Elijah David

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...

I've been reading a lot of graphic novels/comic books so far this year; in fact, 7 of the 9 books I've finished this year have been graphic novels. In an effort to put more reviews on the blog, I'm going to give my brief thoughts on each of those books in this post. Hellboy Volume 1: Seed of Destruction   I'm a fan of the live action Hellboy films, especially the second one, and I've been meaning to read through at least some of the comics that inspired them for some time. The first volume is part of the basis for the first film, and the connections helped me feel more at home in this world of fantasy and horror. I wasn't expecting a certain character's involvement to be so brief, and I hope they'll be back for more later. I wasn't put off to the point of never picking up the series again, but I admit to thinking the story barely gets going in the four issues collected here; it's pretty much over before it begins. I recommend this if yo...

First off, my apologies for missing Monday's post. It's been a busy week and I dropped some things. I'm also mixing things up a bit this month and switching the weeks for ThrowBook Thursday and Watercolor Wednesday (for reasons which shall become apparent next week). This month's book is Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. This is the edition I first read, and the cover that comes to mind when I think of Neverwhere. If you've never heard of this book, let me give you a quick history lesson. Neverwhere  began as a TV show for the BBC. While the show was in production, Neil Gaiman worked on a novelization to bear with the cuts and changes the show made to the scripts. Now, the book is a bestseller and the show is hardly known (though it does have a cult following in some circles). When the American edition was released, Gaiman cut some things (mostly a second prologue and some humor the editor thought would go over the American audience's heads) and added others (...

April Fools' Day is just behind us, so I thought today I could list some of my favorite tricksters in fiction. Cheshire Cat, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Quite possibly the first trickster I encountered, the Cheshire Cat is one of my favorite characters, especially Disney's manic version portrayed by Sterling Holloway. The right balance of wise and demented, the Cat acts as both guide and roadblock on Alice's journey. He's the epitome of the trickster in that way. Bartimaeus, the Bartimaeus Trilogy The initial narrator of Jonathan Stroud's fantasy trilogy, Bartimaeus is the sarcastic and slightly unreliable djinni at the heart of the books. Beneath all the snark, he has a heart much bigger than he wants you to think. His friendships with his masters make him one of the most complex characters in YA fiction. Robin Goodfellow/Puck, A Midsummer Night's Dream I love him so much I put him in the Albion Quartet. 'Nuff said. The Marqui...

I got this from Amanda , who got it from someone, who got it from someone, who got it from the original poster . The idea is to list a book or character who fits the associations listed with each month's birthstone. This should be fun. 1. January (Garnet): Associated with warding off negative forces and dark energies. Name a book with the darkest/evilest character you can think of. Seven Princes by John R. Fultz: The main villain of this book made me sick to my stomach. If I'd had the physical book for this, I'd have thrown it across the room. 2. February (Amethyst): Purple is associated with royalty. Name a book with regal qualities. You can base this off of characters or choose the King of all books. The Lord of the Rings : It's regal. It has kings. It is the king of fantasy. 3. March (Aquamarine): Washed out. Name a 'wishy washy' character, a character who is not strong or a follower. Georgiana from A School for Unusual Girls : She has very little dri...

Currently Writing:   Merlin quartet book 2 Currently Reading:  Dune by Frank Herbert                                 The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (Reread)                                 The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket (audio)                                 Daughter of Light by Morgan Busse (Kindle)                                 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Vol. 5 by Hayao Miyazaki Tad Williams once wrote about the difficulties of writing second books (and sometimes third books, in his case) because they are essentially the middle of the story of a trilogy (or quartet). As such, these middle books must begin and end i...

Currently Reading: Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud, Dune by Frank Herbert Currently Writing: Merlin book 2 "When we read, we start at the beginning and continue until we reach the end. When we write, we start in the middle and fight our way out." -- Vickie Karp Beginnings are hard. I'm starting the second book in my Merlin quartet. Technically, I have half a draft written from NaNoWriMo 2013, but there are portions of that draft that aren't going to survive this one, including the beginning. It just wasn't gripping, and some of the characters' circumstances changed between edits of the first book since I wrote that half-draft. Despite starting in a different place, this draft's beginning is not so great, either. I'm not worried about getting the beginning of the book perfect on the first draft. That didn't happen with the first book, and I shouldn't expect it now. It will be easier to rewrite the beginning chapters when the middle...

Recently, a friend of mine posted on Facebook about Neil Gaiman's script for the film Beowulf . Personally, I avoided the film as soon as I heard about the changes, specifically that Grendel was Hrothgar's bastard child with Grendel's mother and the dragon was the same for Beowulf. Furthermore, Beowulf is portrayed as a lying, boasting fraud. I'm just not okay with that. This friend (to return to my opening point) said: " Didn't have to read more than a few pages into Neil Gaiman's script of Beowulf to conclude it's a rotter - but then it completely violates the very thing Tolkien believed made Beowulf powerful. Bad form, dude. Bad form." I had to agree with her, but then, I also felt I needed to read Tolkien's essay on Beowulf , which I had been interested in since I first read the long poem in high school (yes, I was one of those freaks who liked it in high school). Inevitably, the conversation (through another of her friends) led to wh...