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Welcome to April. Anyone involved in any good April Fools jokes?

Not here, altho on this cold and gloomy day, I could use some levity!! So share yours, please. At least we missed out on all the bad storms yesterday!

I'm reading instead.

The Virtues of Captain America: Modern-Day Lessons on Character from a World War II Superhero by Mark D. White

Tony wrote: "Welcome to April. Anyone involved in any good April Fools jokes?"

I'll bet that Robin will have a few :)

Oddly enough I'm not a fan of them on the whole.�� Anyway, we live in such a weird world now that any mad thing you could invent will just seem so normal that no one will realise it's supposed to be a gag.

Donald Trump to set up golf club on the moon. "No, really, it's incredible, truly... You hit the ball and it just goes on and on..."

Boris Johnson gives up politics to take up the position as principle ballerina with Sadlers Wells. ..

Elon Musk launches fragrance... Musk by Elon

Amazon to start paying tax... No, sorry, that one is too far fetched...

It's been snowing since October, and I'm running out of time to take senior photos of my daughter, so I scheduled it for Thursday (it was spring break this week). Of course it dumped a bunch of snow that day, but we took pictures anyway.

Still reading Stolen Earth. I'm having a really hard time getting into it or anything else right now.

William Shatner and George Takei to star in remake of "The Odd Couple."

Enough? ��

LOL! Thanks, I needed some good laughs!

As ŷ������ doesn't allow them, just picture a smiley face and a thumbs up emoji side by side.

Robin wrote: "Oddly enough I'm not a fan of them on the whole.�� Anyway, we live in such a weird world now that any mad thing you could invent will just seem so normal that no one will realise it's supposed to be..."
This made me lol!

I’ve just started reading “The Poppy War�� by RF Kuang. The positive reviews encouraged me to read it.

Finished First King of Shannara, I have to agree with one reviewer that Brooks' series is a bit paint by numbers, not that I can pick out exactly what he should change to vary them up, but I can almost predict what will happen next (well ok, this was also a prequel so of course I knew how it would end up so that didn't help). Anyway the next books should be quite different as they take place in the modern day, but still in the Shannara world.

Now for some more Vampirates! Tide of Terror by Justin Somper. Not sure how much vampire action there will be as the protagonists seem to be off to a pirate school in this one.

I started The Golden Enclaves. I need a book to read purely for fun, not for some other reason like I've been doing.

I finished Red Country. Leaving for a while the realms of sci-fi and fantasy, I just started a book from the French author Pierre Lemaitre, "Au revoir la-haut", that a friend of mine lent me with a high recommendation. The book is in dead tree form (actually the only support allowing to lend a book to someone), which is also a change from reading on my tablet.

The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade

Hello! At this period, I'm reading "The Redeemer" from Jo Nesbo.

So, I finished the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for March/April 2019. Whether accidentally or intentionally I know not but it seemed to have something of a running theme of stories relating to music, Faery or both at the same time. Entertaining anyway. On I go with The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for May/June 2019... does that mean I am now sort of ahead of myself? Only, you know, in the past, if you see what I mean?

Finished The King of Elfland's Daughter and filled my before 1945 BINGO slot. I don't know what I expected when I started to read it but it wasn't this. I enjoyed the magical atmosphere, and fairy tale style, but that seemed to clash with the silliness of the trolls (he leaves elfland to give the daughter a message and he does so by rolling and somersaulting as a means of locomotion...huh?)...and hunting unicorns just seems wrong :D

Next up on my eReader will be Imaginary Friends by Terry Brooks which is a precursor to his Word & Void trilogy.

In dead tree form, had started this series last year when I got the second to last book in the series for free, now I'm pillaging the library for the rest starting with the first book Porteur de masques by Bryan Perro. I finished it so fast since my sister brought home some virus or other so I spent a lot of time in bed the past couple days :P A middle grade book, even in French, was perfect for my functional neurons.

Next up, more VAMPIRATES! Blood Captain by Justin Somper Aaaargh! Yep, another middle grade since my neurons have not yet recovered from the viral assault.

*awaits new flood of pirate puns*

Now I know how a striker feels when they miss an open goal. Sadly, I am all out of pirate puns, I can't think of anything... Drat!��

Would a hastily improvised vampire limerick do?

There was a Hungarian named Bella
A tall and immaculate feller
He had a black cape
That he could swing and drape
And he starred in Bram Stoker's best seller

��

Robin wrote: "Would a hastily improvised vampire limerick do?

There was a Hungarian named Bella
A tall and immaculate feller
He had a black cape
That he could swing and drape
And he starred in Bram Stoker's bes..."

Limericks'll work!

There was a bloodthirsty Fella
With fangs a deep shade of yella.
With a toss of his cape
He would chomp on the nape
Of the poor unsuspecting Daniella

Where is the applause emoji when you need it.�� Anybody else got one?

Thanks, Robin... I'll be here all week :)

Can't resist another run at it...

I mentioned that Hungarian feller
The count was also played by Langella
The great Christopher Lee
And Max Shreck you see
Gary Oldman also crept from the cellar

Come on... Who else has one?��

Psst...Robin! They're all probably pretending that they don't know us!

I'm impressed! I am not good at coming up with limericks.

As talents go, I don't think you are missing out on much.�� The reaction is usually the one outlined by Michelle above, pretend not to know them and they might go away.☺☺

From the Unfettered anthology I planned to read only those stories that were not tied to another series, unless I had already read that series (e.g. Magicians), to avoid spoilers and such but then I realized that would end up in quite a patchwork. Some of the series (Kingkiller Chronicles) may never be finished. There were a couple other "series" I looked at that had one book written around 2016 and nothing since. And a few like Imaginary Friends were written before the series itself, and the Temeraire one apparently has nothing to do with Temeraire, just uses the same character names....so I'm just going to read the whole thing and assume that by the time I get around to reading the series I'll have forgotten any spoilers.

Well, I'll skip the Wheel of Time one, seems our group had a group read of Unfettered and while scanning the posts someone said it had a huge spoiler for the around the end of the series, and this is a series that I'm seriously planning to get to eventually!

I think I own that anthology; haven't read it yet of course.

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success by K.M. Weiland

Andrea wrote: "From the Unfettered anthology I planned to read only those stories that were not tied to another series, unless I had already read that series (e.g. Magicians), to avoid spoilers an..."

I read that back in 2021. I say that because this means that I can't remember a thing about it now :) I rated it four stars despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of anthologies. If I had written a review it's certainly not there now.

Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development by K.M. Weiland

I finished the French book 'Au-revoir la-haut'. Even though it is not my preferred genre, I found it quite good. I am now starting Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

Continuing to make progress on Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth, which I am finding a frustrating read because the stories are .... well, unfinished 😆 There's a lot of good stuff in here, but I want more.

I also read the short story Imaginary Friends.

Finished Blood Captain, now I'll have to pillage the library to find out what happens to the Vampirates. There's some complicated twist about the twins, which the reader is aware of from the first book, but even in the third the details aren't clear though one is getting closer.

Taking of Imaginary Friends, I'm starting on Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks. The short story had a little kid battling a cancer dragon in it, while the first couple pages of the novel has an adult that no one wants to sit close to because he's "Death" (I'm assuming not literally but its a fantasy so let's see). Will be interesting to see both how the novel connects to the short story that inspired it, and to the overall Shannara series.

Uh oh...

Andrea wrote: "Will be interesting to see both how the novel connects to the short story that inspired it, and to the overall Shannara series."

In the preamble to the short story, Brooks does mention that "Most of what I wrote in the shorter version was changed entirely in the longer" which would indicate to me that the version in Running with the Demon (which I haven't read yet) will be pretty different.

My understanding is that the Word and the Void trilogy is supposed to show how Earth became Shannara, or at least was set on that path. But again, that's just speculation based on stuff I have read online - but we all know that anything online must be 100% accurate 😆

I only read the first of the Word and the Void, and it was so dark compared to Shannara.

I read Running with the Demon as a novel before the rest of the trilogy was available. I liked it & thought I'd reread it a few years ago & the rest of the trilogy. I listened to it & was appalled by Brooks' writing. It's awful in audio which highlights some faults I find minor in print so it was interesting for that, at any rate. I didn't find the story compelling enough to read more of the trilogy, though.

I liked Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold the best. While I read several other books in the series later on, I only recommend the first book. It's great as a standalone. I don't think the other books are nearly as good so they do nothing for the story. The first is definitely worth reading, though.

I never got into Shannara. I was a big Tolkien fan when the first came out & it was just a rip-off. By the time I got over my snit, the series had expanded so much that the library never had the full series & I refused to buy them.

The first book was 100% Lord of the Rings with the character names changes and slight tweaks on the events. It might be an interesting exercise to pick out all the similarities and write a paper or something. After that they were his own thing, but they were kind of paint by numbers in that...well its how you sum up an epic fantasy.

"Big evil threatens world, some mage/wizard/druids finds a group of clueless misfits who then set out on a quest they are ill equipped for, some magical talismans need to be found, big battle ensues, good guys win the day."

So while its no longer LotR, they still got oddly repetitive even when there were different bad guys, different good guys and different quests. Probably ok if you read them years apart as they were published but back to back its very noticeable :)

Talking of audio books of which I have very little experience, Tor had a Dune re-read that included some audio book excerpts. Was interesting experience...and also got really annoyed when the names I heard in my head when I read didn't sound like the names the person read out. I liked my pronunciations better...

Running with Demons definitely starts off dark, but some of the other Shannara books got pretty dark too, considering they have a bit of a YA vibe (I guess they aren't but most of the main characters tend to be older teens, young twenties...you know before they settled down and had families and had to refuse the quests...). There's actually a lot of demons and tormented souls and stuff in this series.

So far nothing beats the sequels of Dragonsbane when it comes to dark...*shudder*...Barbara Hambly still gives me nightmares.

Andrea wrote: "The first book was 100% Lord of the Rings with the character names changes and slight tweaks on the events. It might be an interesting exercise to pick out all the similarities and write a paper or..."

Oh, Andrea! Isn't that the truth about Dragonsbane?!? I reread the first book now and again, but I pretend that there were never sequels.

Andrea wrote: "The first book was 100% Lord of the Rings with the character names changes and slight tweaks on the events. It might be an interesting exercise to pick out all the similarities and write a paper or..."

They were proof to publishers that you could print LOTR ripoffs and make a mint. This was the beginning of the fantasy boom.

They were very popular in their day because readers were starved for more fantasy.

(Remember, when Terry Pratchett asked the librarian for more books like The Lord of the Rings, they pointed him toward the mythology section. Fortunately, he saw a guy wearing a helmet on the cover of a book on the next shelf and started devouring history. . . .)

Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story by K.M. Weiland