Elijah David

A friend of mine recently did a list of characters that she had obsessed/was obsessing over and I thought I'd do a similar list. These are in no particular order and the list is not exhaustive (by a long shot). 1.       Olorin/Gandalf from LotR 2.       Galadriel from LotR 3.       Glorfindel from LotR 4.       Hazel-rah from Watership Down 5.       Fiver from Watership Down 6.       Samwise Gamgee from LotR 7.       Aslan from Narnia 8.       Reepicheep from Narnia 9.       Edmund from Narnia 10.   Shasta from Narnia 11.   Puddleglum from Narnia 12.   Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist 13.   Greed/Greedling from Fullmetal Alchemist 14.   Pinako Rockbell from Fullmetal Alchemist 15.   Hoenheim from Fu...

I was listening to the soundtrack for Finding Neverland (the musical) today, and when I reached the song "Circus of Your Mind" a thrilling idea occurred to me -- this is the sound I would want in a musical version of Something Wicked This Way Comes  by Ray Bradbury. It's possible that the idea was slightly influenced by my listening to the soundtrack for the Addams Family  musical recently as well. In any event, I started wondering about what else I would like to see in a Something Wicked  musical. The Story For those of you unfamiliar with Something Wicked This Way Comes , it is the story of two friends, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, who were born within minutes of each other on the night before Halloween. Their friendship is tested when a traveling carnival run by the mysterious duo Cooger and Dark comes to town. The carnival (true to its trope) brings the citizens of the town face to face with their deepest desires and fears, usually with messy results (su...

My friend Melissa recently shared an article detailing the author's Top 10 lists of the Top 100 books and asked everyone what their top 100 would look like. I'm not sure this is an iron-clad Top 100 for me, but it's a rough list (in alphabetical order for the sake of clarity). To no one's surprise, it's primarily fantasy books, and there are lots of repeated authors (mainly C.S. Lewis). 1984 by George Orwell A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Abhorsen by Garth Nix Across the Wall by Garth Nix Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carroll Beowulf Castaways of the Flying Dutchman by Brian Jacques Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams Dracula by Bram Stoker Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint Dune by Frank Herbert Collec...

Look at that cover art. Love it. Adore it. Last year, my friend Mirriam passed along a draft of her WIP, Paper Crowns , after I'd expressed an interest in reading some of her writing (specifically one having to do with wyslings). I flew through it, loving every minute. When she announced its imminent publication, I was overjoyed. I knew this was a book to be shared with the world, and now it would be. I've just finished my reading of the final, published version, and I'm pleased to say that I loved it even more the second time through. My initial impression of Paper Crowns , in summary, was "this is a fun, wild romp through Faerie." That impression still holds true. So why  should you read Paper Crowns ? The main characters are vibrant (both in the sense of being three-dimensional, and in the sense of Hal being a blue-furred cat). The secondary characters are worthy of their own books. (At least one gets his own sequel, still in the works.) The...

Beauty and the Beast I'm a sucker for true love conquers all and the transforming power of love. The Disney version of the tale was one of my favorites as a child and I've only grown to love this story's heart even more since then. Till We Have Faces , Lewis' retelling of "Cupid and Psyche" (itself an earlier form of "Beauty and the Beast"), is one of my favorite books of all time. I can't get enough of seeing people learn to love others more than themselves, especially when the other person is unlovable. That's Christ-like love, and it's powerful. The Six Swans/Seven Ravens I first encountered this story in an old VHS of fairy tale retellings (it also had a Robin Hood retelling and others I've forgotten). I remember the love of the heroine for her brothers and her perseverance in fulfilling the prescriptions for breaking the curse drawing me into the story like few I'd heard before. I certainly couldn't have kept...

When I first started reading Plenilune , I didn't really have any idea what it was about. I knew that I wanted to read it after finishing Mirriam's novel Monster (although I foolishly went on a trip without already having purchased Plenilune , so I had to delay it until I finished the book I started as soon as Monster was over, The Paper Magician ). I knew that I enjoyed reading Jenny's blog posts and that she was good friends with Mirriam. Other than that (and the tantalizing precis on Amazon's item page ), I was going in blind. The Prose But from the opening chapters, I was sucked in. The prose in this book is rich and wonderful. Biblical and Shakespearean references do more than pepper the story -- they flavor it through and through. The characters leap to life like those in Dickens and Austen. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you took Austen's books, melded them a bit with Burrough's planetary fantasy, and added a dash of C. S. Lewis, you...

Several of my blogging writer friends do what they call "snippet posts" which include short excerpts from whatever they happen to be working on at the moment. In my attempt to get myself more regular in my blogging (and my writing), I decided that sharing some short snatches of Albion Academy, the first in my Albion/Merlin series, would be a good thing to try. Without further ado, here they are, divided by narrator: Mortimer, the Djinni Normally he's a bit more ... bluish. Wishes are curious things, capable of great wonder, yet so easily twisted by those who grant them. "I wish to become human," I said to the Elders, the twelve oldest Djinn who had any desire to rule and weren't in the bottle. They sat, reclined, or floated around the perimeter of the small chamber, encircling me, each close enough to touch. ***** "By the crotchety Elders," Brutus swore. Then he started laughing and I wondered if I'd made a mistake in calling out. I...