Elijah David

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher read a number of books to the class. Stuart Little. Maniac Magee. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Number the Stars. But one that sticks with me the most is Louis Sachar's Holes. Though I remember the other books being part of that year, Holes is the one I remember whole passages being read in my teacher's voice. When the movie came out, I remember loving that the story was presented so faithfully (something I attribute to Sachar's screenplay more than anything). This story has fixed itself firmly in my imagination like few other books from that period of my life. Recently, inspired by some posts raving about the movie adaptation, I picked up Holes  again and reread it for the first time since it was read to me almost 20 years ago. (And if you want to feel old in a hurry, just realize that a book you thought you hadn't read for 10 years is really from 20 years ago. Not that I speak from experience or any...

Today we're doing two smaller reviews of recent reads: Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth  and Jonathan Stroud's The Hollow Boy  (third in the Lockwood and Co. series). I picked up The Eagle of the Ninth  because Megan Whalen Turner has mentioned it multiple times as an influence on the Attolia/Queen's Thief series. Marcus's early injury in the story directly inspired Eugenides's story in The Queen of Attolia , and Turner has even said she wrote Thick as Thieves  partially as a reversal of Eagle ; rather than the soldier, it is the slave who tells the story. The quest feel of the latter half of Eagle  also feels very similar to Turner's The Thief . But enough about influences. Eagle  isn't a seat-of-your-pants thriller or even a typical quest narrative. While the seeds for the quest are planted early, the mission to retrieve the lost eagle isn't even introduced until nearly halfway through the book. Instead, we're treated to Ma...

A year and a half ago, I read and fell in love with Naomi Novik's Uprooted , a mostly new fairy tale for adults that draws inspiration from Novik's Eastern European heritage and my own favorite fairy tale, "Beauty and the Beast." Last year, Novik released a sister book, Spinning Silver , and I finally got around to reading it. Spinning Silver does not take place in the same universe as Uprooted , but it feels very similar (magic systems aside). The narration is nuanced and varied; each of the ultimately six narrators has their own voice and diction (the audiobook is spectacularly performed by Lisa Flanagan). The story is openly a "Rumpelstiltskin" retelling; Miryem's opening narration brings the story to the forefront and sets it in opposition to her own. The story about the miller's daughter, she tells us, is one that people began to tell to cast the moneylender (a Jew) in a demonic light in order to get out of their debts. Miryem knows t...

In the past, I've made no secret of my appreciation for Dan Wells's John Cleaver series of novels. You can read my reviews of books three and four here and here , respectively. Over Your Dead Body  picks up months down the road from The Devil's Only Friend.  John and Brooke are on the road and on their own, hiding from both the FBI and the Withered. Using the memories deposited in Brooke's mind by the Withered Nobody and information gathered by FBI agents over the preceding years, they have been tracking down Withered one by one. Now, they're down to only a handful of Withered that Brooke (and her myriad personalities that came with Nobody's memories) can lead them to. Their path takes some unexpected twists and turns, including the reappearance of a personality John never thought he'd see again: his girlfriend, Marci. Her memories came to Brooke along with all the others Nobody possessed, and the chance to have her in his life again is a temptatio...

We're back this week with a look at the fourth book in Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series. I've mentioned my love for this series before , but I've never done a full review here. It's time to change that. Like its predecessors,  The Wizard of London  retells a classic fairy tale in Lackey's alternate Victorian/Edwardian England. In this case, the tale in question is Hans Christian Anderson's "The Snow Queen," although the parallels are scanter than previous books in the series. In another change for the series,  The Wizard of London picks up multiple POV storylines. Whereas previous books have focused on the romantic plot interwoven with the main conflict, usually maxing out at three POV characters, Wizard  uses five main POVs. While some of Lackey's more direct adaptations would have suffered from the added perspectives, Wizard carries the tale forward better for its multiplied leads. The original story was, after all, quite ep...

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...

It's really hard to believe it's been a year since I last made major goals for my creative life. And what a year it's been. I've switched jobs (so has my wife, but through less stressful circumstances), and God has seen us through financial hardships small and large. Lorehaven  magazine launched.  My life has been a lot busier and less restful of late due to work being so full the last couple of months. Add on doing Inktober and NaNoWriMo, and holiday travels . . . I'm bushed. But I'm going to try to get back into the habit of blogging and being creative in other ways. But before I set myself some goals for this year, let's take a look at last year's goals. Writing: Edit Albion Apparent and get it to the publisher.   During the first half of last year, I spent a large portion of my writing time on this. However, I stalled out for several reasons I can't go into. When there's news on this front, I will share it. Finish writing "Pap...