Duty Heart Power

Hola Readers, I've just come off of 60 hours straight so if today's rambling is a wee bit incoherent...well let's blame it on that shall we?  Today I'm gonna ramble about Eona by Alison Goodman.  This is the sequel to the amazing and awesome Eon, which I absolutely loved.  In fact I had to run out buy and read the sequel ignoring my already overwhelming TBR pile.  How did the second book stack up?  Let's find out, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

We catch up with our favorite Dragoneye Eona as she is on the run from Sethon, the usurper Emperor.  She is with the Contraire Dela and her body guard Ryko.  Ryko was brutally injured in the previous book and at the behest of Dela, Eona tries to use her dragon power to heal him.  While in the dragon realm, Eona is attacked by the bereaved dragons of the other 10 slaughtered Dragoneyes. The attacking dragon are held off by unexpected help from Ido, the only other Dragoneye and his Rat Dragon.  Eona manages to heal Ryko, but the dragon battle that ensued, destroyed the village, killing many innocent people.  The other consequence of the healing is that Eona now has a connection to Ryko allowing her to use and control him.  There is a bunch of traveling and sneaking and Ryko being understandably pissed.  The group finally meets up with the young, true Emperor Kygo.  Eona and Kygo share a moment and Eona discovers that she has an insatiable urge to rip the Imperial Pearl from Kygo's throat...which would kill him.  More traveling and the group meets up with various resistance groups and Kygo makes Eona his Naiso, which essentially is the only person allowed to treat the Emperor like a human.  The Naiso is expected to speak hard truths to the Emperor without fear of reprisal.  Kygo is injured and Eona assists the physician in healing him using non-dragon power medicine.  Eona is summoned and in a very disturbing scene is forced to control Ryko to prove that she did not use her healing/control powers on Kygo.  Eona is upset that Kygo did not trust her word and one of the first of many lover vs tool fights takes place.  Eona and Kygo both have a hard time balancing their personal feelings vs their duty to the country.  Meanwhile Eona convinces Kygo that they need to rescue Ido from Sethon as he is the only person who can train her to use her powers. The rescue happens and Eona's training begins.  Since she used her power to heal him, Eona can control Ido, but has to use a more sensual compulsion that leads to some confusing feelings.  The group continues to travel and Eona is reunited with a mother she hasn't seen since she was sold at the age of six.  All through out this, Dela has been working on decoding the red folio that was left 500 years ago by Eona's ancesteor and the last Mirror Dragoneye, Kinra.  Eona knows just from the rage filled swords that Kinra had a huge part in why the Mirror Dragon disappeared. We discover that Kinra was the lover of the Emperor, but really loved the Rat Dragoneye.  We also find out that she was executed as a traitor for trying to rip out the Imperial Pearl from the Emperor's throat.  Eona uses her compulsion of Ido to bring the black folio and the binding power it contains to her.  She gives it Kygo as a huge sign of trust as the folio can use royal blood to bind the Dragoneye's power.  Kygo is greatful and it seems the two lovebirds are starting to figure stuff out. Eventually enough of the folio's are decoded for Eona to finally discover the truth of the dragons.  It seems that the Imperial Pearl is actually the egg of renewal that the dragons need to regenerate.  The original Dragoneyes stole it and bound the dragons with it.  Kinra learned the truth and tried to free them and was executed for her trouble.   Unfortunatly, Eona is taken prisoner by Sethon after they are betrayed by Kygo's trusted general.  Sethon uses his blood to bind Eona, and cause Kygo, Ido, Dela and Ryko to be captured. Sethon removes Kygo's pearl, leaving him to bleed out.  Eona uses the distraction of the pain of sewing the pearl into his throat to break free of Sethon's control.  Ryko gives his life so that Eona can take down Sethon.  Sethon is killed and Kygo is healed by Eona.  She then goes to give the pearl to the dragons so that they can regenerate and be free.  Ido however is not so into giving up the power and tries to get Eona to instead bind the dragons with the black folio for the ultimate power.  She refuses and Ido morally wounds Kygo, making her choose to either free the dragons and lose Kygo, the love of her life or to bind the dragons with him for the ultimate power and save Kygo.  After a moment of angst, she chooses to free the dragons.  Ido is killed and Kygo is looking to be in pretty bad shape.  The dragons go through a pretty cool renewal ritual and the young reborn dragons leave the Empire.  The new Mirror Dragon however seems to retain some memory of Eona and her gift of freedom and heals Kygo before leaving.  Kygo and Eona head home to clean up the pieces of the broken and now dragonless Empire.  Whew that was really long and not even remotely close to everything that happened...but you get the gist.

World Building - This book continued on the world building of the first book.  In this book we leave the city and the palace and move into the poorer outlying areas of the Empire.  We get to learn more customs, beliefs and other tidbits that continue to make this world feel very complete.  I appreciated the level of detailed that was very artfully slipped into almost every encounter, giving us an even more complete picture of the world this book is set in.  I found that although the main theme of the world is an Asian style medieval type world, that the author definitely incorporated some very original and varied pieces to differentiate this world from a carbon copy of any real country.

Story - Compared to the last book, I felt that this story was a little bit slow/cluttered.  I felt like we focused a lot more on Eona and her feelings and angst instead of the story as a whole.  There was a lot of traveling, a lot of introspection and a lot of things that felt repetitive.  I also wanted to get to the story of Kinra a lot sooner, I felt that knowing more would have given the story a bit more direction.  That being said this book did deliver on the previous books premise AND the story actually wrapped up in a very coherent way.  I'm not sure if I am sad or happy about the dragons leaving.  One one hand, it's pretty gutsy to so definitively end the books with the removal of the main conceit of the books...on the other hand no more dragons WAHHHH!  Overall not as compelling as the first story, but still well done.

Character - The development of characters in this book was vastly different then in the first book.  In the last book it was all about finding yourself and being true to yourself.  In this book it seemed to be more about how people responded to different situations.  Unfortunately I found myself liking some of the previous characters less in this book then in the last one.  We did meet a couple new characters that added some depth to the group and for the most part the characters stayed true to the way they were written.  Nobody really did anything out of character just for plot development, and every character had motivation, a story and presence so good job on the characters.

Editing - Editing was well done.  Again as with the last book multiple story lines were abundant, yet meshed together in a wholly readable way.  This book may have been a tad too long, a bit of paring down on some of the introspection and the repetitiveness would have been welcome, but overall very readable, very understandable good job.

Duty, Heart, Power - Along with being the title of this post, I feel like a lot of what was going on in this book was people trying to make choices based on these three things.  Eona especially spent a lot of time in the book trying to walk the line between these three.  She felt a duty to her country, her family and friends and her dragon...but sometimes these various duties did not align and doing her duty to one would make it impossible to do her duty to another.  She was constantly tempted with power, while at the same time being used, or people trying to use her to gain their own power.  Finally she had to try and learn when to listen to her own needs, what her heart wanted and weather or not it was compatible with her duty or her need.  Pretty much any time characters interacted with each other one or more of these three things came into play, and the choices that were made were based on what each character choose to make important.  Ido was constantly seeking power and most of his choices were skewed by this view point.  Dela and Ryko clashed constantly as Dela want to follow her heart, yet Ryko insisted on putting duty first...even if it hurt Dela.  Eona and Kygo were constantly struggling with all three as they both wanted/needed power to accomplish their goals, were in love with each other, but understood that their duty to everything else needed to come first.

Love Triangle - This book brought us the dreaded love triangle.  In some ways the triangle at least made sense.  Eona was the only person that Kygo felt was on his level and the trauma of their experiences together made them a natural pair.  Eona's control of Ido brought her into very intimate contact with him on many levels, coupled with the fact that he represented something very different from Kygo also made sense.  Unfortunately it came off a little juvenile for my taste.  Considering everything that was going on and everything that was at stake, a lot of Eona's angst came from dwelling on all the little stupid stuff.  Her musings about Kygo especially drove me nuts as she would dwell on the tiniest little things...It is actually pretty accurate for how it goes down in real life, but reading about it was kind of obnoxious...especially when there was so much other info I wanted.  It's not that the romance was a bad thing...I just wanted a little less of it.

Kinra - I both loved and hated the Kinra aspect of this book.  We were set up a bit for it in the first book when we learned that Eona's ancestor was the last Mirror Dragoneye, that she imbibed her swords with her anger and then wrote the red folio.  I assumed that she had something to do with the disappearance of the Mirror dragon, but was both pleasantly surprised and a bit eyerolly at how it all came out.  Her discovery of how the dragons came to be enslaved and her decision to try and free them at the cost of her own life was pretty awesome.  The convenience of her being Eona's ancestor and the way she could speak to and through her was a bit to pat for my taste.  Also I think the way things were revealed was frustrating, a bit here, a flash here.  I am still not sure how she influenced Eona even when she wasn't touching her belongings.  I'm also not sure why they didn't find a new Mirror Dragoneye, or how that type of history was forgotten but...yeah.

Overall Impression - I definatly liked the first book better then this one.  However this was still a good book.  It was a fair continuation of the first book, it answered most of the questions posed in the first one and the quality of world and characters remained high.  I have a feeling I would have liked this book even more if I didn't have the near perfection of the first one to compare it too.  I give it 7 out of 10 death plaques and recommend it to everybody who has already read the first book. I am vibing this author and will be picking up some of her other stuff to read. Oh yeah, also not as into the cover of this book as much as the last one, a bit to hip/modern teen looking for my taste. Happy Reading Everybody!

The Awesome Dragon Is A Girl

Hola Readers!  Time to get another rambling out there.  Today I'm gonna ramble about a book that has been on and off my radar for a couple of years.  I think that the book gods were making sure I saved it for a special occasion and reading Eon by Alison Goodman while at the Asian themed Wynn in Las Vegas was about as perfect as it could get.  Do you want to know why I loved it?  Ok, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The current year in our story is the year that the Rat Dragon ascends to power and a new apprentice to become this dragons next Dragoneye (more on that in a second) is chosen.  Our main character Eon has been training for years for the opportunity to be in contention for this prestigious and once in a life time chance...and oh yeah, he is actually a she...in disguise...'cause only boys can be Dragoneyes.  While she trains we learn that in this world there are twelve celestial dragons, Ox, Tiger Rabbit, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig, Rat and Dragon (also known as Mirror). Every dragon represents a different virtue, color and point on the compass.  Each dragon ascends to power once every 12 years where there power is doubled and the Dragoneye can use it's dragon's power to control elemental forces to help their country.  Each ascension see's a new apprentice chosen, the old apprentice promoted to Dragoneye and the current Dragoneye retired.  This happens because being a Dragoneye is extremely draining, physically, emotionally and mentally.  Unfortunately for this neat cycle the Dragon Dragon (also called the Mirror Dragon) has been missing for over 500 years after it's temple was destroyed by fire.  Nobody really knows what happened and the Mirror Dragons ascension year is handled in a rotation.  Ok now that we have that out of the way lets get back to the story.  Eon. besides being a girl in disguise, has the added handicap of having a permanently injured hip.  This is offset by Eon's ability to see all the dragons, not just the one she is hoping will choose her, this is super rare and the reason Eon's master went through the trouble of training and hiding her gender.  As all good stories go all kinds of troubles and trials occur to hinder our heroines path to Dragoneyehood.  Unfortunately, she is not chosen by the Rat Dragon, her friend Dillion...who is still a surprise as he was not considered a real contender...was chosen instead.  The current Dragoneye to the Rat Dragon, Lord Ido, is an ambitious and cruel man who is not happy with his Dragon's decision.  Just when the excitement seems to be over, there is a commotion and out of seemingly nowhere the Mirror Dragon appears after over 500 years of absence.   The Dragon chooses Eon and chaos breaks forth.  Eon is treated like a lord and is moved to the palace to begin her brand new role as the Mirror Dragoneye. Eon is at a very sever disadvantage as she has no one to teach her the Mirror Dragonye's ways...since there has not been one in so long.  To help her at court she is assigned the Lady Dela, a Contraire, which is a person born one gender who lives as another.  In this case Dela was born male, but lives as a female.  In some parts of the world this is a sacred position as they are thought to possess two souls, one male and one female, in other parts it is seen as an oddity and worse.  Ryko is Dela's body guard and is a eunuch, as are most of the Emperor's body guards.  Now we start to get a feel for the political state of this world.  At the moment the sickly Emperor rules with his heir the Prince Kygo learning and maturing until it is his time to take over.  There is a catch however, the Emperor's brother Sethon, a decorated general, has plans to take over and has enlisted the ambitious Lord Ido to help.  Eon, especially after meeting the Prince, essentially decides to use her new powers to help the Emperor and his son.  There is a small problem though...Eon can't use the power of her dragon.  She should have learned her dragon's name when they bonded, to call it and use it's power...but so far...nope.  Lord Ido discovers that not only can Eon not use her dragon, but that she is actually Eona.  He uses this to try and control her.  Eon eventually tells Dela and Ryko who she really is, at first causing a rift, then later a deeper understanding of each other.  The Emperor dies, a whole bunch of crazyiness ensues and Eona discovers that the Mirror Dragon is actually a female, the only female of 12 dragons and the reason that she had disappeared for so long as no female candidates were presented...stupid boys lol.  Anyways...the crew discovers that Lord Ido has a plan to control all the dragons instead of just his own.  To this end he kills all of the other Dragoneyes and their apprentices, plunging the celestial realm into chaos.  Eona tell's the Prince who she really is and after some understandable anger he is convinced to go into hiding to protect his legacy.  Sethon appears and starts a wholesale slaughter of the royal family, including the Prince's mother and infant brother.  Eona runs into Ido, who tries to force a union with her to finally consolidate all the power in himself.  With the help of Dela and Ryko, Eona finally realizes that as the keeper of Truth her dragon needs her to be honest with who she is to truly unleash her power.  This revelation finally bonds Eona to the Mirror Dragon and she is able to break Ido down and escape with Dela and Ryko.  The story ends with the trio making their escape, hoping to find the Prince and defeat Sethon.  Eona learns to accept herself and now needs to learn to control her dragon's power.  And we now we have to hurry up and read the next book!  This is not even a billionth of the important things going on in this book, but hopefully it's enough to give you a bit of the flavor.

World Building - This world was pretty cool.  It was definitely inspired by Asian culture, and yet it was original and wholly it's own entity.  It was complete with it's own customs, laws, government, society and culture.  It is a I guess you would call it medievalish era, maybe a bit more modern time period with both practical and magic elements as part of the natural world. I was easily able to immerse myself in the world and felt like I mostly understood how everything worked.  This is the kind of world I can see myself going back and visiting over and over.  It has parts that are familiar and identifiable and parts that are completely new and they meld beautifully.  Very happy with the world building.

Story - Somebody compared this story to ones told by Tamora Pierce...who is one of my favorite YA novelists, so that got me excited.  I totally understand the comparison and it is a good one.  The story was complex without being overly stuffed, the various story lines were clear and all melded into each other in a way that made sense.  I wanted to keep reading the story, I wanted to find out what happened next, I wanted to tell the story to someone...You could totally see this story becoming a legend that got told over and over in this world it was set in.  It had all the elements that a good story wants, we had conflict, we had battles, we had personal moments, we had friendships, we had romances, we had difficulties to overcome, we had DRAGONS!  Loved the story.

Character - The characters were pretty much awesome.  Eon/Eona was not perfect, but she was also not overly bitchy, or overly tough, she was just a person who kept getting thrown into circumstances out of her control and it wasn't until she took charge of her self and accepted herself did she gain any control.  In fact that seems to be a theme with the characters in this book.  They were all varied and all had various motives for what they did, they were all layered and wonderfully complex without being ridiculous, but they all had to find a way to accept themselves before they moved forward...but more on that later.  The variety and nuanced way the author dealt with the characters was fantastic.

Editing - This book is a great example of how to take multiple storylines and ideas and find a way to pare them down and fit them together to be readable.  One of my literary pet peeves is when an author has all these great ideas and tries to squash all of them into one book and the editor does nothing to try and make it coherent.  In this case, the editor seemed to take the myriad of various storylines, characters, ideas and world building and figured out how to make it eminently readable. I can't really put my finger on why this book with it's fullness was so readable, when so many who try the same thing are not, but I'm gonna go with the editor was perfectly paired with the author and regardless it makes me very very very happy.

Acceptance Of Self - This book was chock full of alternate identities/lifestyles.  Some people chose a different life, some people had it forced on them and some just needed to discover who they were.  I would say gender identity was the biggest obstacle that a lot of the main characters faced.   Keeping in mind that this is a male dominated society with gender roles pretty clearly defined and adhered too. Eon/Eona as our main character was our biggest example of this as she had to hide so much of herself both by necessity and by choice.  The choice came in as she was born female, identified female and chose to live as a male.  The necessity came in when she felt that being a boy was the only way to achieve anything of importance in her life...oh yeah and when they would kill her if it was revealed she was a girl.  Dela on the other hand was a completely different ball game.  She was born a male, but identified as female, feeling she had no choice but to live as a woman because in her heart that is what she was. I found it interesting in some places she was revered for her ability to accommodate both the male and female within herself, while other places she was reviled as an abohrasion (I can not figure out how to spell that word...hopefully you all know what I mean).  Ryko was not given a choice when he was made a enuch, and yet he has learned to live and identify as a male, regardless of his equipment, not letting it define him.  On a less definitive note we watch as Kygo has to learn to trust and believe in himself before he can become a leader.  Lord Ido has purposely squashed all empathy as to become cruel, which is what he felt he needed to succeed, and it isn't until this is restored that he in any way becomes human.   The ultimate message though was the fact that it wasn't until Eona accepted her whole self, not just the fact that she was female, but also that she was smart and capable and fallible and needed help that she was able to in any way shape or form use her Dragon's power.  I love that this was the main message and that it wasn't delivered in a preachy way, or in a tell you what to think way, or that any one way was right.  Just until you can accept and trust yourself, your not gonna get very far.

Perfect Reading Situation - Like I mentioned earlier, part of the appeal of this book is that I go to read it in the most perfect of circumstances.  I got to read it in a place that was essentially desgined to match the books mood and setting.  Couple that with the fact that I spent half of the vacation in a tub so deep I could float with a glass of wine or whisky at my fingertips while reading also helped.  I was totally stoked at how much I wanted to just sit and read this book 'cause for once I had time to do just that.  This book will forever be associated with one of my vacations of awesome.  I love it when the literary stars align and I get to add a new book to my favorite list.  It will always be one of those book associated with something very specific and something very good in my life.

YA Reading Like It Should Be - I have a love/hate relationship with YA books.  I find them to be either amazing or horrible.  It seems that a lot of YA authors want to come across as too hip and write like they have never met a real teenager before.  Sometimes the books turn into nothing but an overwrought love story, or somebodies 20 year old wish fulfillment.  THEN you get books like this, ones that address realistic teenage issues while not talking down too, or over their heads.  You also get a great story that utilizes the unique position that teenagers are in, to straddle the world of innocence and childhood, and maturity and adulthood.  Books like this make me want to shout to all the other authors THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE A BOOK FOR EVERYBODY!  Given this is targeted at the 12-16 age group, and probably geared more for the females, but seriously I can see anybody of any gender and any age reading this and enjoying it.  This is a book you read and any age...and then reread again.  Yay!

Dragons! - Have I mentioned that I love dragons?  Seriously I am a huge dragon fan, especially in books.  The dragons in this book, again were fairly well realized and integrated perfectly into the world and story.  It is very different from a lot of the standard European dragons and I love the change of pace and the little original touches that the author put in...perfection.

Overall Impression - I think it's pretty obvious that I very much enjoyed this book.  It hit all the right notes for me and it was exactly what I needed when I read it.  There are some frustrating loose ends...essentially what happened 500 years ago that made the Mirror Dragon disappear and why did everybody forget...but the good news is that there is a sequel (that I am already reading!) that promises to fill in the gaps.  I really really enjoyed this book and hopefully enjoy the next one as well.  I am now on my way to buy all the other books by this author in hopes that they are just as good.  I give it 9 out of 10 Story Robes and recommend it to pretty much anybody, but especially those who are fans of Tamora Pierce, Anne McCaffrey, Brandon Mull, Rick Riordan and the like.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Parallel Earth Resources Negligable

Today we get to go back to Pern YAY!  The book The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall by Anne McCaffery is a collection of stories giving us a quick history of our beloved Pern.  It takes us from the initial survey of the planet, to the mass exodus to the Northern Continent, to the spreading out of the colonists to one last rescue run.  Here is a quick overview of the stories in the book, as always SPOILER AHEAD!

The Survey of P.E.R.N. - This is the shortest story of the bunch and just gives us a quick overview of the planet before anybody arrived to colonize it.  The survey group is tight on time so they just do enough of a look to declare it habitable.  There are hints of the menace of Thread, but nobody realizes what it is.  This story ends with the suggestion that the planet be colonized.

The Dolphin's Bell - With the double menace of Thread and the volatile seismic activity of the local volcano's the entire colony has to move to the north.  This story follows them through storms, volcano's and the sheer logistics of moving an entire population with dwindling resources.  We see the dolphins which play a roll in later books and meet some of the people that places are named after.  We start to see how the society moves from high tech to survival and the beginnings of the dragon riders becoming their own group.

The Ford of Red Hanrahan - The colonist have all been crowded into Fort Hold and are ready to start expanding to the rest of the continent.  Red, his family and a portion of the colonists go to found the new Ruatha Hold.  This story shows how the colonists make the transition from well colonists to true people of Pern.  They start there own traditions, names, and social structure all while morphing into the Pern we know and love.

The Second Weyr - The dragons are outgrowing their first Weyr, and with the people of Pern spreading further out, the need for more Weyr's has become pressing.  We follow the young dragon riders as they establish new Weyr's, new customs and cement their role as protectors of Pern.  It is cool to see the stuff that is accepted as the norm in later books get developed here.

Rescue Run - A passing space ship picks up an almost 50 year old distress signal sent by an individual when Thread first started falling.  When the crew arrives they find Stev Kimmer and his family the sole survivors of the Southern Continent.  Due to the low level of technology and the thickness of the caves, the Northern contingent are not noticed and it is assumed that they are the only ones.  They (with a few mishaps) are rescued and the planet is marked as dangerous and no other ships come.

The coolest part about this book is if you have read the other ones, it makes thing very clear.  The Pern books tend to start from their present with no more then hints of the history of the people who live there.  This book gives us quick glimpses into the major events that shaped Pern into the form it is now.  It's a pretty straight forward, easy read that is broken up in perfect chunks.  I give it 8 out of 10 air sleds and recommend it to anybody who is a fan of Pern.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Books In My Dragons

I love dragons, I love books, I love books about dragons...how about some dragons made from books?!?

Dragon and Knight

Dragon On A Book

Dragon Book Sculpture

Paper Art Dragon

Dragon Map

I don't think I can ever get enough of my literary dragons!  Happy Reading Everybody!

All The Dragons

Dragons, dragons, I love dragons!  I think sometimes that dragons are my favorite thing to read about.  I love the variety and imaginative scope that they provide.  They are part of every culture, every time period, they can be wise, wild, animal, ancient, pets, new, old, funny, scary, the possibilities for dragons are endless.  Which is why I picked up Wings of Fire edited by Jonathan Strahan and Marianne S. Jablon.  The book promised varied stories of any number of types of dragons, and it delivered.  Here are just a few of my favorites.

The Rule of Names by Ursula K. Le Guin - This story fits the authors style perfectly, and is one of the reasons I started reading her full length books.  We have a dragon, a wizard, a quiet island, a treasure and an outsider.  All is not as it appears and this lyrical and readable story instantly became one of my favorites.

The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath by Patricia A. McKillip- Another story that beautifully showcases the authors writing style.  Here our dragon is ancient and giant and the source of an entire culture.  I like this one for the imagery and for the sheer vastness of the dragon.  I like how the author was effective at isolating the dragon and the people affected by it and the outsider who used to be one of them to upset the balance they didn't even know they had.

The Dragon's Boy by Jane Yolen - Here we have a dragon who is no dragon at all, yet the "dragon" in question is smart enough to use the lore of dragons to achieve his ends.  We also see a potential origin story for the boy who pulls the sword from the stone.  This story has just the right amount of humor and puzzle in it, a great little read.

Orm the Beautiful by Elizabeth Bear - One of my favorites because it combines music, dragons, Washington DC and the continuation of a species through love and sacrifice.  This story gives us the flavor of traditional dragons with a wholly original take.  I have read this story multiple times and gets me every time I turn its pages.  The last ancient dragon goes to extreme means to protect the living bones of his family, that they may stay together in eternity.

Dragon's Gate by Pat Murphy - This story is one I would have LOVED as a teenager, I still love it know, but enjoy imagining my younger self discovering it.  There is a girl disguised as a boy, a dragon with a very peculiar curse and an adventure to make any girl (or boy) running off to fetch their traveling cloak.  This is a pretty straight forward adventure tale of awesomeness with just enough of a twist to make it original as well as a really great story.

In Autumn, A White Dragon Looks Over the Wide River by Naomi Novik - Various cultures come into play in this tale set in an alternate Earth history.  Here we see dragons from various countries and their different assumptions, interests and expectations.  We also see humans and their assumptions about our reptilian friends and how all of this combined leads to a very compelling and thoughtful story.  This is one of those stories that makes you think about how you view the world, it's various peoples and beliefs and how ones ones assumptions colors all of it.

The Silver Dragon by Elizabeth A. Lynn - This is definitely my kind of story.  To me it comes across as almost an epic tale, told across the years.  We have our Silver Dragon, a dragon who is usually seen in the form of a man and follow his and his neighboring kingdoms struggles against a not so nice guy, his subsequent marriage and all that follows.  The best part of this story is that while this particular tale is complete, I am dying to read more about this world and the family of Dragons!

The George Business by Roger Zelazny- One of the more humorous stories in this collection we see a simple young man and a dragon enter into a bargain to help the young man obtain the affections of a lady.  While the plan is sound, alas the lady has already been married.   As the plan itself was actually a good one, the young man and the dragon take their act on the road to make their fortune.  Quick, fun, a great read.

Weyr Search by Anne McCaffrey - Like the editors of this collection, I hesitated on whether to add this story or not.  On the one hand, this story that became the basis for the authors wildly popular (and one of my absolute favorite) Pern series has been read so many times, and been put into so many collections that it seemed redundant.  On the other hand, what is a dragon collection without the DragonLady herself.  I and the editors apparently both feel the same way and such I put it in my list of favorite stories.

Whew I had better stop before I put the whole book in this post!  There are a ton more amazing stories to discover in this big book of dragons so quit reading this post and go get the book!  Seriously though if you like dragons in any way shape or form, this collection needs to be on your shelf.  I give it 8 out of 10 dragon wings and will probably read most of these stories again.

What is your favorite dragon story?  What is your favorite type of dragon?  Do you get sick of my love of dragons?

Creatures Of Myth

Haven't done a short story round up in a while...mostly 'cause I lost my most recent read in a huge pile of randomness, but fear not it has been found.  The book is Creature Fantastic edited by Denise Little and is a collection of stories about so called mythic beasts. This book covers all kinds of creatures in all kinds of situations.  Here are my favorites in this book.

Father Noe's Beastery by Jody Lynn Nye - A great opening story about a mysterious man, his art shop and a current setting all makes for a very original idea and a great story.  The character of Kinsie feels current, real and adds the perfect mix of innocence and street smarts to this story.  A great original opening for this book.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Unicorn by Von Jocks - This story is funny, sweet, and kind of like a Lisa Frank picture in book form.  It has the perfect mix of humor, sweetness and just a touch of a bad guy.  The setting of a fantasy shop in an urban mall sets the almost absurd, yet great tone of this perfect unicorn story.

The Last Flight by Michelle West - In complete contrast to the above story, this one is very bittersweet and makes one think of the cons of immortality.  We hear a lot about ancient beasts, and in the case of a Phoenix there wisdom.  In this story, the Phoenix, who can shape shift into a man, decides enough is enough and the resulting story is well written, a bit sad, and a bit hopeful all at once.

The Team Room Beasts by P.N. Elrod - This is a tale of revenge...and tea.   A women is being horribly and unfairly harassed by her ex until a fortuitous meeting at her tea house gives her the ability to summon minions from the beyond to harass him into compliance.  This story is a weird mix of comedy and bit of the horrific, but in the end you feel justice has been served an then have a craving for a scone.

The Dragon in the Maiden by Pamela Luzier - Here we have a story to turn the tropes on their heads. We have a dragon that is not into eating maidens, a "knight" who is looking to marry his way into fortune, and a kingdom that essentially runs on a popularity contest.  This story was good to remind us to always get to know a person (creature) before taking what others say as the truth.

I found this book in the discount section of my favorite used book store and only paid 75 cents for it, but feel it was worth much much more.  There was a great variety of stories, settings and creatures included in this collection that made it very very readable.  I give it 7 out of 10 Loch Ness Monsters and would recommend it to anybody who enjoys a good story, mythic creatures and variety.  Happy Reading Everybody!
What is your favorite mythic creature?  Do you ever feel guilty about spending so little on bargain books when they turn out so good? Why am I stuck on the 7 rating lately?

Reading With Dragons

I have totally been craving a good fantasy read lately, maybe something with dragons.

So instead of the post I was gonna write, I'm gonna go read...about dragons.
Happy Reading Everybody!

Drums And Dragons

Hello all, how are you?  I'm a wee bit tired from various shifts at various stations, so please forgive any non-normal incoherancies.  I realized as I was rereading my beloved Haper Hall Trilogy by Anne McCaffery, that I had neglected to ramble about the final book in the series, Dragondrums.  I am here to remedy that egregious oversite (I'm in a big word mood today).  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

If you can remember back to the second book in the series, our heroine Menolly makes friends with the precocious Piemure, who not only befriends her, but assists in the feeding of her nine fire lizards.  Piemure is gifted with a beautiful soprano voice and the is currently rehearsing his role as the Dragonwoman Lessa in a new performance.  Unfortunately our little scamps voice breaks and he is sent to the drum towers until his voice settles.  Piemure's mischievousness proceeds him, and the older apprentices haze him to an unfair degree.  To compound this problem, Menolly, Sebell and Masterharper Robinton decide to use him as their special apprentice.  Piemure travels with the two journeymen to various holds and sees first hand the havoc the Oldtimers, and the not so wonderful Lord Holder Meron can cause.  Eventually Piemure's fellow apprentices play a trick that goes to far and results in Piemure in the infirmary with a head injury.  This convinces Masterharper Robinton to pull him from the drum heights and make him exclusively his apprentice until his voice settles.    Piemure is sent with Sebell to a gather (which is like a festival or fair) at the hold of Lord Meron, who is deathly ill, yet refuses to name a successor.  They also learn that the hold has an unusual number of fire lizards given out to pretty much everybody.  After discovering that most of the dragon lizards are the lesser greens, and the Lord Meron is secretly trading with the contentious Oldtimers, Piemure steals a queen fire lizard egg and hides in a shipment going to the Southern Continent.  Piemure ends up on the Southern Continent and hides until his egg hatches and he impresses the little queen Farli.  He also "adopts" an orphaned runner beast that he names Stupid.  Menolly and Sebell meanwhile have had a quiet and subdue almost romance through out the book, which culminates in one of the bestest, most simplest, most tender, most perfect declerations of love ever!  This all happens while they search for Piemure.  Eventually everybody finds each other and Piemure is made a drum journeyman of the Southern Continent.

Like the other two books, this one is a simple story compared to the more complex world of the main series.  This book however is easier to read if you have at least read the first two books in the original Dragonrider series.  This book also puts Menolly, who was the main character in the first two books into a secondary role.  As for my personal feelings on this book, they are mixed.  On one hand I miss having Menolly be the main character and I miss the more micro story telling of the first two books.  I do however like seeing some of the other holds and halls, and having Piemure travel around lets us see a lot more then we have in previous books.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the romance between Menolly and Sebell.  It is so natural and understated.  None of this giant declarations, or misunderstandings, or love triangles.  It is just basic love between two quiet, yet passionate people.  I really can't give you specifics on what get's to me so much about these two, but they are in my top 10 of literary couples.  I think it may be because it seems so real and not EPIC and STAR FATED, it just is.  I also like that the love story is just a subtle simple fraction of the whole story.  I was sad to see this trilogy end and always am a bit biased against this book for being the last one, but in the end it is just as good as the first two and the trilogy as a whole will forever be a favorite of mine.  I give this book 8 out of 10 bubbly pies.

What love story do you love the best?  Should a trilogy/series stick with the same main characters or branch out?  Will I ever find a new love like this trilogy?

Flight Of The White

Hello All.  Last week was a good one for me as far as finishing books go, so many a ramble is in our future.  Let's start with The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey, the third book in the Dragonriders of Pern series.  This finishes the first trilogy in the series and sets up a lot of the future books.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

This book mostly follows young Lord Holder Jaxom and his unusual white dragon Ruth.  Jaxom is frustrated, he and Ruth are not allowed to train as a normal dragon and rider team as he cannot be risked in Thread fall as this would put his Hold in contention and possibly cause more war.  He also is not actually in charge of his own Hold, as his guardian the Warder Lytol is acting as steward until Jaxom is confirmed...which seems to be a really long way off.  After a bit of an outburst, Jaxom is given more responsibility and starts to attend classes outside of his hold.  In frustration Jaxom starts to sneak off under the pretense of visiting a girl (which he does as well) to try and teach Ruth to chew firestone and breathe fire.  He along with ever other dragon are summoned to Benden Weyr when it is discovered that the queen egg has been stolen by the Oldtimers who have been banished to Southern Weyr.  This obviously makes everybody upset, but the angriest is the Weyrwoman Lessa, who vows to get the egg back, even if it means dragon against dragon violence, which is unthinkable.  Jaxom gets a visual of where the egg is from the firelizards and times it to get the egg back to Benden, getting Lessa to calm down a wee bit. Jaxom is allowed to train with the other Werylings and learn to fight Thread...as long as nobody realizes he is actually fighting Thread.   Jaxom and his harper friend 

Menolly are assigned various tasks, some which take them to the Southern continent, where they realize that a trio of stars called the Dawn Sisters do not follow normal star patterns. Jaxom falls ill with a Southern illness and is forced to a long recovery, lucky for him he fell ill at what becomes Cove Hold, a beautiful little bit of land on the Southern Continent.  While he is sick, a mating flight at Ista Weyr almost goes horribly wrong when a couple of the Oldtimers bring their old bronzes to try and fly the new queen dragon.  One of the old bronzes dies in flight and his rider goes mad and is killed by the Benden weyrleader F'lar.  D'ram, one of the reasonable Oldtimers takes over Southern Weyr and restores it to true dragonrider standards.  During this whole mess, Masterharper Robinton suffers a heart attack, and is ordered to rest.  Back at the cove, Jaxom has fallen in love with Shara, the younger sister of the only Holder on Southern, and one of the people to nurse him back to health. A proper hold is built in the cove and Master Robinton is brought down to recover and live in the newly dubbed Cove Hold.  While everybody is down there, they decide to survey the continent on dragon back.  They discover a mountain that shows evidence of being a volcano, and many regular mounds that they assume cover old holds.  They also observe the Dawn Sisters with what they call a far viewer and discover that they are actually metal ships, not stars.  After much digging they discover what is probably the original landing spot of their ancestors before the volcanic activity and Thread drove them to the rockier, stabler and more easily protected North.  The dragon riders secure half the continent for themselves to farm and sustain themselves during intervals, and open the rest for settling.  Jaxom is confirmed as Lord Holder, marrying Shara and letting Lytol go to Cove Hold to help with the excavation project.  Everybody is very hopeful for the future and they all live ever after.

So that was a really long synopsis and I only hit on the big major points.  I think that may be one of my favorite things about these books is the sheer amount of story that is packed in.  Ms. McCaffrey does not spend to much time on angst or lengthy introspection, but keeps the rich story moving.  That is not to say there is not emotion, or growth or introspection, it just means that it happens along with the story instead of grinding it to a halt as we read a chapter on how lonely so and so is.  In this book in particular I like how the personal growth and maturation of Jaxom and Ruth mirror the growth of Pern.  We get a personal story, one we are invested in and tie it into the bigger world history and growth that the author started back in the first book.  I feel this is a good way to tell a big sweeping planet wide story, while still keeping the reader 

invested in a smaller personal story.  I do get a bit sad when they talk of not needing dragon riders anymore, because I feel they are such an integral part of Pern's culture...but I guess eliminating, or at least lessening a deadly menace is a good thing :-)  I also felt that Jaxom and Ruth had a bit of special snowflake syndrome, which is to say, they get to be everything, Lord Holder, dragonrider, favorites of the ruling Weyr, favorites of the Masterharper, friends with all the important people, they are the fastest, the best at timing it, and Ruth is just the most intelligent, well spoken dragon out there.  This is tempered a bit by not having Jaxom, actually be in charge of his own life for most of the book, he is only allowed to do what Lytol  and N'ton, the High Reaches weyrleader allow him to do.  The discovery of the Original Landing, really brings this series into a more sci-fi type of story and less of a pure fantasy one.  I love this rediscovering of Pern's history and the stories that follow.  Again this book sets up more discoveries in future books, and is confirmed in really cool ways in a couple of the authors "prequal" type stories.  Overall this book is a solid entry in the dragonrider series, I give the book 7 out of 10 redfruits.  

What do you think makes a successful blend of sci-fi and fantasy?  Do you prefer epic stories, or more personal stories?  Are you a special snowflake?

Flight Of Sorrow

Hello all, are we ready to continue on our saga of the dragonriders?  I am...sort of.  See this book is one of those books I tend to skip in this series because it is just so darn sad, good, but sad.  What book am I rambling about?  Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey, the second book in the Dragonriders of Pern series.  I remember first reading it a couple months after finishing the Harper Hall trilogy and being both "aha that's what they are talking about" and completely bummed out at the same time, but I'm getting ahead of myself...as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

We start this book about 7 months after we left off on the last one.  We learn very quickly that the Weyrs that were brought forward in time are not fitting in so well 400 turns (years) in the future.  F'lar and Lessa had given up much of their leadership role to the older Weyrs, believing that their vast knowledge and experience in fighting the deadly Thread would make them the natural leaders of the dragonriders.  Alas this is not so, apparently 400 turns changes a lot of things and the Oldtimers (as they have taken to calling the dragonriders from the past) cannot deal with the more independent Holds and Crafthalls.  This all comes to a head when a couple of the dragonriders from an Oldtimer Weyr try and take an expensive knife by force from one of the Crafters.  F'nor, a brown rider from Benden (not an Oldtimer) intervenes and gets an injured shoulder for his trouble.  After it become's clear that the Oldtimer Weyrleaders have not only no intention of not doing anything about this problem, but blame the Crafter for not handing over this valuable knife, F'lar decides to take charge.  Meanwhile down in the newest Weyr, on the Southern Continent the elusive fire lizards are discovered to be Impressionable by just about anybody who is willing to feed them.  Most of the Southern Weyr ends up with at least one of these miniature dragon type creatures (in fact it is from these
creatures that the Pernese ancestors bred the great dragons of Pern) and they are then distributed among the Holds and Crafthalls to ease some of the jealousy of  those who have not, or cannot Impress a dragon.  Also at Southern Weyr, the Queen rider and Weyrwoman Kylara is causing no end of trouble, doing as she pleases and foisting off all her duties onto Brekke, a junior queen rider who is all responsibility.  F'nor and Brekke fall in love while he is convalescing at Southern Weyr and helps her with her various troubles.  Eventually the conflict with the Oldtimers comes to a head, resulting in a duel between F'lar and T'ron, the Oldtimer leader, which results in most of the Oldtimers being banned to the Southern Weyr and the rest of the Weyrs being populated by the current generation.  This leads to F'lar and Lessa being essentially named the leaders of the dragonriders, much to the relief of the Holders and Crafters.  To add to the problems of our poor Weyrleaders, Jaxxom, the boy who took Lessa's spot as Lord Holder of Ruatha has Impressed a runty white dragon...something that may put his Lordship in jeopardy, but that is for the next book.  Also causing...if not trouble, then at least speculation is the discovery of a series of lab like rooms in the older Weyrs, containing mysterious devices and indecipherable records.  From what they can puzzle out they discover that certain grubs can consume Thread, keeping them from burrowing into the ground and destroying the plants.  They also discover a telescope, causing the Lord Holders to try and pressure the dragonriders into getting rid of Thread at it's source, the Red Planet.  Kylara and her people move from the Southern Weyr to High Reaches Weyr to make room for the Oldtimers.  This ends in tragedy when Brekke's dragon rises to mate and Kylara is not there to take her dragon away in time.  This results in a brutal battle between the two queens, ending in both of their deaths.  This is beyond devastating for Brekke and reduces Kylara to a babbling child.  Brekke becomes catatonic with F'nor trying to make her live.  He also decides to quiet the Lord Holders demands by attempting to go to the Red Star with his dragon with near fatal results...turns out there was reason it wasn't done before.  This and the protection of her fire lizard bring Brekke back, sad but back to help nurse F'nor back to health.  The book ends on a slightly hopeful note for a better, more modern future.

Obviously lots of stuff happens in this book, and the information helps the rest of the series make sense, but dang if I don't hate how sad it is.  It is as all Ms. McCaffrey's books, extremely well written and continues on the world she started in the last book.  In fact that is one of the reasons it is so sad.  You come to understand the bond between the dragon and their rider so well, that when Brekke loses hers you feel the pain and agony right along with her.  You leave the last book so hopeful that the Oldtimers will be the answer to saving Pern, and then come to find out that they are in no way adaptable and are in fact way more trouble then they are worth is kind of very upsetting.  When F'nor goes to the Red Star you can feel the heat, the airlessness, the scoring, the heaving mass of Thread...Ugh, no wonder he barely survived!  It's the excellent writing that makes you care about this world that makes this book so hard for me to read.  I am not trying to
dissuade anybody from reading this, I promise.  I think everybody should read it as part of the series.  It is an excellent book that just furthers the amazing story the author started and sets up numerous future stories.  The characters are well written, the world building is as perfect as it gets and the storylines are not only plausible, but compelling.  I do have to admit that this whole series gets to me on a gut level, every time I read any of the Dragonrider of Pern books, I get stuck in that world in my head weeks, I hate being torn out of it and I hate anytime anything bad happens in it...though that is part of what makes it real.   As I'm sure you are sick of hearing words cannot describe the love I have for this series, it is one of the reasons I fell in love with reading as an escape and am so glad I can go back to it anytime I want.  Even this book, a book that if I'm not careful, will actually leave me as sad as if it happened to somebody I know is a treasure to me.  So now that all that babbling is over with, I give it 8 out of 10 cups of klah and recommend it to anybody who is reading this series.
On a side note, my lovely Mamma will be here this week, running me ragged so posting may be a bit spotty, my apologies in advanced.
What book(s) do you both love and hate at the same time?  What book makes you sad on a gut level?  How badly do I need some therapy to remind me that a book is not real?

First Flight

Hello All, how is everybody?  Did you all have a good weekend?  I was at the station for 60 hours hence the lack of post yesterday, I will try and do better having them ready to go in the future.  Today though lets talk about one of my favorite books that starts off one of my favorite series.  Dragonflight is the first book in the amazing Anne McCafferey's Dragon Riders of Pern series and is just awesome.  Considering it was written in 1968 you would think it would be old fashioned, but it is so perfect for any time period.  But enough gushing (for now) as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Pern is a planet that has reverted back to a feudal type system of government consisting of the Lord Holders and their underlings, these are the people who live, farm, work, and do the things you would consider most feudal system people would do.  There are the Crafters who are responsible for the fine work, weaving, beastery, music, healing and so forth.  Then there are the Weyr folk.  These folk are either Dragonriders or people who help take care of the dragons and their riders.  These dragonriders are needed to help protect the planet of Pern from a menace called Thread.  Thread is essentially a crazy hungry spore that devours ANY organic matter at an extreme rate.  The only things that stop thread are metal and stone, and can only be killed by fire or by drowning in water. Thread falls on the planet for 50 years at a time and then stops for 200 giving everybody a break until the next pass of the Red Star (the rouge planet from which the Thread falls).  For more detailed info check here.  At the time the story is set, Thread has not fallen for close to 400 years (or Turns as they call them on Pern) and the Lord Holders are starting to resent the tithe they have to give the Weyr folk.  At this time the normal 6 Weyrs have been reduced to the one Benden Weyr with

nobody knowing where the other five went, the people, the dragons just dissappered, leaving the Weyr's empty. Also at this time Lord Fax has conquered several of his neighbors Holds going against the strict tradition of one Lord one Hold.  One of the holds Fax has captured is Ruatha, a hold famous for producing dragonriders of great renown, especially Queen riders.  Fax has done his best to wipe out all of the Ruathan blood line, but has missed one girl, Lessa who had the good sense to hide.  Lessa has now been living as a drudge, waiting for the day she can overthrow Fax and reclaim her home.  Meanwhile F'lar a bronze dragon rider is going on search to find suitable candidates for the Queen dragon egg, hoping to find somebody strong and able to lead the dragon riders back to their former glory.  See F'lar is one of the few people who not only believe that Thread is real and is returning, but is imminent.  F'lar draws out Lessa by challenging and killing Fax after he attacks the dragonman.  F'lar makes a deal with Lessa to let a newborn boy take over Ruatha, and Lessa can come to the Weyr to hopefully impress the soon to be hatched Queen Dragon and become the Weyrwoman (the leader of the Weyr).  Lessa agrees and all seems to go as planned.  After impressing Ramoth (the queen dragon) Lessa has a crash course in the ways of the Weyr, adding her own brand of fire and chaos to the mix.  F'lar's bronze fly's Ramoth, making him Lessa's Weyrmate and the Weyr leader of the entire Weyr.  After some much needed reminding, the Holds and Crafthalls start preparing for the arrival of Thread, even though most people still don't believe.  This denial is swiftly put to an end as the Thread comes pouring down and the people are saved only by the valiant efforts and sacrifice of the dragons and their riders.  The effort is aided by Lessa and her rare ability to hear and talk to all the dragons, not just her own.  It is painfully apparent that the one understaffed Weyr will not be able to protect the whole of Pern and solutions are sought.  Lessa finds the answer in an unlikely source a teaching ballad called The Question Song.  She discovers the dragons can go between times as well as space and goes back to the end of the last Pass to convince the dragon riders to come to her time to fight Thread.  The Oldtimers as they are called are amiable as the idea of sitting idle does now work for them.  They come forward in time, solving the mystery of the missing Weyr's and saving Pern.  This is the state we leave our beloved planet of Pern, safe for the moment, but ripe for change...which will come in the next book.

I love this book, I love this series, I love this author, I love this mix of fantasy and scifi, I love it all.  So many things work for me.  I love that even though this was written in 1968 (as I mentioned before) that you would not know it from reading it.  It will work for any time period it is read in, which is very hard to do.  I also love that Ms. Mcaffrey seems to have worked out the whole story and timeline out before she ever wrote this first book.  There are things and hints that tie in to later books so well, like the ballad of Moreta's ride or the fertilizer called angenothree, which turns out to be a chemical formula originally called by it's chemical

name HNO3 which the scientific part has been lost.  Eh it's hard to explain how well it is set up without going into later books.  I love the strong, sassy, cranky, touchy Lessa, I love her so much.  I love that she is a spitfire, but she is also kind of extremely touchy, a flaw to be sure, but one that makes her human.  One of my pet peeves is addressed beautifully in this book, I hate when miscommunication is used as a means to further the tension, or create discord if their is no real reason for it, and Lessa calls out the leaders on this type of stupid secrecy in a spectacular fashion.  I still think that the world building in this series is one of the most complete and incredible example I have ever read, this is a place I can fully inhabit long after I put the book down. On a rare downside, their is a bit of proprietary shaking of Lessa by F'lar that irritates me.  I am never ok with any sort of violence against another person, and when it is a big, strong man against a tiny scared woman...well it really makes me mad.  I can never be ok with even minimal violence toward another person, especially when it is done in anger.  Other then that their is not a whole lot for me to complain about.  I don't even mind the ending for once...because it is not a real ending because the story keeps going YAY! My Hubbin is always trying to get me to define why I love this book so much and I have a hard time pinpointing any one thing.  I think over all the feeling of freedom and triumph and working together to achieve a goal while maintaining your own person is just awesome!  I give this book 9 out of 10 Queen Dragon Eggs and recommend it to EVERYBODY!
What color dragon would you ride?  How do you feel about this odd mix of fantasy and scifi?  How obsessed with dragons am I?

A Dance With Dragons And Dwarves And Daggers

Yay, boo, yay, boo, that is my feeling on finishing A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin, book #5 in A Song of Ice and Fire series.  Yay 'cause I finally got to catch up and know what everybody else knows, boo 'cause now I have to wait for a zillion years with everybody else for the next book to come out.  At over 1500 pages this was another long read, but went by much quicker then A Feast for Crows, but still not as awesome as the first three books.  I will try and sum up per character as best I can then ramble for a while, you ready?  Great, then as always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Since the book jumps all over the place I will sum it up per main character and try and fill in the rest the best I can.

Jon Snow/At the Wall-Our buddy Jon is continuing to try and hold the Night Watch together under horrible conditions.  Stannis Baratheon has brought his red priestess Melisandre (the amount of people being burned death has increased 1000x in this book because of her) and his army to help fight the wildlings and then decided to stay.  Jon struggles with maintaining his neutrality as the Commander of the Night Watch. Stannis takes most of his army and leaves to try and reclaim Winterfell from Roose Bolton and his bastard son Ramsey.  To this end Jon makes a deal with the wildlings and allows them to all come in from the North above the wall and make a home in the area's surrounding the Wall.  This horrifies the Stannis's Queen Selyse who is stuck at the Wall as well.  Melisandre continues to try and win Jon to her side, telling him the things she see's in the flames.  A note comes for Jon from Ramsey telling him that he has crushed Stannis and his army and has wed Arya Stark.  Jon decides to break his oath and ride to rescue Arya.  This does not sit well with the already disgruntled Night Watch and the book ends with Jon being stabbed multiple times.

Theon/Winterfell-Theon, who has been reduced to a fragile, broken, tortured soul is called Reek by Ramsey Bolton, the bastard son of Roose Bolton who has claimed Winterfell for himself.  Theon is cleaned up and use to help marry Ramsey to Arya Stark to try and legitimatize his claim to Winterfell.  Of course the girl Ramsey is marrying is not Arya, but Sansa's little friend Jayne.  Both Jayne and Theon are afraid of what would happen if anybody found out she is not Arya so they play along.  Much chaos ensues and Theon is enlisted to help spirit "Arya" away.  Theon is successful at the cost of the rest of his companions and Roose and Ramsey slaughter Stannis and his army who have been severely weakened by the oncoming winter.

Bran-Bran has traveled with Meera and Jojen in the company of a strange man, who appears to be one of the undead.  Bran has learned to inhabit the mind of most living things, using his new skill to ride with the slow witted Hodor or his direwolf Summer.  The three children end up under the mountains in the company of the Children of the Forest, long thought to be extinct.  They inform Bran that he is able to become a seer like entity, becoming one with the earth, animals and the weir trees.  Bran then learns to "ride" the weir trees and is able to see through various points in time.

Daenerys/Slaver's Bay-Our girl Dany has made a name for herself by freeing the slaves of Meereen (remember that about a thousand books ago?).  She is now the Queen of Meereen and is trying her hardest to keep the peace and settle the city before she takes of to conquer the Seven Kingdoms.  This is proving difficult as pretty much nobody wants her there.  She is beset upon by all the surrounding cities who just want slavery reestablished, and from within the city itself.  This is compounded by the fact that her dragons have graduated from eating sheep, to eating children and a bloody flux that is killing everybody regardless of what side they are on. Dany is forced to cage her white and green dragons to prevent further killings, but her biggest dragon the black Drogo escapes.  To try and keep the peace, and make things safe for her freed slaves, Dany agrees to marry Hizdahr zo Loraq a noble of Meereen as a concession to the nobles there.  As a wedding gift Dany reopens the fighting pits.  Hizdahr zo Loraq brings along a feast for Dany and her retinue, resulting in the poisoning of Strong Belwas one of her body guards 

when he ate all the honey locust meant for Dany.  During the fighting Drogo flies in and kills a whole bunch of people.  Dany then hops aboard and flies off, leaving the city of Meereen in chaos.

Tyrion-Oh my how I have missed my witty little man, he is by far my favorite character in this series and to go a whole long book without him sucked.  He is back with a vengeance, on the run after killing his father he makes his way to the Pentos where he is assisted by Illyrio, the same man who helped Daenerys and Viserion.  Tyrion is let in on a plan to bring Daenerys back to Westeros and assume the Iron Throne.  At this point Tyrion is on board with any plan that disposes his sister the Queen Regent Cersei.  He ends up on a boat with a group that turns out to include a young Aegon, who was just an infant when Robert Baratheon led his uprising and was supposedly killed by Tywin Lannister.  Turns out they were able to switch him out with a low born infant and was smuggled of by a knight loyal to the Prince Rhaegar until his death.  Tyrion is all ready to help Aegon until he is kidnapped by Jorah Mormont to take back as a gift to Queen Dany to prove his loyalty.  Along the way they hook up with Penny, a simple dwarf girl who performed with her brother at the then still alive King Joffery's wedding.  Her brother had been beheaded as a result of Tyrion's escape leaving Penny alone with her dog and pig.  The motley crew are then captured by slavers, the result being Tyrion (known as Yollo) being forced to do a comic act with Penny, jousting from the back of the pig and dog (I cannot wait to see this on the TV show).  Eventually our friend talks his way to not only his freedom, but the freedom of Penny and Jorah as well.  Meanwhile Aegon, his loyal night and a couple of companies of sell swords have landed in the Seven Kingdoms to begin their conquest.

 Cersei/Kings Landing-Queen Cersei is still imprisoned by the High Septon on charges of fornication and treason.  The Queen finally realizes the only way to see her son again is to confess at least to the lesser charges of fornication.  She does and her punishment is to walk shorn and naked from the sept, through the city to the castle.  She does this, humiliated and broken, but able to be with her son again.  She has been humbled, but her spark is still there.  As for the charges of treason, she is able to request a trial by combat, with a giant, unknown man as her champion.  She is allowed to dwell in the castle with her son until the trial is complete. Margery Tyrell has thrown herself on the mercy of the church and will have a trial by faith.  Cersei's Uncle Kevan is now essentially running the show, trying to maintain peace and balance as well as he can.  The book ends with him being stabbed by Vary's as he is told that all the secret council wants to do is maintain peace, and Aegon and Dany are the best hope they have of that.

We also get quick glimpses of Jamie, Arya, Davos, Brienne, the Martells in Dorne, Asha, Victorion and about a zillion other quick characters.  Some live, some die, some are left up in the air.

Okay that was a long synopsis and that did not even cover hardly any of the book, but again the book was 1500+ pages so we will leave it at that.  I have mixed feelings about this latest installment.  On one hand compared to the snoozefest of the A Feast for Crows this one actually had some action to it, on the other hand compared to the first three books  it is still overly blah.  I think these last two books suffer from too much detail.  The author describes in detail EVERY SINGLE THING.  If a lord walks into a room with his nine courtiers, all 9 of them get described in as much detail as the main guy...and then we never hear about any of them again.  I am all for adding bits of detail to round out a world, but after 5 books all clocking in at the 1000+ page range, I don't need to know what everybody was wearing.  The author also does a lot of redescribing, I got the first three times he told us that Jayne has brown eyes not grey like Arya, but every

single time she is mentioned, so are her eyes, it is just overkill. This especially happens with places, I know what the Wall looks like, I have known what the Wall looks like since it was so well described in book one, unless something changes  don't need to spend 3 pages at the beginning of each chapter the Wall is in being described to me.  I know this sounds petty, but I am pretty sure we could loose at least 300 pages if this was edited out a bit.  I don't know if I am just getting jaded, or I am nit-picking, or what, but these books are starting to get repetitive. A king/queen arises, they join the fight, sometimes they stick around, sometimes they get killed, minor lords are either super loyal or super evil and stuff happens accordingly, lather, rinse, repeat.  I guess I am just read for this epic story to go somewhere.  Now on to the things I really enjoyed.  Tyrion, every word of his story makes me smile.  His perspective is so different from most of the others, his attitude and the way he deals with things is refreshing.  Making him a slave for a little while and getting him out of Kings Landing just made me happy.  I still love Arya's story now that it has taken her to Braavos and am glad that she got a couple of chapters.  Reminding us that the overthrowing of the Targaryens is super recent and that a good chunk of the population was not only alive when it happened, but actively participated in it is so different and awesome when compared to most stories where it is if not ancient history, at least a couple of generations have passed. My favorite reveal in this book is the existence of Aegon, with Dany I thought we had our Targaryen faction, but this adding a legitimate contender for the blood line that can either be a rival or an ally for Dany is kind of exciting.  I am excited to see where we go from here as far as the story goes, this book did a lot to sweep away a lot of the little petty factions, and set the tone for a Targaryen comeback, if that actually happens we will have to see.  I hope these last two books concentrate on wrapping the story up, not everything has to be resolved, I just want it to quit dragging.  Hopefully the next book will be out before I forget what I have read in these five books.  I give this book 6 out of 10 Pretty Pigs.

Who is your favorite character in this series?  What do want to see happen?  Do you ever edit books in your head as you read them? Are you like me and very glad to have the e-format for giant books like this?