed, Stan Walker - I AM, Miley Cyrus - Gimme What I Want, Forth Minor -Remember the Name, Fire Song - Sophia Brous, GODS - League of Legends, Go-A - Dumala, Ren - Hi Ren, The Devil You Know - Blues Saraceno, and this playlist

currently reading: just read Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros AND I AM WRECKED. when is the next book coming outttt?!?!? 😭😭😭 IT WAS AMAZING!! it usually takes me a few days to simmer in what i've read and process it, but i immediately wanted to read something else, so now im currently reading Bride by Ali Hazelwood AND ITS SO SO GOOD kyaaaaaa~~ <3

currently watching: always watching Critical Role (right now im on episode 41 of season 3, iiiii really need to catch up quick before the finale 😬), just watched house of ninjas on netflix - it was really good, skip and loafer anime was SO cute <3 Right now im watching Dungeon Meshi, and im probs gonna watch Tokyo Revengers and Legend of Hei (heard its really really good)

currently obsessed with (in no particular order):

BG3, Touchstarved, Infamous, 180 files: the Aegis Project, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Dragon Age, Skyrim

honorable mentions circling my mind: Scarlet Hollow, Fallen London/Sunless Sea, Secret World Legends, Dishonored 1&2, Samurai of Hyuga, The Fernweh Saga

books: The Empyrean series and the book i'm reading "Bride" by Ali Hazelwood, The Foxhole Court (always and forever), The Bone Season series by Samantha Shannon, Heaven Official's Blessing, Folk of Air series by Holly Black

several artists: @mlarty_art (i cannot stop obsessing over their art, truly amazing artists, just..damn) @sweetlychii, @velnna, @zmeess, @Frankensteinsm2, @babeyxiao-art, @kukumomoartstuff, @duskidraws, @mooreaux, @goldentar.art, @umikochannart, @blue_octopus12, @crazytom666

characters: Astarion, Karlach, Haslin (BG3), Blade (Honkai: Star Rail), Wriothesley, Kaveh x Alhaitham, Xiao, Zhongli x Childe, Kaeya, Gorou x Itto, Scaramouche x Traveler (Genshin Impact), Seven, Orion, Griffin (Infamous), Angel (180 files), Tairn and Andarna (the Empyrean), Vanitas (Vanitas no Karte), Kim In Rang and Choi Cheon Sang (Bring it On, Ghost) and their mini truck that they keep fixing with ducktape, Legolas Aragon Gimli Sam

Geto x Gojo 🖤🤍

my OC's [[I LOVE THEM SO MUCH *cries and dies*]]

Nightwish - Storytime (i cannot express how many times ive listened to this already, im genuinely obsessed)

chocolate, chicken wings, rice, ramen, mashed potatoes, spinach

Critical Role

Arcane, Blue Eye Samurai, The Uncanny Encounter, Haunting of Hill House, Lord of the Rings, Alchemy of Souls

aaaand thats it tagging: whoever finds this ✨

[shinyspacepirate]

Thinking about my current rotation and how long it's gonna take to finish any of them cause I refuse to binge.

TV:

Yu Yu Hakusho

Spy x Family

Chainsaw Man

Luther (rewatch)

Living Single

Abbott Elementary

Sailor Moon Crystal

Atlanta

Kindred

The Great Pretender

The Way of the Househusband (season 2 let's gooo)

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (I've been dragging out the end of Stone Ocean cause I know what's waiting)

Wynonna Earp

Star Trek: Next Generation

Sister Sister

Girlfriends

Moesha

Blood & Water

The Dragon Prince

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Everything's Trash

Games:

Final Fanatsy IX

Little Nightmares

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen

KOTOR

Biomutant

Hollow Knight

Aveyond 3-3

Shadow of the Colossus

Books:

Ms. Marvel series

Saga

Assata

Alice Walker's poetry

.....if I was an organized person I'd have like 3 different blogs but here we are.

[seaweedsawyou]

Podcasts in Review 2021

regurgitated warm cat vomit

It was a good year for the girls writing letters community (3 whole entries!!). Purple is for non-fiction. Green is for Folxlore, which is the best.

The order is by hours, not quality. The affection by word count and choice.

Game Studies Study Buddies - "Graduate school is expensive, podcasts are free". Two thorough, smart and compassionate PhD havers (one is in early modern lit, the other communication and media studies) read an academic book from the games studies and discuss it. At least once an episode, either Foucault, Derrida or Deleuz & Guattari get a mention and an apsect of their philosophy gets explained. Honestly, as a person with minimal humanities training, listening to the hosts apply the techniques they have been honing for years allowed me to shamelessly steal them and use them in everyday life, which we lead bombarded by narratives. Remember, we eat history.

Stories from Among the Stars - every couple of months they release a sci-fi audiobook. The last half of 2021 it was Cixin Liu's " Three Body Problem" and Arkady Martin's "A Memory Called Empire". I don't understand how or why it exists, but it is a gift.

Hello from the Hallowoods - Diggory Graves appreciation club.

Rude Tales of Magic - a treasure for those who find it funny. Sadly, I found it hollow.

Rogue Runners - an actual play based on Supergiant's Hades. They lift heavily from the game, while fleshing out the world with more deities and stories. Also great fucking production. One of the players is Alexander the Great who got assigned to the lowest circles of Tartarus and wants to speak to the manager, who has mysteriously been absent. Also Nemesis is very hot. Yes.

Homestuck Made This World - one of the Game Studies Buddies is a Homestuck and wants to write a book about it. So he roped his poor collaborator into reading the entirety of it. The angle they are working from is 'how Homestuck was pioneering engagement techniques that are now used to build multi billion media franchises, or how it primed the audiences to be receptive to them' with a side of it being a cultural event. And of courses, they examine the fandom. Because, as it turns out, Homestuck is literally nothing without its audience.

They have just finished the first 4 Acts. She is coming. Now is envy of all of the dead.

Future Ecologies - the best, simply. Their mini series on fire and kelp forests are each a separate masterpiece. By frequently invoking the ecosystem management practices of indigenous peoples, they always remind us that humans have always been a part of nature, and still are. Also that jellyfishes are harbingers of the apocalypse.

The Lolita Podcast - Dolores Haze deserved better, as do all other girls who identify with her. The host examines the book, the author, the numerous adaptations, and, of course, the people who were impacted by all of it. Insightful and compassionate.

The Pasithea Powder - On a faraway planet, in a faraway galaxy, a war hero dials the number of a war criminal because she is the only one left out of her old life. It goes to voice mail.

A very well written epistolary audio drama set in the world that has history, between characters who also have history (do these two have history). It always manages to find clever ways to describe visuals without feeling overbearing. Memory, identity, WWI but in space.

We Fix Space Junk - top notch worldbuildng, in love with our the barely having organic parts gruff mechanic female lead, but the in-universe ads read by characters have murdered me. They never work!!!

The Silt Verses - liberal capitalism in a truly polytheistic society. It is more efficient to embrace your competition than to destroy them.

Dungeons and Drimbus - from Rogue Runners crew, not as great.

The Lost Mountain Saga - magical shit was afoot in Sweden, let me tell you.

Bio Eats World - discussions of recent articles concerning applied biology.

Second Star to the Left - fuck was it good. Bell Summers is a Kim Kitsuragi type of character that is impossible not to fall in love with. Additionally, love is real (in universe). Some Homestuck alumnis manage to write stories without brain surgeries in them.

A Little Bit Culty - recovering cultists speak about what is and isn't a cult with their peers.

Down - time loops did not save this one.

A Voice From Darkness - the host was born to do a spooky call in show.

A Jar of Rebuke - a thesis on why and how one acquires an affinity for monsters.

Bridgewater - Lauren Shippen, I trusted you!!!

Midnight Radio - girls writing letters!!! And one of them is a ghost, but what is a ghost really?

Folxlore - a queer horror-ish story revealing a new aspect of itself through a new framing device every episode. Some of these include: a blog post told through image IDs, a conversation between security cameras, a letter to self. Genuinely is amazing and heartbreaking. Probably the ultimate queer horror story, we peaked here I believe. Sorry Mabel.

The Dairy of Aliza Schultz - a woman who kind of is a character in a story, reading other stories from the same author and offering come advice.

Mistholm Museum of Mistery, Morbidity and Mortality - the name is better than almost all of the season 1.

Greenhouse - girls writing letters, because her dead dad told her to.

Seen and not Heard - hard of hearing navigating the (podcasting) world, with a side of audio drama.

Pestilenz - alte Geschichten über Heilkräuter und stinkenden Schinken. Hat eine ganze Folge zu Pest und Spiele gemacht und kein Wort von Pathologic. Schändlich.

What could go right? - indeed. Very sad scientists and activist try to muster optimism.

[itachi86]

OMG WHAT WHAT WAS THAT ENDING

[bookaddict24-7]

(New Young Adult Releases Coming Out Today! (May 24th, 2022)

___

Have I missed any new Young Adult releases? Have you added any of these books to your TBR? Let me know!

___

New Standalones/First in a Series:

Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster by Andrea Mosqueda 

How We Ricochet by Faith Gardner

Primal Animals by Julia Lynn Rubin

Two Truths & A Lie by April Henry

I Guess I Live Here Now by Claire Ahn

Milo & Marcos at the End of the World by Kevin Christopher Snipes

Break this House by Candice Iloh

Echoes of Grace by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Only On the Weekends by Dean Atta 

New Sequels: 

A Cruel & Fated Light (The Hollow Star Saga #2) by Ashley Shuttleworth

Spark of Ash (Ember of Night #3) by Molly E. Lee

___

Happy reading!

[myupostsheadcanons]

Books “Read” in 2020

Previous entries: 2019, 2018, 2017

I don’t rank these based on actual literary quality, but by how much i enjoyed reading/listening to them. Hopefully with Audible’s new “Premium Included” feature it would cut down on so many Average/Below Average books next year, it’ll give me more of a choice on what kind of books/podcasts i want to listen to rather than given a handful to pick from a month.

The “Top 10″

Forging Hephaestus / Bones of the Past: Villains' Code Series - Drew Hayes has became one of my fav authors over the past couple years, from his Vampire Accountant series, 5-min Sherlock, and his Spells, Swords, and Stealth books. FH is one of the few times he wrote Adult Fiction. This is the second time Drew created a world of super heroes (the YA Superpowereds), thus previous experience in dealing with the nuisances and meta of super meta dynamics. I love the main character, Tori, and especially love many of the side characters (like Ivan) and the comedy is the right tone of dark and not-in-your-face (not quite as well -written as something like The Venture Bros or The Tick, but being adult fiction you can get away with having characters named Johnny Three-Dicks and Captain Bullshit)

Dreadnought / Sovereign - the second super hero series I’ve placed on my top list this year, this one is Young Adult. This one is far more serious and deals heavily in issues like trans and women’s rights, mental abuse, and social acceptance. The main character is full of angst, but that should be a given for a 15 yo with lots of mental baggage and new social pressures. The main character is the main draw, most of the side characters are a bit more one-dimensional.

The Trouble with Peace: Age of Madness, Book 2. It isn’t a “First Law” book if you don’t want to strangle half of the main characters. Many are stepping outside of the shadow of the previous generation and finding themselves falling flat on their faces. If they aren’t at each other’s throats, they would soon have to deal with rebellion in the streets and the constant looming presence of Bayaz, who waits to sweep the board clear and rearrange the pieces the way he sees fit.

Michael J. Sullivan’s: The Riyria and Legend of the First Empire Books.

Riyria Revelations: Theft of Swords / Rise of Empire / Heir of Novron

Riyria Chronicles: The Crown Tower / The Rose and Thorn / The Death of Dulgath

Age of Death / Age of Empyre, Pile of Bones

After finishing the Legend of the First Empire books that came out earlier this year, I went ahead and read the prior series that takes place in the same world. I would suggest reading the entire series by Publish order, but they can be read Chronologically. I read the Legends books first, and it helped me see where Sullivan was heading and when he started to plan out the Legends books in more detail. (The early cameo of the Main characters from Legends in a mural in Heir of Novron, and knowing who is behind the events in Dulgath)

The Dresden Files: Peace Talks / Battle Grounds - They really should be read as one book, because that was how they were written. It is a Feast of Crows / Dances with Dragons situation, where the book got too long and got split up. The fans are pretty divided by the book(s) ending and how some of the main characters are handled, but these are Jim Butcher’s characters not theirs and he can drop bridges on whom ever he wants.

What Lies Beyond: Cycle of Galand, Book 6 - This is a “mythology” book (like Sullivan’s Age of Death was) where it introduces most of the Pantheon of their religion and corrects much of the mythology that had been lost over the decades. They seek a weapon to vanquish the Litch and save their world and the afterlife from oblivion, but not all of their Gods are happy about it.

Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash - Yahtzee (Zero Punctuation!) has to be one of my favorite internet personalities for the past 10+ years, and I eat up every book he puts out and because he wrote the books, and is an actor himself, he could deliver the lines as they are intended to be. The sequel to Will Save the Galaxy for Food does not disappoint and even ups the stakes from the previous book.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon - This has to be one of the most charming books I’ve read. It is magic and wonder at it’s finest, no need for long explanations on how the world works. If you like Ghibli movies, you’ll be interested in this book. It has its dark moments but isn’t outside of what you’ll find in something like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Nausicca.

The Goblin Emperor - the youngest son of the Elf King finds himself emperor after the death of his father and brothers in an assassination. The only problem is, that he is only half-elf... his late mother was a Goblin, and he had been in exile as an embarrassment to the family for most of his life. He knows nothing of how the courts work and what’s left of his own family work against him just for being who he is.

Lost Gods: Brom - I liked this book more than I did American Gods (which I read a few years ago). It is darker and bleaker by the bucket loads. One of the few books with a downer ending that I actually liked. I would compare this book to books like All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men-- but it is a Fantasy!

Above Average.

Siege Tactics (Spells, Swords, & Stealth. Book 4)  - What happens to adventurers after they retire? A fun concept that is explored with our party of NPCs running across a town full of epic-level characters that no longer have a player.

The Arthurian Saga - The Crystal Cave / The Hollow Hills  / The Last Enchantment / The Wicked Day - A more realistic version of the Arthurian tales, taking the POV of Merlin, bastard son of a princess, as he earns notoriety as a scholar and wizard.  The Wicked Day takes the POV of Mordred, making him far more sympathetic than other iterations of his character.

Arc of a Scythe - Scythe / Thunderhead / The Toll - Science and Technology eliminates death and in order to prevent over population and complacency an order of grim reapers are chosen to randomly deal out quotas of permanent deaths. An example of what happens when every need and want is satisfied by a higher force and the apathy that causes rot in human society and the superiority complex of those in charge of life and death.

The Diviners / Lair of Dreams / Before the Devil Breaks You / The King of Crows - Horror during the Roaring 20′s. Tackles issues as Racism, Poverty, Government Secrecy, Christian-Evangelical Cults, Nationalism Cult Mentality, Communism, Labor Unions, Eugenics, Post-WW1 trauma... It could almost pass as an adult fiction book. I wouldn’t recommend giving it to someone under High school age.

Ancillary Justice / Ancillary Sword / Ancillary Mercy - Artificial Intelligence takes over human bodies as a form of capital punishment, controlling ships and space stations. The dominate human empire outgrew the need to label any gender, using “she” to refer to everyone rather than the vaguer “them/they” pronouns, and only outlying colonies stick to the binary ideals. Think of “The Left Hand of Darkness” but on a more broader scale and as the default majority/ruling empire. Toss in a solid military action novel on top and it isn’t nearly as boring as Left Hand.

Children of Time / Children of Ruin - War destroys the human population of Earth and those that remain are the ones that headed out to the stars on tera-forming missions. A virus created to advance life forms to prepare a world for human habitation runs amuck with out its overseers, creating intelligent arachnids, crustaceans, and squid.

The Licanius Trilogy - The Shadow of What Was Lost / An Echo of Things to Come / The Light of all that Falls -  It is very heavy on info overload, there is a lot to keep track of, so much so there is a summary of book one and two at the start of the third. I like the twist at the end of the first book and that the villain is actually trying to help save the world, and you spend most of the second stuck between who thinks they are doing the right thing and who is actually doing the right thing - a lot to talk about doing the lesser of two evils.

Mythos - Steven Fry - A humorous retelling of Greek mythology. I read Mythology - by Edith Hamilton prior to this book, which is a more scholarly take on the myths, and helps if you are unfamiliar with classical mythology prior to reading Fry’s take on it.

Iron, Fire and Ice: The Real History That Inspired Game of Thrones - a nice history book about Iron Age royalty. It is actually refreshing to read after going through so much faux fiction that is in Philippa Gregory’s books.

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? - Children ask questions to a Mortician about death and what happens to bodies after people die. I listened to her autobiography last year/year before and it is worth picking up this one along with it.

Average, but still good.

Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet Universe: Triumphant (Genesis Fleet, Book 3) / Tarnished Knight: Lost Stars, book 1 - The realistic space battles just drag me back in each and every time.

The Case of the Damaged Detective: 5-Minute Sherlock - Drew Hayes can’t write a boring book. It isn’t quite on point as his other series, but still fun to read. Hayes is really good at making YA books with Adult Protagonists. It is a road-trip book, the main character is a washed-out operative that is getting his second chance playing bodyguard and future assistant to the 5-minute Sherlock.

Locked In / Head On - Do you remember “Surrogates”? that Bruce Willis movie where people walk around in robotic avatars, well... it’s almost the same thing. A virus kills millions, save for a select few that experience “lock in” syndrome and are able to connect to robots via their brains and the internet.  The main character is gender neutral and you get a choice to listen to the book with a male or female reader.

Murder by Other Means: The Dispatcher Book 2 - more John Scalzi! The first book was in my top list a few years ago, and i enjoyed the sequel just as much. Between Scalzi’s The Dispatcher and Locked In series, i like the Dispatcher more.

The Shattered Sea Trilogy: Half a King / Half the World / Half a War - Joe Abercrombie’s attempt to make Young Adult books. It keeps all the grim dark, but lacks all the swearing and humor that made The First Law books more enjoyable. Many of Joe’s favorite character tropes are still present and is one of the better “Fall to Darkness” stories I’ve read. It also has different POV characters each book and is one of those “faux fantasy” settings.

Mage Errant: Books 1, 2 & A Traitor in Skyhold: Book 3 - If you are wanting to get away from Harry Potter, pick up this book series. It takes place in magic school, but it is its own world and setting and not just a hidden world within our own. The main group of kids are misfits among the school, unable to master their powers, that get taken up by the badass librarian to be trained in more unconventional ways.

Dawn of Wonder: The Wakening Book 1 - the main character has ptsd from growing up in an abusive household, and i thought it was handled rather well. He would be rather competent and cleaver most of the time until he gets triggered into an episode, he fights really hard to overcome this short-falling of his. Standard classic affair else wise, family leaves home because the local authority figure doesn’t want them around anymore, goes to big city, kid wants to do good and avenge the deaths he was accused of, joins the badass school of hard knocks...  big powerful evil thing trying to consume the world.

The Rage of Dragons - It shares a lot of tropes and story points with Red Rising... just in a fantasy setting, not in space. If you are wanting fantasy with POC main characters and a non-European-centric culture, that doesn’t pull any punches, give it a shot.

Earthsea - Tehanu and Tales from Earthsea - I had read the first three books several years back, and i did re-read them in order to refresh myself prior to reading the final two.

The Secret Garden - I absolutely loved the movie from the 90′s as a kid, and finally got around to listening to the book.

Six of Crows - A heist book in fantasy world with the magic users being heavily “Jewish / Slavic” coded by how they are treated and persecuted. I might have thought more favorably about the book if i hadn’t read other books with “street rat slum” main characters. (Seriously, after spending six books with Royce in Riyria someone like Kas is just second bananas)

Unconventional Heroes / Two Necromancers - Comedic Fantasy, the humor’s not on par with say MogWorld, and has more jokes than Fred The Vampire Accountant. It is still a parody of villains and heroes in fantasy worlds. I would find it safe for a 12/13yo to read, cursing and all, though they might not be aware of many of the tropes that are being deconstructed. The reader of the book did better in this one then he did with Six of Crows and Beezer, still the audio needed some editing because it repeats itself a few times.

Once More Upon A Time (Free Audio Book)  - I don’t always care to read romance stories. I like the idea behind it however, to trade their love for each other in order to save their partner’s life, then learn to re-love one another again.

Monster Hunter International - If you think Dresden is too liberal, this takes a hard turn to the right.. replace the magic with GUNS, lots and lots of GUNS. An organization that hates the government but hunts monsters for government bounties. The main cast is multi-ethnic and they do make fun of that at one point. There isn’t a lot of thought into the plot, because action is #1, but it is fun enough to ignore the politicking.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Collection - i bitched about there not being an omnibus last year, and then Audible uploaded one. The ending is still one big clusterfuck.

Stephen King’s Insomnia - this book is the bridge between Steven King’s two universes. It is a sequel to IT and brings up the Darktower often. IT dealt mainly with childhood fears, Insomnia deals with Elderly and feminine fears.

D’Arc / Culdesac: War with No Name - I liked D’Arc more than i did Mort-e, and Culdesac is more on track with Mort-e. The virus that mutated the ants and animals reminded me of the virus from Children of Time/Ruin, even though i read Mort-e first, reading D’Arc after CoT let me notice it.

Michael McDowell’s:  The Amulet / The Elementals / Gilded Needles / Blackwater - From the guy that wrote the screenplay of Beetlejuice, and the pioneer of the Southern Gothic Horror. Gilded Needles is a bit out of place, taking place in 1890′s, and is more of a social horror rather than a super natural horror the other books are.

Gardens of the Moon: The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1 - high fantasy dark fiction. if you really want some CHONKY door stoppers, there’s over 10 of them in this series. Could’ve done less with the manipulative bastard mage that speaks in 3rd person. I had read The Willful Child, an attempted comedy science fiction novel by the same author, and it showed that the author was unfamiliar with that kind of genera and should stick to grim fantasy.

The Knife’s Edge / Citadel of Fire: The Ronin Saga - This is one of those series that I’m always going “oh, that reminds me of [insert another better series]”  At times it reminded me of The Licanius Trilogy, Shades of Magic, Arc of Scythe, Riyria, Korra... It is just shy of being as good as them, and is rather firmly in that Sci-Fi Fantasy Ghetto and has a bit of “anime” feel to it with their magic users having ‘power levels’ and the power creep. 

In Calabria - My only problem with the book is the massive age-gap between the Main character and his love interest. Outside of that, the whole Unicorns in the modern world concept is done very well.

Pout Neuf (Audible Free Book)  - Journalism and romance during WW2. A quick read and the book really shows that research had been done about the setting and time period.

Nut Jobs: Cracking California's Strangest $10 Million Dollar Heist: An Audible Original - Not only does it talk about the heist, it actually touches on the subject of migrant farmers and slave labor, as well as the desertification of the California Valley.

The Science of Sci-Fi: From Warp Speed to Interstellar Travel (Free Audio Book) - a neat little informative podcast if you are looking for an introduction to some of the harder science fiction.

Mythology - by Edith Hamilton - Text book about Greek Mythology. Like “used in schools” text book. It is a good read if you don’t want to go through Ovid, Virgil, Homer, and all the other classical writers on your own.

The Space Race: An Audible Original - America didn’t win the Space Race. Russia did just about everything first. The only thing we did first was put people on the moon. It also goes into detail about how the inventor of the Nazi’s V2 rockets became employed with the US Space program. As well as the government’s announcement to let space travel become privatized.

Pale Blue Dot / Cosmos: A Personal Voyage - It’s Carl Sagan. Come on! Everyone should be reading them. Pale Blue Dot was being turned into an Audiobook in the 90′s but with Sagan’s death, only the first few chapters were read by him and his partner reads the rest of it (she does a decent job, and i understand why they wanted her to read it, it should’ve been done similarly to Cosmos, with guest readers doing each chapter)

Thicker Than Water (Free Audio Book)  - start up pharmaceutical company scams people out of millions with promises of a miracle machine that was ahead of its time. Story told from the whistleblower himself as he recounts what his job was within the company and how he knew the owner/founder of the company and how coming out about what was going on ruined his relationship with his family and friends.

Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - biography on Douglas Adams and the history behind the creative process behind the Hitchhiker’s Guide series.

The Genius of Birds - It reminded me a lot of “The Soul of an Octopus” in quality. It is rather informative about birds, how they behave, and how we judge intelligence in non-human animals.

It’s “ok.”

Les Miserabes - I can see why people favor movies and theater versions because of how dense the book is, getting the cliff notes version of the book instead of reading several chapters about the Battle of Waterloo. 

Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons (Audible Free Book) - It’s cute, and I spent the next several weeks humming that freaking song.

Challenger Deep - A book about mental illness by the same person that brought us The Arc of a Scythe series. It isn’t a bad read, but if you are prone to get panic attacks and have mental illness yourself, you might get too into it and make you uneasy. It can help with neurotypical people with understanding how some illnesses work.

Into the Wilds (Warriors, Book 1)  - Ah, the cat book. It is prob because there are soooo many books in this series that it over-saturates the kids impressionable minds.

House of Teeth (Audible Free Book)  - I read this book prior to Monster Hunter International, and thinking back on this one, i am reminded about the other. Save for this one is PG. So... the kid friendly version.

The Martian Chronicles - Space Horror, on Mars. If you like old science fiction, like Classic Trek, Wells, or Forbidden Planet stuff. There is a lot of zerust.

Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection - The third superhero series I’ve read this past year. It is not as ground breaking nor subversive as Villain’s Code or Dreadnought. The humor is a bit too forced and parts of it falls into “we can be more offensive because it is an adult book” category.

Interview with the Robot - Don’t really care for books or programs that are set up in the “interview” format where it is two people talking to one another. (I have no fucking idea how this book got top Kids book of the year on Audible, it is more of a YA book... it must been because it was Free and lots of people picked it because the rest of the choices that month were complete garbage)

Micromegas - perhaps one of the oldest examples of Speculative Science Fiction. Written by Voltaire, it is about a giant from another solar system that is so big that humans and life on Earth are microscopic. “what value are the lives of ants to a man?”

The Three Musketeers - i had forgotten how much espionage there was in this book. I would say this is a good companion book to Don Quixote, as it takes its fair share of inspiration from and even name-drops the character a couple times. 

Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist / David Copperfield / A Tale of Two Cities - DC is the standout IMO among the three, it is Dickens’ Magnum Opus. Les Mis did a far better job with the Revolution than Tale did as well. I felt rather obligated to reading these books because of the subplot in the Age of Madness books being about Poverty during the Industrial Revolution and Workers Revolts against the Ruling Class.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - the version i listened too made most of the Americans sound like GWB... which is funny because one of them is Canadian, and the Comic Relief character about how boorish Americans are.

Stuck (Free Audio Book) -  it is a neat idea, getting jarred free of time but everybody else isn’t and doesn’t remember. It gets a little heavy for a kids book near the end, edging into YA territory as the character gets older mentally and the people around him age physically.

Phreaks (Free Audio Book) - i knew a lot about Captain Crunch and other phone hackers of the 60′s. There is a subplot of the big radioactive corporation covering up causing cancer to their workers, and the father (voiced by Christian Slater) being in the closet but still homophobic about it.

Silverswift (Free Audio Book) - If you like fairy tales set in modern times, it is worth a look. It is similar to In Calabira in that way. The mom being the nonbeliever and thinking grandma is off her rocker, but the granddaughter knows it in her bones that grandma is telling the truth.

Sleeping Giants - alien mechs from the distant past, once mistaken as the titans and gods form mythology, now being studied and experimented on by the government. This is another “interview style” story telling.

Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes - there is a lot of names and stories, it is worth prob getting a physical copy of the book to keep things straight and to use as a reference.

How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps - A love letter to The Legend of Zelda’s Ocarina of Time and other RPG games.

Casino Royal: James Bond - the movie was rather faithful, including the part of being tied to a chair. I do wish they kept more of the book’s ending where Bond was ready to retire prior to his secret-spy love interest gets killed.

Aliens: Bug Hunt - a compilation of Alien stores about people landing on various planets and encountering aliens, not always the Xenomorphs we know, but the term “Bug” came synonymous to any dangerous alien lifeforms encountered.

Macbeth: A Novel - retelling the story of Macbeth but in a novel form. If you can’t get past the language of the original play, this would help. It sets it more firmly in historical fiction.

Hannibal: A Novel -  I went ahead and re watched the tv show after finishing the book. I’ve seen the movie a dozen times, and i understand why they changed the ending to the movie. The book is the main one that characterizes Hannibal and the show uses a lot of the plot. Hannibal Rising wasn’t really needed because Hannibal (in this book) does think/talk about what happened to his sister and home, and i can see why Harris didn’t want to write that book either. The audiobook is rather poor quality, they talked too fast in places and i don’t really care for their acting...

The Power of Six - I read I am Number 4 several years back and this one popped up on sale so i nabbed it. I like Neil Kaplan, and i think this one is better than the first one and actually gets into the meat of the story.

Cut and Run: A Light-Hearted Dark Comedy - body parts harvesting.... mmmm.

Calypso - non-Fiction, biography of the author. Talks about his family, his life with his partner, and what he does. Much of it is charming and it is read by the author. this was prior to him loosing his marbles about retail workers and becoming a karen.

Our Harlem: Seven Days of Cooking, Music and Soul at the Red Rooster - the history of Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance. I didn’t mind this podcast so much because i was reading The Diviners during the same time.

Malcolm and Me - another biographical book. one of the free books i got during Feb’ Black History Month.

History of Bourbon (Free Audio Book) - Informative about the liqueur industry in America.

Junkyard Cats: Shining Smith Book 1 - post apocalyptic action science fiction novel. the moment that guy showed up i was “that’s your bf.” and it was so... the plot wasn’t hard to figure out, it’s all about the action and setting.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - One of the better Heinlein books. The man can’t write romance and he is rather big on casual polygamy and open marriages. An anarchist-revolution book written by someone that is more on the Libertarian side of the aisle. Mycroft (the computer) comes off as rather antiquated, an AI that runs on a closed server, communicating through the telephone lines and printed paper, makes me wonder what Heinlein would’ve done if he was told about the internet and Deep Fake tech. (the book takes place in like 2075, but written in 1966)

Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World - the production of coffee and it’s prevalence around the world.

The Life and Times of Prince Albert - Exactly what it says on the can. *rimshot*

The Real Sherlock: An Audible Original - a biography of Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Design of Everyday Things - using psychology to improve the design of systems, products, and the modern business model.  It gives proper terminology for several common design features and how to improve on existing structures.

Bottom of the Barrel.

The Pagan World: Ancient Religions before Christianity. I was hoping there would have been something in there about European Religions, there isn’t, and the book was mostly Greek and Roman life styles and how gods are worshiped. It let me know where the word “auger” came from and why it was used in the Licanius Trilogy.

Life Ever After - disjointed at best. a couple that aren’t good for each other spend the next several hundred years in a crappy relationship.

Beyond Strange Lands: An Audible Original - The audio was complete crap on half of the voices. Which is bad because this could’ve been better. It is a Pod Cast Show and the director couldn’t make sure everybody had decent recording equipment and the sound effects often drown out the actors.

Henrietta & Eleanor: A Retelling of Jekyll and Hyde: An Audible Original Drama - They were going for a modern telling, but the language used is archaic. They speak like Dickens characters even though they talk about cellphones and computers.

A Crazy Inheritance: The Ghostsitter book 1 - The concept is there, but it is too nerfed. It was made for the 8-12yo crowd in mind by people that don’t know how to write for children.

Tell Me Lies (Free Audio Book) - It really wants to be smart. Who’s playing who and who is the actual villain of this story? If you want a quick “who done it?” maybe look into it.

Evil Eye (Free on Audible Plus) - told through phone calls between a mother and daughter. The whole genera of evil boyfriends/husbands isn’t really my cup of tea, and the boyfriend’s actor was too fake and the set up to the meat of the story was annoying.

The Half-life of Marie Curie - I didn’t mind learning stuff about Marie Curie... falls squarely in “made for TV lifetime movie” quality though. You should not carry around a vile of uranium where ever you go.

Alone with the Stars - A girl in Florida hears the call for help from Amelia Earhart, but nobody listens to her. Part fiction, part biographical. It would’ve been better as a biography and talking about various conspiracy theories about what happened to her and finding the pieces of the airplane.

Beezer - The son of the Devil learning to become a good person with a found family... however, most of the characters are annoying.

The Year of Magical Thinking (Free Audio Book) - very heavy on the subjects about loss and death.

Complete Garbage.

The Getaway (Free Audio Book) - A man being a POS by stalking and abducting women. It broadcasts just about everything that is going to happen.

Agent 355 (Free Audio Book)  - Do you like “American Mythology?” Like the whole “the founders are the greatest people in the world” kind of vibe? I don’t. I also hate the main character for being one of those “i’m smart, because i read books that women aren’t supposed to” girls when she doesn’t really think for herself at all.

[dailybestiary]

Books of Magic: The Voyage of the “Princess Ark”

(Images by Jim Holloway and Thomas Baxa come from PDF scans of Dragon Magazine, are © Wizards of the Coast or their respective copyright holders, and are used for review purposes.)

Previous installments in my “Books of Magic” series were, weirdly enough, about books.

This time, I want to tell you about a series: Bruce A. Heard’s “The Voyage of the Princess Ark,” which turns 30 years old this very month.

TVotPA ran in the pages of TSR’s Dragon Magazine nearly every month from January 1990 (Dragon #153) through December 1992 (Dragon #188). A serialized travelogue and adventure story told in 35 installments over three years, TVotPA was part Master and Commander, part Star Trek, and part The Adventures of Asterix (the last two of which Heard explicitly cited as inspiration in his letters columns). It follows the saga of Prince Haldemar of Haaken, an Alphatian wizard who recommissions an old skyskip and sets out to explore the lesser known regions of the Dungeons & Dragons game’s Known World, which would soon come to be known as Mystara.

Some background might be necessary for those of you who aren’t familiar with the chaos that was D&D at the time. In the 1980s and 1990s, Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons were two different games. I’m simplifying the chronology here, but basically in the late ’70s D&D was meant to serve as a simplified gateway to introduce fans to fantasy role-playing before guiding them on to AD&D. But in the 1980s, thanks to the release of the Moldvay/Cook Basic and Expert Sets, and then the five Mentzer box sets (the ones with Larry Elmore dragons on the cover, now referred to as BECMI D&D—for the Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortals Rules box sets), D&D had become a viable game in its own right, with its own world, referred to only as the Known World.

The Known World—particularly as it was showcased in the Expert Rules—was a mess: more than a dozen nations slammed together in the corner of a continent to illustrate for young DMs the various forms of government you might find in D&D beyond kings and queens. Along the way, these nations also served as analogues for real-world societies ranging from Western European countries to Native American nations to the Mongolian khanate. But it was a glorious mess, thanks to a series of excellent Gazetteer supplements that had rounded out and mapped these nations in great detail, capped off by a box set, Dawn of the Emperors, that described the Known World’s pseudo-Rome, Thyatis, and its rival empire Alphatia, a nation of wizards across the sea.

By the end of 1989, then, D&D was at a crossroads. It was clearly the unloved child, seen as “basic,” best for beginners. Its setting did not have the novel support of Dragonlance or the energy of the surging and more thoughtfully conceived Forgotten Realms, then only two years old. The Gazetteer series had covered nearly all the known nations (two more would come later thanks to popular demand). And even Dragon Magazine rarely carried D&D material—a fact that was excruciating to me when I started picking up issues in late 1988 as a 5th grader.

Into this void stepped Bruce Heard. He’d been the architect of the Gazetteer series, had written some of its best installments, and was the overmind behind the D&D line at the time. If I’m remembering my history correctly, he approached the editor of Dragon, the amazing Roger Moore, about supplying a column that would provide regular D&D content for that starved segment of Dragon’s audience. In his editorials and answers to reader letters, Moore had made several mentions of needing more D&D content for the magazine, so he was a receptive audience. Heard got the green light, and “The Voyage of the Princess Ark” was born.

I still remember where I was when I realized this was happening. I missed the series launch—with my tiny allowance, I could only justify buying Dragon issues that really interested me, and Dragon #153 hadn’t leapt of the shelf at me. (Not having the Masters Rules box at the time, I didn’t realize the illustration of a continental map plastered with “WRONG WRONG WRONG” was referring to the D&D world.) I did have Dragon #155 (still one of my favorite issues of all time), but somehow I skipped past TVotPA Part 3—I wasn’t reading issues cover to cover yet and somehow didn’t grasp what was going on.

Then came issue #158. I was away for a week at Boy Scout summer camp, and I’d brought the June issue of Dragon with me. Having torn through the articles about dragons (June’s theme was always dragons), I turned to an article illustrated with a wizard and an ogre/elf cross riding pelicans. Better yet, they article had stats for playing these ogre-elves as PCs.

D&D stats.

THIS WAS A D&D ARTICLE!

And it was part of a SERIES!!!

With some effort, I tracked down the issues I’d missed—no easy task for a just-finished-6th-grader—and soon was buying Dragon every month. Moore and Heard’s plan had worked. I was hooked on both TVotPA and Dragon from then on. (The next time I missed an issue, I’d be a college freshman and the industry was on the verge of collapse.)

Most installments of TVotPA followed a simple template: The Princess Ark would fly to some new spot on the map, the crew would get into some trouble (usually brought down on them by the actions of Captain Haldemar himself), and then more or less get out again, either due to a last-minute save by Haldemar or some surprising turn of events. All this played out in the form of log entries—originally by Haldemar, then supplemented by other crewmembers as the cast expanded—that allowed Heard to deliver both in-world descriptions and rollicking action at the same time. The article would then offer back matter containing rules content or setting write-ups, and sometimes conclude with a letters column of readers reacting to the setting or seeking clarification on some arcane point of D&D rules and lore.

While this template was simple, it was never boring. The episodic nature of the series let Heard play in a variety of tones and genres: lost-world pulp, courtly drama, horror, farce, even a Western—heck, he slipped in an homage to the Dark Crystal (which at the time I didn’t get, not having seen it) as early as Part 5 (Dragon #157). As well (without getting into too spoilery territory), various overarching antagonists and plot threads—including a threatening order of knights, a devious dragon, two major status quo changes, and divine machinations—kept things simmering in the background from episode to episode. The characters likewise became more developed as Heard’s writing grew in confidence and ambition, and reader affection grew for side characters like Talasar, Xerdon, Myojo, and the rest. Once the series was up and running at full speed, it was a sure bet that if you didn’t like that month’s story, you’d dig the rules write-up, or vice versa. And when the story, setting, characters, and rules all came together, such as in Dragon #177, an episode would just sing.

Once again, I can’t tell you how thrilling this series was to 6th–9th-grade me. First of all, it came along at the perfect time. Heard’s writing literally matured just as my reading did, so the series and I literally grew up together. 6th grade was also the year I discovered comics, so this was also the era of my life when I was falling in love with serialized storytelling. Similarly, it was my first time really embracing the epistolary form.

Perhaps most significantly for this blog and my freelance career, the column was also an early primer for me on game design. Watching Heard tweak D&D’s simple rules to evoke a more complex world, especially when looked at in concert with D&D’s Gazetteer and Hollow Word supplements, gave me the courage to think about tweaking/inventing lore and systems myself. Heard also made a habit of pilfering monsters from the Creature Catalogue, seeing potential in them no one else had, and then suggesting entire cultures for them. (If that doesn’t sound like someone you know…what blog have you been reading?) He made creating a world seem easy, because he did it month after month after month.

Finally, TVotPA was thrilling because it was clear proof that someone took “basic” BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia-era D&D seriously. And that meant someone took us, the fanbase, seriously too. Back then, I couldn’t afford AD&D. Even if I could, I didn’t want to mess with all the complexity. Plus, I loved the Known World. I loved the Gazetteer books and the Aaron Allston box sets. By writing and publishing TVotPA, Bruce Heard and Roger Moore made me feel like they cared about and for fans like me. I didn’t have Raistlin, I didn’t have Elminster…but I didn’t need them, because I had Prince Haldemar of Haaken and his magical Princess Ark.

In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that falling under the spell of Dragon and TVotPA were some of the most magical and mind expanding moments of my middle school years.

But what does this mean for you, the current Pathfinder or D&D fan? Should you read “The Voyage of the Princess Ark”?

Obviously I’m going to say yes, for all the reasons I’ve listed above. If you like maritime adventures, steampunk, or pulp adventures, this is obviously the series for you. If you like Pathfinder/D&D where a wizard is as likely to throw a punch as he is to go for his wand, this is the series for you. If you like on-the-fly worldbuilding, this is the series for you. If you like setting, story, and rules expansion all mixed together every month, this is the series for you.

TVotPA has never been collected in its entirely (more on that later), but there are PDF scans of all that era’s Dragon issues online. Start at Dragon #153 and keep reading. I’ll warn you that the first installments are a little slow, but I’d be surprised if you aren’t pulled in by the end of Part 8 (Dragon #161). If you’re the sort of reader who wants to sample a series running on all four cylinders before committing, I recommend Part 18 (Dragon #171), set in the pseudo-Balkan nation of Slagovich, or Part 24 (Dragon #177), when the crew encounters the Celtic-influenced druidic knights of Robrenn, as great places to get a strong first impression.

To my eye, “The Voyage of the Princess Ark” consists of four major arcs, plus a smattering of follow-up material that owes a debt to the series. If you do decide to dive in, here’s a quick reading guide:

Arc 1 / Parts 1–10 / Dragon #153–163 / This arc launches the series and introduces us to several major antagonists. The first few installments are slow going, but by Part 6 (Dragon #158) or 7 (Dragon #160) we see signs of the series as it will be in its prime.

(Dragon #158 also looks at D&D’s immortal dragon rulers; some of this info will later get superseded by a more canonical article in Dragon #170 a year later. Don’t sleep on Dragon #159—though it doesn’t have an installment of TVotPA, there is some fun Spelljammer content in that issue. Speaking of Spelljammer, Dragon #160 also has a companion article entitled “Up, Away & Beyond,” that serves up rudimentary rules for space travel in D&D in tandem with the action in that month’s TVotPA.)

As you have probably just gleaned, this arc also takes the Princess Ark briefly into space and introduces D&D’s second, secret setting, the Hollow World, which was being launched at that time .

Arc 2 / Parts 11–15 / Dragon #164–168 / This short arc deals with the ramifications of a major status quo-altering event at the end of the previous arc. As the crew comes to terms with their new circumstances, Haldemar learns more about the ship itself and the magics behind her. The arc ends with yet another status quo shakeup and detailed maps of the Princess Ark.

Arc 3 / Parts 16–28 / Dragon #169–181 / Hex maps! One of the calling cards of the D&D Gazetteer series was its gloriously detailed full-color hex maps, so it was kind of a disappointment when TVotPA served up only rough sketches of coastlines and mountain ranges. Part 16 gave us what we’d wanted all along: glorious hex maps (detailing the India-inspired nation of Sind no less!). They weren’t always perfect—several issues in the #170s had the wrong colors for mountain ranges, or even seemed crudely painted with watercolors—but by Part 24 (Dragon #177) we got the crisp, expertly designed nations we expected in our Known World.

Early in this arc, we also get a passing of the torch between artists. Parts 1–17 were illustrated by Jim Holloway, who I like for his action scenes, his expressive faces, and the classic stern captain’s look (complete with mustache) he gives Haldemar. (Holloway also does the best dwarves, gnomes, and halflings in the fantasy business.) Starting with Part 18 (Dragon #171), we are treated to the more angular, stylized look of Thomas Baxa, with Haldemar losing his mustache and gaining a silver-streaked ponytail. Terry Dykstra takes over in Part 25 (Dragon #178); his style is more cartoony (his Myojo really suffers from this), but he keeps Baxa’s character designs till the end of the series.

Now that I’ve totally buried the lede, let’s unearth it: This arc is, for my money, the series at its absolute prime. Action-packed stories. More characters in the spotlight. Meaty setting descriptions and rules content. New PC races and classes. Even heraldry for each nation! Heard also continued his habit of dredging up D&D creatures from the Creature Catalogue and loosely tying them to real-world cultures for great effect. I suspect many of you will love the French dogfolk of Renardy or the English catfolk of Bellayne, not to mention the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference he sneaks in there.

(By the way, it should be noted that today in 2020 we’re more hesitant to do such A+B design. But remember, 1) 1990–1992 was a different time—by ’90s standards, Heard is engaged in pretty solid, multiculturalist worldbuilding, and 2) Heard grew up in Europe (France originally, I believe), so while some of the characterizations and comedy is broad, the settings are grounded in both on-the-ground familiarity and good research, and the humor is affectionate and of a piece with works like Asterix that any European reader would be familiar with. In other words, don’t stress it and just enjoy that the dog-dudes are shouting “Sacrebleu!” The one exception might be the depiction of Hule, an evil D&D nation that has always been hung with vaguely Persian or Arabian trappings…but again 1) Heard was working within the established canon, and 2) the Known World setting more than balances that out with the Emirates of Ylaruam, an Arabian/Persian-inspired nation that was depicted with lots of sensitivity and care by Ken Rolston and others, to be followed by the amazing Al-Qadim setting for AD&D. So I don’t think there’s much in here that should raise alarms from a cultural sensitivity perspective, but if something does strike you discordantly, remember we’re talking about works that are 30 years old and make allowances as you feel you can.)

Along the way, you’ll also get a sneak peek at what would become AD&D’s Red Steel setting and the Savage Baronies box set—including some of the first Spanish and Moorish-inspired nations you’ll find in fantasy RPGs of this era—learn a bit about the Known World’s afterlife and undead, and even get an honest-to-Ixion cowboy shootout, as well as lots of PC options and deck plans for the evil knights’ flying warbirds, which put the Klingons’ warbirds to shame. (Oh, and while you’re reading, don’t skip the two articles about the Known World’s dragons in #170 and #171!)

Arc 4 / Parts 29–35 / Dragon #182–188 / Dragon #158–181 is among the best two-year-runs Dragon Magazine ever had, and TVotPA is a large part of the reason. But a lackluster issue #182 was a first quiet sign of a long slow downturn to come. The fact that that issue’s TVotPA entry was only a letter column portended even more dire things. In fact, three of the seven installments in this arc were purely letters columns, which was a huge disappointment at the time: We’d waited a whole month and got…just letters?!?

By this point, I think we knew the Wrath of the Immortals box set was coming—one of those world-shattering setting updates that was being pitched as a relaunch of the setting, but which could also serve as its climax. My hope at the time was that Wrath of the Immortals would kick things into a new, higher gear for both the Known World (which by then we knew as Mystara) and TVotPA, especially since the D&D Rules Cyclopedia had only come out the year before. But alas, it wasn’t to be.

Thanks to the three letters-only entries, the writing was on the wall. In Part 35 (Dragon #188), TVotPA wound its way to a close that felt appropriate but not properly climactic. God, what I wouldn’t have given to have traded those three letters columns for one last showdown with a certain dragon, those dastardly knights, or any other more suspenseful end! The end we got was nice and tidy enough (and took us to fantasy Louisiana, Australia, and Endor), but it wasn’t the end we wanted…in part because we didn’t want it to end, ever.

Arc 5 / Coda & Part 36 / Select issues of Dragon #189–200, Champions of Mystara, Dragon #237, #247 & #344 / In 1993, TVotPA was replaced with “The Known World Grimoire.” This was a grab bag of announcements, letters columns, nitty-gritty details on running dominions (Companion and Master-level D&D players got to have their own lands, castles, and even kingdoms if they so wished), and other sundries. Most of these are skippable. Four exceptions are four “Grimoire” entries which could practically be TVotPA installments: Dragon #192, which covers the manscorpions of Nimmur, Dragon #196, featuring the orcs of the Dark Jungle, an article on D&D heraldry in Dragon #199 (which is an edge case, but I’m including it here because the rules could be applied to the coats of arms of the various Savage Coast nations), and Dragon #200, which looked at the winged elves and winged minotaurs of the Arm of the Immortals. Coming out as it did in the giant-sized issue #200, this last article felt like what it was—a last goodbye to D&D’s Known World/Mystara as we knew it before Mystara’s relaunch as an AD&D line.

(Dragon #200 also had a nice article on making magic-users in D&D more distinctive. There was also “The Ecology of the Actaeon” in Dragon #190, one of the only D&D ecologies to be published in Dragon’s 2e AD&D era. Somewhere in this time we also got the news that the Known World would be relaunched as AD&D’s Mystara setting, whose products were famous for coming with audio CDs and not much else.)

Around this time TSR also published its TVotPA-inspired—and utterly maddening—Champions of Mystara box set. I say “maddening” because, at least to me, it clearly felt like a “Sure, here fine, have your dang box set” product, a too-pricey production made because fans demanded it, but not out of real love from anyone at TSR but Bruce Heard himself and co-designer Ann Dupuis.

(Let me be clear: This is all speculation; I can’t confirm any of that; I’m just saying what it felt like.)

Among the reasons for my disappointment: There was no new content featuring Haldemar and his crew. One of the booklets reprinted most of TVotPA…but not the first 10 or so entries (so it wasn’t even the complete epic! *headdesk*) and none of the ancillary material, just the story logs. Another booklet was deep in the weeds of skyship construction—hell yeah, you could build your own skyship!—but gave little content to, say, inspire lots of fun skyship-to-skyship adventures in the vein of Spelljammer, such as tons of skyships from other nations. The box did contain eight standalone cards with other ship designs, but most of these were one-off constructions by solitary wizards and rajahs, not enough to really launch a campaign. My favorite booklet was the “Explorer’s Manual,” which gave us some new setting details we hadn’t seen before, including an amazing subterranean nation of elves and gnolls that I still think about to this day…but again, it was all too little, too late—for this fan, at least.

In other words, don’t try to buy the Champions of Mystara box set—at time of writing it’s crazy expensive and not worth it for anyone not actively playing BECMI D&D right this minute. If, after reading the entire series, you’ve fallen in love with TVotPA (which admittedly was my goal in writing this) and absolutely must have Champions for that nation of elves and gnolls, get the PDF on DriveThruRPG.com.

Years later, as Dragon was limping through the late ’90s before its rejuvenation in 2000, Heard provided 2e AD&D rules for Mystara’s lupins and rakastas in Dragon #237 and #247, including writing up tons of subraces inspired by actual pet breeds. If you’ve ever wanted to play an anthropomorphic St. Bernard or Siamese, these are the articles for you.

Finally in 2006, when Paizo had taken over publishing Dragon, they invited Heard to deliver one last TVotPA entry in Dragon #344…giving us, if not a climax, definitely one last burst of palace intrigue and action to bridge the gap between the series proper and the events of Wrath of the Immortals. Over and above all the other coda material I’ve mentioned, this actually fits in the saga—it’s even labeled Part 36. If you want to ship out one last time with Haldemar and his crew, track it down.

Finally x2, there is the world of Calidar. After being thwarted for several years trying to get permission to write new TVotPA content, Bruce Heard has created his own game world filled with skyships and adventures. I own the books (which are rules-light so fans of any system can use them), but haven’t had time to read them yet; hopefully you will be a more determined fan. Keep an eye out for his various Kickstarters and definitely show your support.

Finally x3, if you think I am the only diehard Known World/Mystara fan out there…wow, no, not by a long shot. The Mystara fan community is one of the most dedicated in gaming. In addition to holding a torch for BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia-era D&D, they’ve taken it upon themselves to continue mapping and describing the remainder of Mystara as part of the fan community based out of the Vaults of Pandius website and the stunning fanzine Threshold. I’ve only skimmed Threshold a little, but it is stunning work on par with the Pathfinder fanzine Wayfinder for the amount of effort the fans put in and the quality that comes out. Kudos to everyone involved!

“The Voyage of the Princess Ark” is a testament to the creative heights one writer could achieve in a fantasy world.

“The Voyage of the Princess Ark” deserves to be spoken of in the terms we use for Pathfinder’s Golarion; AD&D’s Dark Sun, Planescape, and Al-Qadim; and Vampire the Masquerade’s World of Darkness. And Bruce Heard deserves pride of place in the company of Greenwood, Grubb, Weis, Hickman, and others of his era.

Heard showed us that simple rules didn’t mean a less complex world. Heard showed us that a few lines of monster description could be blown out to fill entire nations. Heard showed us that the cultural diversity of our own world could inspire our fictional ones. Most importantly, he showed that if you put in the work month after month, you could achieve amazing things. And he did it for a neglected fanbase of underdogs and windmill-tilters. He championed an audience and a world when no one else would.

“The Voyage of the Princess Ark” is also why I spent nearly seven years serving up monster ideas for another underdog fanbase. And the inspiration and work ethic I took from it is a big part of why I’m lucky enough to occasionally be freelancing on a professional basis today.

Three years isn’t a long time in fantasy fandom. If Elminster and Drizzt are Star Trek, perennially chugging along, and Harry Potter is Star Wars, a brilliant core surrounded by progressively less compelling follow-ups, then “The Voyage of the Princess Ark” is Firefly, a ragged crew whose sojourn was cut short, but whose legacy far outstrips its impact at the time.

Or at least, that’s the way its legacy ought to be.

Give “The Voyage of the Princess Ark” a try. Maybe I’m overselling it. Maybe years of nostalgia have painted a picture rosier than the original could ever live up to. Maybe, in an era where outstanding fantasy worlds and strong writing are almost commonplace, current readers can’t perceive the lightning-in-a-bottle magic that was this series.

Maybe. But I think there’s something more there, something perennial, something of value even when placed side by side with the embarrassment of riches that is Pathfinder 1e/2e and D&D 5e.

The only way you’ll know is if you book a berth on the Princess Ark and see for yourself.

Happy flying.

[plotbunnyshipper]

Book Recommendations

Instead of writing I’ve been spending my time re-reading so many of my favorites in my free snippets of time. I figure I’ll list a few in case anyone might feel the need for picking up a new book that may become one of their favorites.

Fantasy is always a favorite of mine in its many sub-genres, also first person storytelling is not a requirement but helps for immersion in the story when done well. And listing these out and going over them again it just reinforces my love of snark and sarcasm and antiheros.

I also have zero hesitation about starting a series a few books in, or in the middle and then going through everything else. (Did this with Black Jewels Series, Chronicles of the Shadow War, The Hollows). Tend to have a lot of YA in here because I grabbed lots of random when I was younger, and nowadays don’t get to read as much brand new other than new authors on Ao3.

List here (not in any sort of order), details below the cut. When the whole/most of series is fantastic I try to list the series rather than the individual book. If you see some in here that you also love and want to suggest a few not listed back at me, please feel free. Even if these aren’t ones you know or love, feel free to recommend, here or in an ask, even an anon one. I love reading, I’m not grabbing as much random published as I used to but published or online, it’s all good. I still remember the first fanfic author that I adored. To this day I’ll still go back and reread the Sailor Moon fic she wrote because it was just that good, so really. This list is by no means complete, they’re just the ones I have on my Kindle and closest bookshelf.

Chronicles of the Shadow War by Chris Claremont and George Lucas

Uprooted by Naomi Novik 

Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner

Various throughout the designations below by Neil Gaiman

Neverveil series by Amy McNulty  

The Sleeping Prince Series by Melinda Salisbury

The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard

Fairy Keeper by Amy Bearce

The Enchanted Forest series by Patricia C Wrede

The Raven Ring by Patricia C. Wrede

Anne McCaffery - Harper Hall/Pern series, Tower and Hive series, Acorna series

The Black Jewels Series by Anne Bishop

Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas

Three Dark Crowns series by Kendare Blake

Necromancer/Firebug Series by Lish McBride

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

The Hollows by Kim Harrison

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card

The Others Series by Anne Bishop

Georgina Kincaid series by Richelle Mead

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

Wicked Saga by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Antigoddess series by Kendare Blake

Night Huntress by Jeaniene Frost 

Meredith Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton

Hunter: Thieves series by Lexi Blake

Dissonance series by Erica O’Rourke 

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

The Last Girl by Joe Hart

Secondborn series by Amy A. Bartol

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen

A Madness So Discrete by Mindy McGinnis

VIP series by Kristen Callihan

Lonely Kings series by Ava Lore

High Fantasy

Chronicles of the Shadow War by Chris Claremont and George Lucas (Shadow Moon, Shadow Dawn, Shadow Star). Picked it up what ended up being the second book randomly at the library, not reading anything about it and was like that name, Elora sounds really familiar, and then hmmm this Thorn Drumheller seems an awful lot like Willow from the movie. Had loved the movie and was very happy to figure out that this was a ~15 years later sequel. 

Uprooted by Naomi Novik - Pulled me in at the start and was a wonderful read. First Person, which I love, pulled in familiar myth and fairytale elements as well as great original elements. Same world but different characters sequel is Spinning Silver - also very good but not as good as the first. If you need additional reasons to read the author is one of the ones helping with Ao3 - “Her own adventures include pillaging degrees in English literature and computer science from various ivory towers, designing computer games, and helping to build the Archive of Our Own for fanfiction and other fanworks. Novik is a co-founder of the Organization for Transformative Works.“

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner - Good god do I love an antihero. And a first person thief? It takes me back to my love of the Raven Ring. The worldbuilding, the (as much as I find the term obnoxious due to overuse in almost any story that incorporates BDSM to describe someone baiting or attempting to top from the bottom) sass, the antagonizing by the main character. It is a YA so when things happen that are ‘reveals’ later on you’ll notice them, they’re not “OMG I’m so surprised!” but it’s very, very well done. First book - Aces, second book also fantastic, third....hmmmmm would like the POV’s from the first and second books rather than this new one, but has a great scene I’ll quote below.

The Thief (Book 1)

“Are you really named after the god of thieves?” “I am.”

“Well, how could they tell what you were going to be when you were just a baby?”

“How did they know what you were going to be when you were a baby?”

“My father was a duke.”

“So my mother was a thief.”

“So you would have to grow up to be one, too?”

“Most of the people in my family thought so. My father wanted me to be a soldier, but he’s been disappointed.”

Behind us I heard Pol grunt. He no doubt thought my father’s disappointment was justified.

“Your father? He did?”

Sophos sounded so surprised that I looked over at him and asked, “Why shouldn’t he?”

“Oh, well, I mean…” Sophos turned red, and I wondered about the circulation of his blood; maybe his body kept an extra supply of it in his head, ready for blushing.

“What surprises you?” I asked. “That my father was a soldier? Or that I knew him? Did you think that I was illegitimate?”

Sophos opened and closed his mouth without saying anything.

I told him that no, I wasn’t illegitimate. “I even have brothers and sisters,” I told him, “with the same father.” Poor Sophos looked as if he wanted the ground to swallow him.

The King of Attolia (Book 3) condensing down a tiny bit with the [...]’s

The king couldn’t lie on a deathbed with a sense of dignity. The attendants were all on the verge of breaking into laughter, and the king, far from minding, was enjoying every minute of it.

The queen’s lips thinned.

“I am very sorry,” the physician said helplessly.

“Stop apologizing and hurry.”

“Your Majesty, I…” Petrus looked as if he was about to cry.

Ornon spoke firmly from behind the doctor. “Your Majesty is upsetting his physician.” […] The doctor bent over the wound again. The king made a face, but was silent. The doctor looked up momentarily in astonishment but returned to his work, eager to finish before this reprieve passed.

The king lay still and made no sound. As Petrus pulled his first stitches tight, the king took a deeper breath and didn’t let it go. After a long count of ten, he softly released the breath and took another.

There were three people between Costis and the queen. Costis knocked all three of them aside like pegs in a counting game and dropped to his knees in time to catch the queen as she collapsed into his outspread arms.

He’d seen her, white as wax, from the corner of his eye and, seeing her waver, had known she was fainting, but too late to do anything but catch her.

“The queen!” someone shouted in alarm, and the king erupted like a wild animal caught in a snare. […] “My stitches, my stitches!” the physician yelled.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty!”

“Damn your stitches!” he snarled. “Let me up.” […] He splayed his hand across the king’s face and slammed his head back hard against the pillow. Keeping his hand planted on the king’s face, he leaned over and roared into his ear, “The queen is fine!”

Eugenides was still. The men around the bed froze as well.

“Irene?” the king called.

“She fainted. That’s all,” Ornon said more quietly. “There is a great deal of blood. She is a woman and she was upset. It is not a surprising reaction.” […] On the bed, Eugenides stirred restlessly. “Upset at the sight of blood?” he said. “Not my wife, Ornon.”

“Your blood,” the ambassador pointed out.

Eugenides glanced at the hook on his arm and conceded the point. “Yes,” he said. […] “Get on with it,” said the king. He hardly seemed to notice when the stitching began. He looked toward the doorway, toward the queen, but spoke to the Eddisian Ambassador. “I think, in future, Ornon, I will stick to upsetting my physician.”

Stardust by Neil Gaiman - Lost too many copies, including my first edition of this by lending it out and never getting it back. I’m having trouble trying to say why you need to give these Neil Gaiman books a chance but goodness, all of them, all of them! I’ve never read a bad one. He’s got a beautiful and enticing way of writing - Favorites in order American Gods, Good Omens, Smoke and Mirrors (short stories), Stardust, Ocean at the End of the Lane, Coraline, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish.

American Gods

“You working for our man then?” asked the bearded man. He was not sober, although he was not yet drunk.

“It looks that way,” said Shadow. “What do you do?”

The bearded man lit his cigarette. “I’m a leprechaun,” he said, with a grin.

Shadow did not smile. “Really?” he said. “Shouldn’t you be drinking Guinness?”

“Stereotypes. You have to learn to think outside the box,” said the bearded man. “There’s a lot more to Ireland than Guinness.”

“You don’t have an Irish accent.”

“I’ve been over here too fucken long.”

“So you are originally from Ireland?”

“I told you. I’m a leprechaun. We don’t come from fucken Moscow.”

Neverveil series by Amy McNulty - First person, great worldbuilding. Also representation of POC for the majority of characters if you’re looking for a book with that particular feature. Cyclical, fallible main characters, overall a fast and enjoyable read.

The Sleeping Prince Series by Melinda Salisbury

The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard - YA

Fairy Keeper by Amy Bearce - Loved the first of this series, not as much the following books, first one, Fairy Keeper, is definately worth the read. YA

The Enchanted Forest series by Patricia C Wrede Classic, some of my first favorites.It is a youth series but I will never ever stop loving it. Also the Magic & Malice books.

The Raven Ring by Patricia C. Wrede - the first time I remember falling in love with the antihero as a young reader. It is fantastic.

Anne McCaffery - Read Dragon Drums in 5th grade by random pickup at the library and was hooked. From there went through the other Harper Hall/Pern series, then the Tower and Hive series, then the Acorna series. A great mix of both fantasy and sci fi, and fantasy with sci fi history.

Dark Fantasy

The Black Jewels Series by Anne Bishop - it was difficult to get into this at first, for me, I owned the series for a couple years could not get into it no matter how many times I read the first chapter. Then I picked up and read one of the “short stories” more of a novella, “The Prince of Ebon Rih,” in Dreams Made Flesh. One note - ignore the names of the three main male characters. Just... I love *LOVE* this series but ‘Daemon,” “Lucivar,” and “Saetan SaDiablo” are...just ignore that and you’re good. Strong women and men, family and friends, who have a fierce love for each other, tremendous amount of snark that I adore, if only there were more books on Surreal, and Saetan, and Tersa, and Rainer, and Chaosti, and the First Circle of the Dark Court, and anyone, I would read any additional stories in this series. There are so very many passages I’d use to try and draw interest so I’ll just grab a few

Karla let out a screech that raised the hairs on Saetan's neck.

"You've got tits!" Karla pulled open the blue jacket, revealing a silver, just as skimpy top. "So do I, if you call these lovely little bee stings tits." Smiling the wickedest smile Saetan had ever seen, she turned back to him. "What do you think?"

He didn't stop to think. "Are you asking if I think they're lovely or if I think they're bee strings?"

Karla closed the jacket, crossed her arms, and narrowed those ice-blue eyes. "Sassy, isn't he?"

"Well, he is a Warlord Prince," Jaenelle replied.

Ice-blue eyes met sapphire eyes. Both girls smiled.

Karla shrugged. "Oh, all right. I'll be a polite guest." She stepped up to Saetan, and that wicked smile bloomed. "Kiss kiss."

He refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing him wince.

Yet another

"Are you lost?" 

Daemon glanced over to where Lucivar leaned against a doorway. "I'm not lost," he snapped. Then he stopped pacing and sighed. "But I am very confused." 

"Of course you are. You're male." Grinning at Daemon's snarl, Lucivar stepped into the courtyard. "So if one of the darlings in the coven offers to explain things to you, don't take her up on it. She'll sincerely be trying to help, but by the time she's done 'unconfusing' you, you'll be banging your head against a wall and whimpering."

"Why?" 

"Because for every five rules you'd learned in Terreille about a male's proper behavior in a court, the Kaeleer Blood know only one of them—and they interpret it very differently." 

Daemon shrugged "Obedience is obedience." 

"No, it's not. For Blood males, the First Law is to honor, cherish, and protect. The second is to serve. The third is to obey." 

"And if obedience interferes with the first two laws?" 

"Toss it out the window." 

Daemon blinked. "You actually get away with that?" 

Lucivar scratched the back of his head and looked thoughtful. "It's not so much a question of getting away with it. For Warlord Princes, it's almost a requirement of court service. However, if you ignore an order from the Steward or the Master of the Guard, you'd better be sure you can justify your action and be willing to accept the consequences if they won't accept it, which is rare. I got into more trouble with the High Lord as my father than as the Steward."

And another

In lieu of a knock, she walloped the study door once and then stomped up to the blackwood desk where Saetan sat watching her, a glass of brandy raised halfway to his lips. 

Daemon and Lucivar, comfortably slouched in two chairs in front of the desk, just stared at her. 

Now that she was there, she wasn't quite as willing to address the High Lord directly, so she half turned toward Daemon and Lucivar and tossed out the question, "Don't I have the right to decide if I want a male in my bed?" 

The air behind the desk instantly chilled, but Lucivar said blandly, "Graysfang?" and the air returned to normal. 

The smirk in Lucivar's voice had her turning toward him fully. "I don't know about you, but I'm not used to sleeping with a wolf." 

"What's wrong with Graysfang staying with you?" Daemon asked. 

The soothing tone he was putting into his voice only infuriated her. "He farts," she snapped, then waved her hand dismissively. "Well, so do the rest of you." 

Someone made a choking sound. She thought it was Daemon. 

"Do you resent his being there because he's a wolf or because he's interfering with another kind of male warming your bed?" Lucivar asked. 

Maybe it hadn't been meant as a slur that she used to be a whore, but she took it as such because then she could vent her temper on him. "Well, sugar, from where I'm standing, there's not much to choose between you. He takes up more than his share of the bed, he snores, and he gives slobbery kisses. But if I had to choose, I'd pick him. At least he can lick his own balls!" 

A glass hit the desk with an ominous thunk.

Surreal closed her eyes and bit her lip. 

Shit. She'd been so focused on being mad at Lucivar, she'd forgotten about the High Lord.

Different book in the series, Queen of the Darkness

“I could have handled that bastard.”

Falonar looked insulted. “It’s a male’s right to defend and protect.”

Surreal bared her teeth. “I’ve heard that song before, and-”

“Then you should heed that song, Lady - and respect it.”

“Why? Because poor little me isn’t capable of handling myself in a fight?” she said with venom-laced sweetness.

“Because you’re deadlier,” he snarled. He paced a few steps away from her, swore, paced back. “That’s why males defend, Lady Surreal. Because you females are deadlier when you’re roused-and you’re merciless when you’re riding the killing edge. At least if I go down first in a fight, I don’t have to deal with you afterward.

”Not sure if she’d just been complimented or insulted, Surreal said nothing.

Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas - First person, great worldbuilding, very very similar elements to Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series in everything from the mannerisms, to the Illyrians vs Eryins, to the need of draining power descriptions and customs (I was 100% convinced it was Anne Bishop venturing into first person and ghostwriting an alternate version of the Black Jewels world for a long time). Didn’t care for the romantic lead in the first book, thankfully the hinting of book 1 transitioned into book 2 and <3 oh I love it. Supposedly a sort of inspired by classic fairy tales (like beauty and the beast) but it’s not like you’re sitting there reading a progression of that story like other books do. The Throne of Glass series is also very good, more original but again very Anne Bishop in it’s feel/wording (the purred words, midnight voices, the level of protectiveness bowels turned to water when terrified) 

Really enjoy the series but since I posted so much of Anne Bishop I figure I’ll just do a quasi related suggestion of threesomes that I found fun and funny. Court of Wings and Ruin... for now editing to avoid spoilers

“You never know until you try,” Helion purred.

The three of them in bed...with him? I must have been blinking like a fool because [<3] said to me, Helion favors both males and females. Usually together in his bed. And has been hounding that trio for centuries.

I considered--Helion’s beauty and the others...Why the hell haven’t they said yes?

[<3] barked a laugh that had all of them looking at him with raised brows.

[<3] just came up behind me and slid his arms around my waist, pressing a kiss to my neck. Would you like someone to join us in bed, Feyre [...]?

My skin stretched tight over my bones at the tone, the suggestion. You’re incorrigible.

I’d think you’d like two males worshipping you.

My toes curled.

Mor cleared her throat. “Whatever you’re saying mind to mind, either share it or go to another room so we don’t have to sit here, stewing in your scents.” 

I stuck out my tongue. [<3] laughed again, kissing my neck once more before saying, “Apologies for offending your delicate sensibilities, cousin.”

A Court of Frost and Starlight

If both of us went in there, I knew my sister would see it as an attack.

So it would be me. Alone

[<3] kissed my brow. “If someone propositions you, tell them we’ll both be free in an hour.”

“Och.” I waved him off, banking my powers to a near-whisper within me.

He blew me a kiss.

I waved that away, too, and slipped through the tavern door.

Three Dark Crowns series by Kendare Blake -

Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Romance

Necromancer/Firebug Series by Lish McBride - first person, hilarious, and fantastic

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

Oh, good, he was crazy and scary. What an awesome combination. I let  go of his wrists with one hand and leverages myself back enough so I could pull my T-shirt out of his grip. I dropped to the floor, knowing full well that he let me do it.

Freaks & Other Family

I tried to walk on my own to Mrs. W’s car, but Ramon got tired of watching me wobble like a baby deer and scooped me up and carried me.

I grinned at him. “Take me to bed or lose me forever.”

“I can’t believe you’re Top Gun-ing me right now. We almost died.”

“I’m going to blame the head injury,” I said, patting his chest. “You’re supposed to say, ‘show me the way home, honey.’“

“I will do no such thing, and you can’t blame it on the head injury, because you say those kinds of things to me all the time.”

“This is true. Let’s go on a crime spree then, and we’ll blame that on the head injury.”

“You can’t even walk. We need to get you home so you can rest,” Ramon said firmly.

“Yeah, so we can then explain to James how we both managed to completely rune the top-of-the-line tuxedo rentals we’re wearing.” Top-of-the-line to me. James had sneered openly at them before throwing up his hands in despair, which wouldn’t stop him from berating us. If anything, I think he’d find it more insulting somehow, and the fact that we’d ruined only semi-decent tuxes instead of really nice tuxes would just be salt in the wound.

Ramon paused as we both thought that over. Mrs. W pulled ahead of us, fishing her keys out of her clutch.

“Shit,” Ramon said. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

We both stared out into the night, silent as we contemplated our impending dooms.

“Head injury,” we both said at the same time.

“We can definitely blame the suits on that.”

“And if he doesn’t buy it,” Ramon added, “then you can just pass out again.”

“Deal.”

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

American Gods by Neil Gaiman as someone who was always a fan of Gaiman, and have been pleased with how the miniseries is doing with it’s adaptation because this has been a love since I got my my hands on it. It doesn’t hurt that Mad Sweeny’s chaotic love of fighting is personified so well by OitNB’s Pornstashe. The only thing I was dissapointed in was due to my prior knowledge of Norse Mythology and the whole “You can call me Wednesday” thing was shouting out what appeared to try and be a “reveal” towards the end. Fantastic incorporation of mythology and characterization. Just...love. Ocean at the End of the Lane is also

The Hollows by Kim Harrison - Again, couldn’t start at the start but jumping in mid series and I was in love. First Person, amazing worldbuilding

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card - very well done. Hate the male vocal reader he uses for his audio books (something about his voice grates on my nerves) but I’d suffer through to listen to this. A great twisting of various fairy tale elements into this, clever things that I wouldn’t have considered at the time of reading this. Very well done. Very. 

The Others Series by Anne Bishop - Not as loved as the Black Jewels but it has some characters I’m invested in now so I’m reading any and all of the series.

Georgina Kincaid series by Richelle Mead - Main character is a succubus by contract, having to corrupt souls to fulfill her contract with Hell and none too pleased about it. I was agonizing waiting for these to be released.

Succubus Blues (Book 1)

Statistics show that most mortals sell their souls for five reasons: sex, money, power, revenge, and love. In that order. 

I suppose I should have been reassured, then, that I was out here assisting with numero uno, but the whole situation just made me feel.. . well, sleazy. And coming from me, that was something. 

Maybe I just can't empathize anymore, I mused. It's been too long. When I was a virgin, people still believed swans could impregnate girls. 

Nearby, Hugh waited patiently for me to overcome my reticence. He stuffed his hands into well-pressed khakis, leaning his large frame against his Lexus. "I don't see what the big deal is. You do this all the time.” 

That wasn't exactly true, but we both knew what he meant. Ignoring him, I instead made a great show of studying my surroundings, not that that improved my mood. The suburbs always dragged me down. Identical houses. Perfect lawns. Far too many SUVs. Somewhere in the night, a dog refused to stop yapping. 

"I don't do this," I said finally. "Even I have standards.” 

Hugh snorted, expressing his opinion of my standards. 

"Okay, if it makes you feel better, don't think of this in terms of damnation. Think of it as a charity case.”

Wicked Saga by Jennifer L. Armentrout - First person, apparently I have a thing for snarky, territorial, hand sized coworkers in UF books.

Wicked

“Tink.” I sighed.

“Whatever. I think you should just get some action from him and kick his ass to the curb.”

My mouth dropped open. “Okay. That is the most bizarre string of advice I have ever heard. You don’t like him, but you think I should have sex with him and then get rid of him? And obviously I can’t because he’s a member of the Order.” That was the one thing I didn’t tell Tink --what Ren truly was. “You make no sense.”

“I make perfect sense. In my world, you don’t even have to like another to have sex with them. It’s all about the natural urges to get it on and...”

As Tink ranted on about the peculiars of his species’ particular mating preferences, I picked up the sugar canister and dumped a small pile of sugar on the counter.

“You just need to let those animalistic--holy brownie balls!” Tink dropped to his knees in front of the pile of sugar. He started moving the tiny granules to another pile, counting softly. “One, two, three, four, five, six...” Pausing, he glanced up with a frown. “Where did you learn that?”

I shrugged as I bit down on my lower lip. “Saw it on an episode of Supernatural.”

and

“Okay.” I placed the stake on the bistro table then reached up, tucking my hair back. “I can explain, Ren, but I need you to let him go.”

“You heard the woman,” Tink said. “Let me go.”

Ren’s gaze flew from the brownie to me. “You want me to let this thing go?”

“He’s my thing--I mean, he’s not a ‘thing.’ He’s a brownie, and he’s okay. He’s not going to hurt anything. I swear.” Walking over to where Ren stood, I ignored the way Tink Glared at us. “Please.”

“He’s a brownie, Ivy. What in the hell is he doing here?” He turned his gaze back to Tink, and the brownie paled since the edge of the knife was still near his throat. “And what do you mean he’s yours? I come into the kitchen and he’s sitting in a bowl of Frosted Flakes like a walking, talking rat.”

“I am not a rat, sir! I am a brownie and damn proud of it, you overgrown--”

“Tink,” I warned, then wrapped my hand around Ren’s wrist. His emerald gaze flicked to mine. My heart was slamming against my ribs. As upset with Tink as I was, if something happened to him...

“His name is Tink?”

I nodded, “Well, that’s what I call him.”

“Am I high? I’ve got to be high.” He glanced back down at Tink and scowled. “Is he wearing doll pants?”

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips - Another random library snag. Greek gods in a modern setting, full of apathy from a millennia of existence

Antigoddess series by Kendare Blake

Night Huntress by Jeaniene Frost - first person, great world building, fallible characters, lots of character investment over the series, sexy.

Meredith Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton - surprised myself by pretty consistently thinking - ‘While I like the varied and inventive sex, I really like the characters so I wish there was less sex and more story” when usually I don’t have complaints about the amount of sex in any given story, I’m cool with PWP works but I was hoping for some magic fix for Andais, like making her mortal and giving her another child then cutting out a good amount of the crazy due to those actions. Didn’t happen. Merry and her harem of men get it on for significant portions of especially the second onwards books, and again I can appreciate lots of magical explicit sexytimes I also wanted more progress on the characters. Also pet peeve of disliking men with long hair was constantly reinforced with a majority of the fae having waist/ankle length hair. The movie that played in my mind gave them haircuts really fast.

Hunter: Thieves series by Lexi Blake

Dissonance series by Erica O’Rourke - always enjoy when there is a new idea/twist and the reality bending in this was quite nice. YA, but I could not put it down.

Sci Fi & Dystopian

The Host by Stephenie Meyer - Was drawn to this one by the cover, it’s a gorgeous eye with a pupil ringed in (according to the story silver, but the cover makes it look icy) brightness. I walked past it a hundred times going “Ohh Pretty!” before finally springing for the audio book from the library - was exceptionally well read. Did not pay attention to the author or read any info about it and enjoyed it very much. Had I realized it was by the lady who wrote Twilight I wouldn’t have read it, I’m glad I didn’t realize and did listen to it. Very well done dichotomy of the main character(s) as two distinct personalities and thought processes. YA verging on New Adult about the aftermath of a relatively peaceful alien invasion. According to the things I’ve heard/memes I’ve seen of Twilight this author has a thing for a team whoever and team whoever2 triangles.

The Last Girl by Joe Hart

Secondborn series by Amy A. Bartol

General Fantasy or More YA

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton - fantasy western

Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen

A Madness So Discrete by Mindy McGinnis - 

New Adult

VIP series by Kristen Callihan - fun, fast read, first person, Bands

Lonely Kings series by Ava Lore - again, fun, fast reads, first person, bands

[islamfakrul]

Top 10 Best saga books [2022]

Top 10 Best saga books [2022]

1. Saga, Vol. 1 (Saga (Comic Series)) Buy On Amazon IMAGE COMICS 2. Wingfeather Saga Boxed Set: On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness; North! Or Be Eaten; The Monster in the Hollows; The Warden and the Wolf King (The Wingfeather Saga) Buy On Amazon 3. Star Wars Men’s Saga Continues Comic Book Cover T-Shirt,Black,2XL Buy On Amazon Star wars t-shirt Star Wars classic comic book cover image…

[newsintheshell]

Le anteprime al Lucca Comics & Games 2018

Proiezioni, home video e albi presenti in anticipo alla fiera.

Parte domani la nuova edizione del Lucca Comics & Games e in occasione di questa cinque giorni straripante di cose da fare, vedere e comprare, abbiamo pensato di stilare, oltre alla guida agli ospiti, una lista delle anteprime presenti in fiera. Fra comunicati stampa e social, ecco cosa è venuto fuori. 

DYNIT

Presso gli stand dell’editore saranno acquistabili il cofanetto home video della prima stagione di “My Hero Academia”, quello per il trentennale di “Akira”, quello del primo film di “Fate/stay night - Heaven’s Feel” e anche quello di “Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin VI: Rise of the Red Comet”, tutti in uscita ufficialmente il 7 novembre.

Per la collana Showcase della sezione manga invece sarà disponibile "Voglio Mangiare Il Tuo Pancreas!", tratto dal romanzo omonimo di Yoru Sumino (in uscita a gennaio), da cui è anche stato tratto il film anime che uscirà al cinema il il 21, 22, 23 gennaio 2019.

Venerdì 2 novembre alle ore 15:30, presso l’Auditorium San Girolamo verranno presentati i primi due episodi di “Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online”, spinoff della popolare serie tratta dall’opera di Reki Kawahara, trasmesso in simulcasst su VVVVID, che vedremo presto arrivare anche Blu-ray & DVD.

Sabato 3 novembre alle ore 11:00, presso il cinema Centrale in via del Poggio 36, potrete inoltre assistere in anteprima nazionale alla proiezione di “Penguin Highway”, il film d’animazione tratto dal romanzo di Tomihiko Morimi, che verrà distribuito da Nexo Digital il 20 e 21 novembre.

CRUNCHYROLL

Venerdì 2 novembre alle ore 11:00, presso il Cinema Astra, Crunchyroll mostrerà in anteprima l’episodio 5 di “Le bizzarre avventure di Jojo: Vento Aureo”, come regalo al pubblico italiano di Lucca Comics & Games. Gli spettatori saranno i primi al mondo a vedere l’episodio, intitolato “Alla ricerca del tesoro di Polpo!”.

Il nuovo capitolo della serie animata da David production e tratta dal celebre manga di Hirohiko Araki è attualmente in simulcast sulla piattaforma; gli episodi escono ogni venerdì alle 19:05.

YAMATO VIDEO

Allo stand troverete anche le ultime novità home video degli ultimi mesi, quali “Holly e Benji, due fuoriclasse”, “Holly e Benji Forever”, “Gun Frontier”, “General Daimos”, “Lupin III La prima serie” (per la prima volta in Blu-ray), “Devil Lady”, “Ken il guerriero - La leggenda di Hokuto” e i primi due box della serie storica di Ken il Guerriero. Troverete anche le esclusive Yamato Shop, come le edizioni deluxe di “Toriton”, “Il Prode Raideen”, “Devilman” e i due cofanetti in edizione limitata de “I Cinque Samurai”, il secondo atteso per il 6 novembre e presente in anteprima.

Anche Man-ga, canale 133 di Sky interamente dedicato all’animazione giapponese, presenterà le prossime novità della sua programmazione, come i doppiaggi di “Kyashan SINS” e “Sengoku Basara – Samurai Kings 2”, svelando le due misteriose prime tv, attese��tra dicembre 2018 e gennaio 2019.

Sarà disponibile anche il cofanetto de “I Cavalieri dello Zodiaco - I Capitoli di Ade” dedicato alla serie che ha trasposto in animazione la saga finale dello storico manga di Masami Kurumada. Purtroppo però sarà presente solo la versione standard, a causa dei molto preordini (l’uscita ufficiale è prevista per il 22 novembre), l’azienda ha deciso di non portare in fiera la versione deluxe, date le scorte limitate. 

Inoltre, per festeggiare i 40 anni di “UFO Robot Goldrake”, fra le varie iniziative e i gadget, sarà presente anche la nuova edizione home video in DVD e per la prima volta in Blu-ray della serie.

J-POP

Di seguito la corposa lista di volumi in anteprima che troverete presso lo stand dell’editore:

Il Poema del Vento e degli Alberi (Box) di Keiko Takemiya

Le Spaventose avventure di Kitaro di Shigeru Mizuki

Il libro delle Maledizioni di Souichi di Junji Ito

The Dragon Dentist di Outarou Maijou, Youko

Re:Zero 4 (Light Novel) di Tappei Nagatsuki, Shinichirou Ohtsuka

Killing Stalking - Seconda stagione 1 di Koogi

Super Robot Files 3 di Fabrizio Modina

Barbara di Osamu Tezuka

MW1 di Osamu Tezuka

I Tre Adolf 2 di Osamu Tezuka

Per quanto riguarda le altre serie a fumetti già in corso: Golden Kamui 13, Made in Abyss 5, Medaka Box 15, Neverland 6, Servamp 10, Truth of Zero 3, Wonderland 4, Armed Girls Machiavellism 5, Atom 6, Dagashi Kashi 11, Horimiya 4, Monster Musume 13, Oltre le Onde 4.

MANGASENPAI

In occasione delle seconda visita di Tony Valente alla fiera, in concomitanza con la trasmissione della serie animata prodotta in Giappone, troverete allo stand:

Radiant 7

Radiant 1 (Variant)

PLANET MANGA

Di seguito i volumi in anteprima che troverete presso lo stand dell’editore, che saranno poi disponibili a partire dall'8 novembre:

Boruto - Naruto Next Generations 5 (Standar/Variant) di Kodachi Ukio, Mikio Ikemoto

Boruto Welcome pack (vol.1-4) di Kodachi Ukio, Mikio Ikemoto

La promessa della rosa 1 di Kaho Miyasaka

Citrus 1 (Standard/Variant) di Saburouta

La cena di un mangaka di Yusuke Murata

Black Torch 1 di Tsuyoshi Takaki

Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu di Junji Ito

Shino non sa dire il suo nome di Shuzo Oshimi

Platinum End 7 di Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata

Berserk 26 (Maximum) di Kentaro Miura

Berserk Official Guide Book di Kentaro Miura

STAR COMICS

Di seguito alcune fra le novità presenti allo stand dell’editore, che quest’anno avrà un’intera piazza dedicata:

My Hero Academia Offical Character Book Ultra Archive di Kohei Horikoshi

Remina - L’astro infernale di Junji Ito

Lo Squalificato 1 di Junji Ito

Dissolving Classroom di Junji Ito 

Gyo - Odore di morte di Junji Ito

Jagan 1 (Standard/Variant) di Muneyuki Kaneshiro, Kensuke Nishida

Dragon Ball Super 5 (Limited Edition) di Akira Toriyama, Toyotaro

Dr.Stone 1 (Limited/Variant/Standard) di Riichiro Inagaki, Boichi

Potete consultare l’elenco completo dei titoli in vendita in fiera passando per questo link. 

KAPPALAB

Oltre ai LIBRIGHIBLI, ovvero i romanzi originali da cui sono tratti i film di Hayao Miyazaki e dello Studio Ghibli, troverete anche le novità autunnali in anteprima:

Penguin Highway di Tomihiko Morimi (il premiatissimo romanzo originale da cui è tratto l’omonimo film d’animazione in uscita a novembre nei cinema italiani)

Perfect Blue di Yoshikazu Takeuchi (il romanzo originale da cui Satoshi Kon ha tratto l’omonimo film d’animazione)

In Questo Angolo di Mondo di Fumiyo Kono (il romanzo originale da cui Sunao Katabuchi ha tratto l’omonimo film d’animazione)

Hiroshima di Fumiyo Kono

Cinestoria del Giappone di Giuliano Tani (la storia del Giappone attraverso i film animati e live action)

Godzilla di Shigeru Kayama (il romanzo originale delle prime due scorribande dell’iconico lucertolone)

Kiki Consegne a domicilio di Eiko Kadono (Premio Hans Christian Andersen 2018, il “Nobel” della letteratura per ragazzi)

Enciclopedia dei mostri giapponesi di Shigeru Mizuki

Enciclopedia degli spiriti giapponesi di Shirgeru Mizuki

Infine, presso gli stand Kappalab situati nell'area Japan e nell'area Editori potrete ottenere tutte le informazioni per la prima data italiana di Dragon Ball Symphonic Adventure, il grande concerto 'full immersion' che si terrà il 27 aprile 2019, suonato e cantato dal vivo in sincrono con le immagini dell'anime.

HOLLOW PRESS

In occasione delle nuova visita di Shintaro Kago in quel di Lucca, la casa editrice proporrà in fiera il quarto e ultimo volume della serie “Day of the Flying Head”. Sarà inoltre offerto, in anteprima e a prezzo speciale, il cofanetto che non conterrà gli albi del fumetto, bensì una tavola originale random tratta dal numero 3 o dal numero 4. 

HIKARI EDIZIONI

Di seguito i volumi in anteprima che troverete presso lo stand dell’editore:

The Bird 1 e 2 di Go Nagai

Il leone nero 3 e 4 di Go Nagai

Nanairo Inko - Ara dai sette colori 1 e 2 di Osamu Tezuka

Shumari 3 e 4 di Osamu Tesuka

Gen di Hiroshima 1-3 (Ristampa) di Keiji Nakazawa

La sposa davanti alla stazione di Shintaro Kago

FLASHBOOK EDIZIONI

Mr. Nobody 1 di Gou Tanabe

Cousin 1 di Ryo Ikuemi

Ka Cho Fu Getsu 1 di Yuki Shimizu

COCONINO PRESS

Il fiume Shinano 1 di Kazuo Kamimura

Utsubora 2 di Asumiko Nakamura

MAGIC PRESS

O.B. 1 di Asumiko Nakamura

L’elenco non è da considerarsi completo al 100%, ma speriamo possa comunque tornarvi utile almeno per farvi un’idea delle sorprese che potrà riservare il festival.

SilenziO)))