Elijah David

I want to mix things up a little. Instead of a book that's stuck with me, this month's TBT is about a musical album that I can't shake: The Oh Hellos' Dear Wormwood . I mentioned The Oh Hellos a  while back  when I discussed my favorite songs inspired by Narnia, but while I love their song "The Lament of Eustace Scrubb," I didn't truly fall in love with their music until Dear Wormwood . Dear Wormwood  takes its title from C.S. Lewis' satire The Screwtape Letters , which comprises a series of letters written from Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, an under-demon tasked with the temptation of an unnamed human. Despite the album's name, only one song explicitly deals with Screwtape , the eponymous track "Dear Wormwood". The album as a whole is concerned with similar themes, however, addressing temptation, lost love, death, and more with a musical tone that has evolved from The Oh Hellos' earlier acoustic style into something like...

Yep, I finished another Dresden Files book. No, I'm not jumping into the next one right away, much as I'd like to. I need to feed my brain something different for a bit. In any event, on to the review! SPOILERS AHEAD Ghost Story  picks up immediately after the end of Changes , setting out to resolve the ending that Butcher insists is not a cliffhanger. It follows Harry through his ghostly attempts to solve his own murder. Like Changes ,  Ghost Story  revolves around a mystery, but spends more time on character development and world exploration than the mystery itself. I'm not sure if this is representing a change in the series' focus or Butcher's writing style or both. If it continues in Cold Days  and Skin Game , I'll have to start thinking of Changes  as more than the midpoint of the series. I liked seeing the ramifications of Dresden's actions and his death in Changes , especially in how both affected Murphy and Molly, among others. I'm ...

Since I've failed to get my usual Monday Musings and Watercolor Wednesday posts up on time, I'm doing a combo post. First up, the art news. I finished the second in the 100 Myths series, after many failed attempts to get a sketch worked out. Presenting Jill Flame, a fiery counterpart to Jack Frost. And here's a side-by-side view. As a side note, my wonderful wife got me a Faber-Castell brush pen for Valentine's Day, and I'm itching to try it out. You'll probably see some drawing with this in future art posts. A quick run-down of some books I've read since the last review roundup: Hellboy Vol. 2-4: Volume 2 is a solid follow-up to the first, and in many ways serves as a sequel to the first volume. The third and fourth books are collections of short stories (some as brief as a few pages, and some the length of a regular issue or two) that are scattered through Hellboy's history, from early youth (like the comical "Pan...

For February's Top 10, I wanted to take a look at some fictional relationships in honor of Valentine's Day. But my favorite relationships in fiction aren't always romantic. As often as not, they're friendships and familial ties that exhibit a strength of love well beyond what romantic love offers. Also, this is less a Top 10 and more a top however-many-I-can-fit. I have lots of favorites in this category. So many in fact, I've got sub-categories. OTPs (or, the Romance Category) Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe (Anne of Green Gables) Belle and Beast (Beauty and the Beast) Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons (Marvel's Agent's of SHIELD) Simon Snowlock and Miriamelle (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn) Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang (Fullmetal Alchemist) BROTPs (or, the Sibling Category) Edward and Alphonse Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist) Dipper and Mabel Pines (Gravity Falls) Abe Sapien and Hellboy (Hellboy) Arthur and Kay (Arthurian Legend) Sokka and Katara (Avatar...

I recently finished two books in the Dresden Files series: Changes , the 12th novel in the series, and Side Jobs , the first anthology of Dresden short stories. Below are my brief reviews of them, and the review for Changes is spoiler-lite (any spoilers you see are those contained in the blurbs and back cover copy for the book). Like its predecessor, Turn Coat , Changes hits the ground running, with Harry learning that he has a child, a daughter, who has been kidnapped by the Red Court of vampires. Rescuing her involves reuniting with Harry's old love, Susan Rodriguez, and putting himself and many of his closest friends and allies on the line. The question at the heart of the story is how far will Harry go to save his little girl? Changes is perhaps the only title in the series to not have some sort of play on words or double meaning in it. It is straightforward, and the story inside is what it says on the tin. Everything changes with this book. Butcher has said on multip...