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.

Prompt 1

Prompt: An ancient unicorn accidentally wakes up cerberus and unleashes him on the world.

bonus points if you include any mention of non-greek deities.

Uloneus stood at the gates of the underworld, standing out like a sore thumb. Everything here was black and dark, and smelled of death, while Uloneus was pure white and standing near him made one feel invigorated. Uloneus stood to the side of the gates, watching the poor lost souls filter through it. He somewhat hoped that his presence would help through what was coming next.

That was not why Uloneus was here though. He wasn’t dead either, like all of those other souls. Uloneus was on a rescue mission. Usually, no one went to the underworld unless they had died, and they never came back afterwards either. This situation was different. Uloneus’s granddaughter was still alive, and being held captive here by Hades.

The way Uloneus understood it, Hades wife had asked for a unicorn so that she wouldn’t feel so dreary down in the underworld, and so Hades went after the first unicorn he could find, Uloneus’s granddaughter, and stole her into the underworld. Normally, to capture a Unicorn, one needs to be a virgin. Hades was no virgin, so Uloneus still didn’t know how it had happened, but he suspected that Hades had done something unjust to capture her. Uloneus was an ancient and well respected unicorn, so he was able to obtain an audience with Zeus after waiting for some time.

Zeus heard his plea, but told Uloneus that he was unable to do anything about it. Zeus’ domain was the sky, he had no power over the underworld, and he knew that Hades would deny any unjust activities and that he wouldn’t give her back.

So, feeling almost completely helpless, Uloneus decided that he would go into the underworld himself and offer to take his Granddaughters place. This was all well and good until he found himself at the underworld. There, he hesitated. He stood there for a long time, just watching the dead shuffle through the gates. Uloneus almost went back, but he thought of the shame he would feel upon telling his family that he had failed, and decided that he must go forward.

He stepped past the gate, not looking back for fear of turning around. This wasn’t so bad, he thought, just a line of the dead, and himself, heading towards judgment. That was when he heard the growling. Uloneus stopped and looked up. He saw three pairs of eyes staring down at him, all belonging to the same creature. Uloneus had forgotten about Cerberus, the guardian of the underworld.

Except its impossible to capture a unicorn without a virgin, so Uloneus was fairly sure that he could escape the hound. Cerberus snapped at Uloneus, but almost on instinct Uloneus was able to maneuver out of the way. Uloneus tried to run deeper into the underworld, but was blocked by Cerberus, who continues to bite at and miss him. This went on for a long time before Uloneus decided that he should return again with a better plan. He turned and tried to leave, but was pushed against by the throngs of the dead. Cerberus, chased after him, not being bothered by the dead, but also not wanting to bite at him, as Cerberus would only eat live meat, and Uloneus was surrounded by the dead.

“What is all the commotion!?” A horrible voice said.

Uloneus looked back and saw Hades approaching. Hades saw Uloneus and smiled. “Another one? And it’s trying to get away? That won’t do!”

Uloneus had passed through the gates but stopped at the River Styx. The ferryman had agreed to take him across the first time, but wasn’t there now to take him back, and even if he were, he probably wouldn’t have done it. “After it Cerberus!” Hades yelled, cutting the chain around its three heads.

Cerberus launched itself after Uloneus. Uloneus froze with fear, but the moment Cerberus was upon him, Uloneus found himself jumping over the river. The River Styx seemed endless, but almost magically, Uloneus jumped the whole thing. Cerberus could not catch him, even if he was backed into a corner like that. Uloneus thought he was safe, but he turned back and saw Cerberus swimming towards him. Cerberus was actually swimming the River Styx. Uloneus hadn’t thought that was possible.

And so Uloneus had continues running, with Cerberus chasing after him. Even after he shouldn’t have been able to run any more, he kept going, because he was a unicorn, and not even Cerberus would be able to catch him.

Uloneus finally collapsed. Chest heaving, he looked behind him and saw Cerberus sniffing the air. It had given up on Uloneus, but that was because there was much better and easier prey here. They were back in the mortal world. Uloneus suddenly realized what he had done. He had brought Cerberus to the world of the living, where, left unchecked, he would devour all living things in his path.

Cerberus was about ready to bound off in search of living food, but a thunderbolt landed in front of it. Where the thunderbolt had landed, stood Thor. “You have gotten yourself into a terrible mess this time Uloneus,” Thor said. “If you wished to rescue your granddaughter, you could have always come to me for assistance.”

“It was a Greek matter,” Uloneus stammered, “I didn’t thing it appropriate.”

Thor huffed, “Hmph! The Greeks! If you were wronged, it does not matter who wronged you!”

“Won’t Zeus get mad at you for interfereing?” Uloneus said.

“You leave Zeus to me, I know how to handle him, he’s not as scary as he seems,” Thor said, raising his hammer as a lightning bolt, one of Zeus’ this time, hit it, the hammer acting as a lightning rod.

Cerberus, through all of this, had been attacking Thor, to no avail. Thor had been holding back the hellhound with a massive wind. Thor stopped the wind; his talk with Uloneus finished, and faced Cerberus. “Come on then you great beast, let us do battle!”

~~

This prompt made me giggle as I wrote it. "Ancient and well respected Unicorn." XD

I chose Thor as the non Greek god for this one reason:

Poking Fun at Twilight

One of my friends let me borrow a book about Vampires that was written back when vampires were cool (before Twilight). Whilst reading, I decided that I should write a story about a traditional vampire who reads Twilight. This is the result:

~

At first, the differences were awesome. After that book came out, Gary could just tell them he was a vampire, and they would practically beg him to suck their blood. Before it would take a lot of subtlety and lots of time, keeping his vampirism a secret until the last, their last, minute. Now he could just show them that his fangs weren’t fake and that was that. Life had significantly improved in his opinion, though he wasn’t sure why. Then one of his victims asked him to step into the sun so she could see him sparkle. She was devastated to find that real vampires don’t sparkle. She almost didn’t let him bite her, almost.

It really shouldn’t have bothered Gary, that some girl seemed to think that Vampires sparkle, but it did. There was nothing in any mythos that he could remember that even remotely suggested sparkling. It didn’t take long to find out where the idea had originated. That book. Gary had wanted to vomit upon reading it, all the horrible things it made vampires out to be. He could handle certain things about it, but sparkling in sunlight?

It became no fun after that. He would only go after someone when he was really, really thirsty. It was almost unbearable when they got sooooo excited about him being a vampire, asking him to stand in the sun and if he was a vegetarian vampire like the ones in the book. It did give him some satisfaction when he said no, and to see fear flash across their eyes, but it didn’t last long and they quickly started asking questions again, probably thinking that they would get more time to ask after he had so graciously turned them. He never expressly told them that he was going to turn them; they just assumed that that was his intention, since vampires were such loving and understanding creatures with hearts and eyes of gold.

This was the second time that a mere book had changed everything for vampires. The first was of course Dracula. How Bram Stoker ever found out so many of their secrets was any vampires guess, but it made the job a lot harder. Suddenly everyone noticed that you never went out at night, or that you were “allergic” to garlic. It took a while before the repercussions of that book died down, and then this one happened. Now vampires sparkle and drink animal blood because they didn’t want to hurt their human friends!

Gary found that the only way that it could be fun is if his victim hadn’t read, or hadn’t liked the book. That brought back the old challenge of it, that made it fun again, and he never had that dirty feeling afterwards. But girls who didn’t like the book were pretty rare, and Gary didn’t want to exhaust the supply, so he had to kill them sparingly, though he always took note once he found one of them. Unfortunately, Gary hadn’t found any in the area he was currently in, so he would have to make due with the usual.

~

I'm not sure if I'll ever seriously work on this, I just thought it was silly. I have two more characters in mind, a typical girl who read (and practically worships) Twilight, and a Vampire Hunter who's job got a lot more difficult since Twilight came out.

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.

I Need to Write More

I suck at consistently writing. I think through the whole summer that I mayhaps wrote half a chapter. That half a chapter felt really good once I had written it, but as a whole, I suck. I blame the summer. I used to love summer because no school, but now it sucks. I don't like warm weather.

Despite not writing, I have been thinking a lot, and thinking is an important part of the writing process (its just also important to go past that part.) I've created a new folder in my flash drive called Ideas because of all the thinking I've been doing. I have three files in it now. One is a sentence that would be fun to open on, one is an entire series that I wish to write someday, and the other is something that I thought up whilst reading the third Fablehaven book. The two story ideas both include dragons. Theres a shocker. One has a man who was a dragon, cursed to take human form (but that's a spoiler), and the other has an Ambassador to the Dragons who is some kid of a yet unknown age.

Hopefully, these ideas and all my thinking will lead to a huge writing burst when the weather stops trying to melt my brain at all times. I'm currently in my sister's house, which is very south, and I would be unable to write this if not for her glorious AC. I might maybe get some writing done whilst I am here. That would be fun times.

Edit: After I finished the above and hit submit I realized that I hadn't written an idea down yet. So there are now four files in my idea folder. Something about guilds and mages or something.

Books Read in 2010: Howl's Moving Castle (!!)

So I was at my friends house and I discovered that he just casually happened to have a copy of the book Howl's Moving Castle. WHAT!!!??? I was made to wonder if he had ever truly been my friend at all, having that book and never telling me about it, when he told me that his sister was borrowing it from one of her friends. He also said that her sister was soon going to give it back to her friend. I didn't have to say much, I just stared hungrily at the book, when he went to ask his sister if he could read it before she gave it back. She said yes and he handed me the book and I sped off on my bike cackling like a madman (that last part might have been all in my head).

Needless to say, I was on a deadline and couldn't read this book as well as the six other books I'm reading simultaneously, so I ate it all in a few days time and only just finished. So on with the show then.

Howl's Moving Castle

I was afraid that after reading this book I would no longer be able to watch the movie. This always happens after I read a book. The movies that are based off of them try their very best to get as much of the book in as accurately as possible and they always fail (in my opinion). Not so with Howl's Moving Castle.

The movie basically takes most of the characters, and a few of the plot points (Sophie becoming a hag for one) and creates an entirely new story. At first this wasn't very apparent, and so I kept expecting things to happen because I've watched that movie so many times. I soon realized my error and found that I was reading a very different story than the movie portrayed. At first this was somewhat annoying, but then I was excited, because I hate spoilers anyway and now I didn't really have any.

A bit more on the differences between the book and movie. In the movie, the setting is very Steam Punk, the book is more pure fantasy (but with a surprise in the middle that got me excited). In the movie, the Suliman is an old woman, but in the book, he's a dude. They have the same role though (Royal Magician). In the movie, Howl's Apprentice's name is Markl. In the book is Micheal. I found this interesting. I think it is because Micheal transliterated to Markl when the book was translated to Japanese. Perhaps.

Okay, enough of that, more on the book. The glorious, glorious book. In the land Ingary, being born the eldest of three is considered a great misfortune. It is said that the eldest of three will fail at finding their fortune. Sophie has taken this to be a fact of her life, and so she never even tries. She pretty much runs her Father's hat shop, and never tries to do anything for herself, while her two younger sisters sneakily chase their dreams. Sophie is compelled to seek her fortune when the Witch of the Waste shows up and curses her to become an old woman. Sophie doesn't wish for her family to see her as an old woman and so she leaves and ends up and the back door of the dreaded Wizard Howl who lives in an enchanted moving castle. Lots of magic and adventure and tantrums ensue.

This is one of those books where after I finished it, I had to run and tell (rant to) someone about it. The only problem was that it was midnight when I finished. So I came here to tell the internet. Oh my goodness I loved this book. You have to read it carefully, elsewise you might miss key details. It seemed to me as I read it that most little details are important, and they were. You may have to go back and find a certain paragraph or two and reread it to fully understand something that just happened. I was okay with this, and I found the book was worth it.

Guess what? There are two more! There are two more books about Howl and perhaps his castle. They are called Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways. I fully intend to seek them out and devour them. The fact that I don't just have them at the ready is making me furious! I shall have to visit the library tomorrow...er- today, since its past midnight now.

List:
The Demon's Lexicon
Fablehaven
The Third Sign
Throne of Jade
The Lighting Thief
Howl's Moving Castle

If those next two books are at the library, you can expect them to be added the the list shortly.