Books Read in 2010: The Great Fablehaven Hunt

Before I start, I need to mention that I forgot to mention a book that I had read, that being Sea of Monsters, the sequel to The Lightning Thief. I feel bad about forgetting it, and it has been added to the list after Howl's Moving Castle, and it will make this post add three books to the list.

Sea of Monsters
The Sequel to the lightning Thief, in this book we find Percy Jackson trying to survive a normal school (normal for him being what he is [a demigod]). It doesn't go well as it is attacked by monsters and Percy must get to the safety of Half-blood hill, where he discovers something awful that will affect the rest of the book and his quest.

I've already said that I love reading about mythology, and so I loved this book. It was a good follow up to the first one and made the situation regarding Percy's birth a little more ominous by the end. I also need to get a hold of the next three books somehow.


The Wheel of Time Book 2: The Great Hunt
These are huge books! The Wheel of Time is a classic series that is still going on, written by Robert Jordan and now Brandon Sanderson. The plot is so very very complicated to try and explain, especially starting at the second book, so I won't really try, I'll just say that yes, there is a dragon in this book (though a very different type of dragon).

These books take a long time for me to read. They are good books and enjoyable, but it seems that I have little interest to keep picking them up until about the second half when I find that I can't put them down. That's about 300 pages of dragging my feet to get to the good parts (and the good parts are really good parts, I must say) which is one reason I started reading 6 books at once, so that I would have something to motivate me through the first half of the book. I'm not trying to say that the first half of the books are terribly boring, a lot happens in them, they just didn't do it for me.


Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague
Yay Fablehaven! I'm really liking these books. And the best part? This one had dragons! Yay!

Okay, so this is the third book, and it takes place almost right after the second one. The ending of the second was filled with a startling discovery, and we spend a good deal of the third book investigating that discovery as it will shape the future of the Fablehaven books. We learn more about Kendra and her still pretty new abilities, and Seth becomes a much more important character.

Something awful is happening in Fablehaven (as hinted in the title), something far worse than ever before, that could destroy Fablehaven forever. But first, we'll take a side trip to another preserve that has a dragon on it! Sweet!

I'm thinking you should all read this book!

List:
The Demon's Lexicon
Fablehaven
The Third Sign
Throne of Jade
The Lighting Thief
Howl's Moving Castle
Sea of Monsters
Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star
The First King of Shannara
Inkheart
The Great Hunt
FableHaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague

Oh, and I guess you could go look at this.

Books Read in 2010: Three of 'em

I tend to forget to update this list when I finish a book. There are three to add and I'm hoping that I'm not forgetting any. Its hard to keep track sometimes when trying to read six books at once. I have been unable to find the sequels to Howl's Moving Castle, so these books won't be those.

Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star

The Sequel to Fablehaven, the Rise of the Evening Star continues the story of Kendra and Seth and their adventures at Fablehaven. The Society of the Evening Star (the bad guys) are causing all sorts of trouble at Fablehaven, having found their way into the preserve. Frog demons and Revenant zombies are only the most noticeable problems that Kendra and Seth must deal with, as Fablehaven goes under attack by the society.

Its actually been a while since I finished this, and I am well into the third book now, which had me confused as to which events happened in which book. I think I've got it all sorted out in my head though. Also, this book was very lacking in dragons.

A very good sequel to a very good book. It had a cliffhanger ending of sorts, and I was very glad that I could immediately start the next book. Definitely check out the Fablehaven books.

The First King of Shannara

I think I spelled that right. I've actually had this book for years and actually got about halfway through it, and stopped for whatever reason. That was a bad idea. I loved this book.

Set as a prequel to The Sword of Shannara, the First King takes place nearly 400 years (I think) before the events of The Sword. We follow the Druid Bremen and his friends as they desperately scramble to stop the Warlock Lord from overrunning the world. The Warlock Lord is a very real threat that has gone almost undetected because all of the races have secluded themselves, thus allowing him to gain immeasurable power, almost undetected. The only one who knows about him is Bremen, and he must do all he can to convince the world of this threat before it is too late.

So this book is awesome and very suspenseful. Bremen's task seems completely hopeless and it is fun to watch him slowly succeed, even though things don't go how he would have liked them to. Unfortunately, this book also lacked dragons, but it made up that by being awesome all by itself.

Inkheart

This is a book about people who really like books. Yay #1. Every chapter starts with a heading that is an excerpt from another classic book. Yay#2. One of the characters can read characters out of books and does so with a few classic books. Yay#3. Yes I liked this book a lot.

Meggie loves books. She got this love of books from her father, who fixes books for his job. Their house is filled with piles and piles of books with almost not enough room for them all. Meggie's peaceful life is shattered as an old acquaintance, calling himself Dustfinger, shows up on their doorstep. Meggie's father, Mo, in order to protect Meggie from their past, tries to run from it, but it catches up to them quickly. The evil Capricorn has found Mo at last, and he doesn't intend to let him slip away this time.

This book also didn't have any dragons (three is a row?!) but that was okay because of the Yays mentioned above, and the general awesomeness the this book is saturated in. There is good potential for dragons though, since the author of the book has written about dragons in the past and there are two more books in the series. One can hope.

If you like books, you should read this. This book was written for people who like books (a lot of books are, but this one especially). I must now get my hands on the sequels.

List:
The Demon's Lexicon
Fablehaven
The Third Sign
Throne of Jade
The Lighting Thief
Howl's Moving Castle
Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star
The First King of Shannara
Inkheart

I still haven't written that much, but there is something that I want to write that I might post here if I get around to it.

More Fablehaven Dragons!

So you may remember a post I did where I was excited about the first Fablehaven book talking about dragons. Or you may not, that's okay too. That isn't important, what is important is that in the third Fablehaven book, dragons are much more prevalent.

There was nothing about them in the second book unfortunately, but in the third book they are important and this makes me happy. They even introduced dragon tamers, which also makes me happy.

What is even better is that the next book is supposed to focus even more on dragons, since dragon is in the title.

Books read in 2010: Demon's Lexicon and Fablehaven

I've decided to keep track of all the books I've read in 2010. Its already march and I've only read two -_- so I'm off to a slow start.

I got a bunch of books for Christmas and have been reading them all simultaneously. I would read one chapter, then switch to the next. This ensures that the books last longer and I don't swallow them whole in one day like I usually do. I like this.

Yesterday (or the day before) I finished The Demon's Lexicon, shortly followed by Fablehaven. I'll talk briefly about each.

The Demon's Lexicon:

Nick and his brother Alan live a life in hiding from evil magicians. Their mother stole a powerful amulet from the magician known as Black Arthur and now all the other magicians in London are after it. Everything is relatively fine until Alan gets a demon's mark that can only be removed by the blood of a magician. Now the hunted must become the hunters.

I think I just summarized the summary :P The story is told from the perspective of Nick, who is a very interesting character. Saying too much about him will give away the ending, but I'll just say that Nick learns a lot about his family as the story progresses. This is a great young adult book, and I recommend it highly.

Fablehaven:

I've made a few posts about this already, but now I can talk more about it since I've finished. :D As much as I don't like to admit it, this book is basically about fairies. Not completely about them, but they do play a big role throughout the book. Kendra and Seth are visiting their grandparents preserve and soon discover that it is a magical preserve that holds all the magical creatures of myth and lore. Like fairies. There are a lot more than fairies though. Many, if not all, of the creatures in the preserve are dangerous if you don't abide by the rules of the place. Since one of the characters is about 12 years old, a lot of rules get broken.

So yes, there are fairies, but there are also trolls and demons and imps and stuff. And the fairies aren't even that bad, especially near the end of the book. There are a few more books in the series and one of the covers has dragons. I wish to read them and get to the dragons and to enjoy all the other things that will happen in between, since the possibilities are limitless. You should totally read this if you already haven't.

I'm almost done with a few more books, so you can expect more posts soon. Next will likely be Lightning Thief.

List:
The Demon's Lexicon
Fablehaven

Fantasy Mythology

One of the reasons I like writing fantasy is because I can create a completely new world, and then I can come up with how it was made, how the people in the world believe it was made, and how similar or different those two things are.

I like mythology in general. I mostly realized this because of The Lightning Thief which I am currently reading, which is all about Greek mythology. For Skies of Fire I knew what the people believed in, but I didn't really know what actually happened until recently in my writings when a plot twist surprised me and in order for that twist to make sense, I realized that I needed to know how this world was made, and by who, and a few minor events since then. This was fun. Even if most of it won't make it into the story, I still enjoyed thinking it up. It makes the world I made feel more real to me.

I'm also reading a book called "The Third Sign." In the first couple of chapters, a good deal of the worlds mythology is explained and revealed, and I loved it. It was interesting and unique and I liked learning about the world that I'm exploring through the pages.

Yes, I realize that I'm a nerd.

On a note about Fablehaven: I just read the chapter in it called "Inside the Barn." It was probably the weirdest chapter I've ever read in any book. I was like this while reading it O.o Not to say that its a bad book or that I'm giving up on it, its just weird is all. I'll talk more about it when I finish.

AH HA!

Number of pages it took for Fablehaven to include the word Dragon: 169

Sorry, I know this is a silly post, but I was just waiting for that. +1 awesome point for Fablehaven. Now what would really be something is if there was an actual dragon, and not just someone talking about dragons.