Elijah David

I often talk about specific books and series that I love, but I've never broken down (for myself or others) just which fantasy series  I love more than all others. So I decided to work out what my top 10 fantasy series of all time are, based on the following criteria: I have to love the themes, the magic, the characters, and so forth (themes of hope, light conquering darkness, etc. being preeminent); how complete is my reading of the series; and how many re-reads have I completed, if any. The Elemental Masters The least completely read series on this list, Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters wins a place by virtue of its unique blend of fairy tales, magic, and historical romance. Every time I read a new book in this series, I remember how much I love the world Lackey has created. The Dresden Files I'm all caught up on this series barring the newest short story collection, Brief Cases  (which is in my ever-growing to-read pile). This series has it all: magic...

I'm picking this tag up from Paper Fury , who picked it up from other blogs. Chocolate Chip: Classic Book That You Love Dracula, Treasure Island, Pride and Prejudice, The Hunchback of Notre Dame Thin Mints: A Hyped-Up Book You Want To Read The Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak, the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik Shortbread: An Author You Can’t Get Enough Of C. S. Lewis, Jim Butcher, J. R. R. Tolkien, Naomi Novik, Megan Whalen Turner  Samoas: An Emotional Rollercoaster A Monster Calls  by Patrick Ness, Changes by Jim Butcher, I Don't Want to Kill You by Dan Wells Oreos: A Book Whose Cover Was Better Than The Story The Golden Compass  by Phillip Pullman Gingerbread Cookies: Where The Story Was Better Than Its Cover Till We Have Faces  by C. S. Lewis, The Secret of NIMH/Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH  by Robert C. O'Brien (I have the movie tie-in edition and it's not...

Yesterday's prompt for the April Fae art challenge was Portal. Since I've been doing a poem a day this month as well as the art challenge, I started brainstorming what a portal poem might be like -- and what portals have been special to me over the years. The tendency in fantasy movies and shows like Once Upon a Time is to have a swirling vortex as the gateway between worlds. (I'm not immune to this image. In fact, the main method of inter-world travel in the Non de Velai books is a shimmering silver pool, though it often appears between two trees.) But the portals that appear in fiction are often more varied than that. The first portal stories I can remember seeing were The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland . The portals in these stories are naturally occurring phenomena: a tornado/twister/cyclone (whatever term you prefer) and a rabbit hole. While tornadoes weren't common where I grew up (outside of hurricane season), holes in the ground were common enoug...

Yes, I know this is a ThrowBook Thursday post, and therefore it's supposed to be about a book that's stayed with me over the years. But I honestly wasn't sure which one book to talk about this month, and I thought I could revisit my top 10 books. Only I haven't actually done a top 10 books post. I've done posts on my top 10 books to reread , top 10 fantasy books , top 10 non-fantasy/sci-fi books , and even top 100-ish books . So today I'm going to do a Top 10 Books post, with an emphasis on why these books have stayed with me. These are the books that I would choose if I had to choose only ten books to be able to read for the rest of my life. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell One of my perennial favorites, this novel is the perfect mixture of fantasy and so-called "literary" fiction. It blends the humor and social commentary of authors like Austen and Dickens with the magic of Tolkien. It has spiritual, moral, and emotional depth. It features cr...

I know I'm late with this month's art post. I haven't been as actively computering this week and it's always slipped my mind when I've been active. So here we are. I did a couple of Narnia paintings centered around Shasta and joined the April Fae art challenge on Instagram, so I've been very steadily making paintings and drawings for the last two weeks. I also did some prep sketches for the next couple 100 Myths drawings, but I'm saving those for once the final versions are done, probably after April Fae is over. First up, the Shasta series. This first one is a rendition of Shasta's night among the tombs of the ancient kings of Calormene. Note the cat keeping him company. I loved the colors in that one so much I wanted to do a portrait of Shasta with the same scheme. But first, a practice sketch. Then the colorized version: Day one of April Fae was the Fool, so I drew a Faerie hunter who felt foolish for taking a bet. Day tw...

Today is a special day in my family: it's both my grandmothers' birthday. In honor of that, I wanted to do a top 10 fictional grandparents post, but given the shortage of fictional grandparents that came to mind, I expanded the post to include non-grandparent characters who are also in a mentoring/parental relationship with characters who are at least 1 generation younger than they are. Grandma Fa (Mulan) The original Disney #GrandmaGoals, Grandma Fa is the old person many of us aspire to be. She speaks her mind, isn't afraid to sass off about the ancestors' lack of luck ("They're dead."), and loves her family deeply. Gramma Tala (Moana) The Disney #GrandmaGoals of the latest generation, Tala isn't afraid of her reputation as the village crazy lady. In fact, she embraces it. She's also the village's storyteller, passing on her knowledge of her people's history and culture to the younger generations. She doesn't let Moana forg...

I've got a lot to share this month, owing to most of my artistic efforts in November and December going toward Christmas gifts that couldn't be revealed here until they were received. Also, I received a number of supplies for Christmas again this year, and I wanted to include those in this post. I'll start with the watercolor and drawing stuff. Every year a group of my online friends and I participate in a Secret Santa gift exchange, and this was part of my gift to this year's recipient. It's a painting of Puddleglum from The Silver Chair accompanied by some of his most famous words from the climax of the book. And here's a closer look at Puddleglum: This was another Christmas gift for a friend. It's a painting of me as a Hobbit and him as a Ranger a la Tolkien. I was pleased with the faces in this one. Here's a rough sketch I did to prepare for that picture, though my friend appears as a wizard instead of a Ranger. If you...