Once More Around The Realms

The latest in the Forgotten Realms graphic novel family, this one is simply titled Forgotten Realms, and I can only assume it’s the first of several. Unfortunately it is not one of my favorites. If it wasn’t for the fact that Ed Greenwood himself had a hand with this, I would not have added it to my collection.

The story had potential to be interesting if it wasn’t such a rambling tale. Starts off with two rogues- who by the way are hardly charming or handsome-sitting on a rooftop talking about their latest score and where they go from there.  When lo and behold along comes a raven haired beauty who is kidnapped and whisked away by her captors, leaving the rogues behind to speak to her dying comrade who curses them to find her and return her safely to her family.

Who, by the way, are filthy rich.

So now we have the standard story of bored little rich girl.  She goes out with her guards, fakes a kidnapping to get attention from mommy and daddy, only to have everything go horribly wrong and be rescued by innocent bystanders.

The only bright side is that this bored little rich girl at least can handle herself and isn’t a whiny suck.  She just got in over her head and needs a hand.

Now the rogues are cursed with a horrible death unless they save the raven haired beauty.  They get caught up in a burning warehouse, stalked by an Ilithid, pass through an interdimentional portal, meet a ghost king, drow hunters and helmed horrors, and by the end of the book are still on the run trying to get home.

I know what happens sounds interesting, it just doesn’t make any sense.  If it made sense, it would have been better but it’s like dumb and dumber are leading the blind deaf chick on an acid trip through candy land.

See what I did there?  Sounds fun, but doesn’t make sense.

Ah well.  On to something that hopefully makes more sense.  The long awaited Lover at Last by J.R. Ward.

Qhuinn, son of no one, is used to being on his own. Disavowed from his bloodline, shunned by the aristocracy, he has finally found an identity as one of the most brutal fighters in the war against the Lessening Society. But his life is not complete. Even as the prospect of having a family of his own seems to be within reach, he is empty on the inside, his heart given to another….

Blay, after years of unrequited love, has moved on from his feelings for Qhuinn. And it’s about time: The male has found his perfect match in a Chosen female, and they are going to have a young—just as Qhuinn has always wanted for himself. It’s hard to see the new couple together, but building your life around a pipe dream is just a heartbreak waiting to happen. As he’s learned firsthand.

Fate seems to have taken these vampire soldiers in different directions… but as the battle over the race’s throne intensifies, and new players on the scene in Caldwell create mortal danger for the Brotherhood, Qhuinn finally learns the true definition of courage, and two hearts who are meant to be together… finally become one

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Strange and confusing…

Habibi is a literary graphic novel written by Craig Thompson.  Entirely fictional as far as I can tall, and according to the book’s website, is: “a love story and a parable about humanity’s relationship to the natural world that explores such themes as the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam.”

Well, it certainly is a love story.  It’s about two child slaves Dodoola and Zam, who live together for several years before being torn apart.

Thankfully, they are reunited in the end, but both have grown and changed in many ways.

Habibi basically chronicles their lives, together and apart.  It is visually stunning, but there is much scripture in it, from both the Quran and the Bible, and some of the context in which these quotes and passages were used was lost on me.

I loved the story and the artwork, but I was thrown too much by the scripture quotes so that took away a lot of it for me unfortunately.

Habibi I think for most people is the kind of book you either love or hate.  It’s hard to find the middle ground like me on this one.  Mostly I think because it draws many parallels between Christianity and Islam, but at the same time often casts Arabic culture in a rather stereotypical and disparaging light.  It’s also highly sexualized in a very negative way.

So take this one as you will ladies and gents.  I suggest you do a bit of your own research into this one before picking it up.  It has some good messages in it, a good story, but there are so many themes going one, many of them controversial, so I think this might bear some more looking into for some people.

For those who give it a shot, I hope you enjoy it.

Next up: Warrior Enchanted by Addison Fox

Pisces warrior Drake Campbell and his zodiac brethren have driven themselves to the edge. He’d love to take comfort in the arms of the woman he cares for, if only she would lift her emotional barriers to him.

White witch Emerson Carano has more to worry about than the Pisces warrior. Their affair may be red-hot, but she keeps the sexy man at arm’s length to avoid getting hurt. When her estranged brother, Magnus, suddenly reappears—wielding a dangerous dark magic—Emerson has no choice but to ask Drake and his brothers for help.

Long-buried secrets and dangerous alliances will threaten the very foundation of the warriors while striking at the heart of Emerson’s carefully constructed world. Can she put aside her fears to join forces with the only man who can help her—even if her own family must pay a terrible price?

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Beer and Shakespeare made us who we are today.

So I was out the other night at a friend’s birthday party.  We got together at their house first, then meandered off to a British pub down the street where we did the usual round of pub activities.  We drank, we ate, we talked, and we played drunken pool.

Now at first the conversation was the of  usual “hey how are ya/how ya doin” variety.  But after the pub we stumbled back to my friend’s place where we continued to talk and had cake, and we had some pretty interesting conversations that have kept me thinking over the last few days.  Well…at least the parts I can remember….

So my friend’s mom brings out the pictures of when they were younger.  Not naked-baby-in-the-bathtub younger, more high school/middle school younger.  And of course these pictures brought on conversations of our lives in high school, as most of us went to different high schools and only met in university, and of course alongside the tales of the stupid things we did as kids (which remarkably in some cases hasn’t really changed) we got onto the topic of high school teachers.

At first it was the teachers we least liked, or who did funny/stupidly memorable things during our tenure in hormone hell, but then we got all deep and emotional and started talking about the ones that really made an impact on our lives for the better, and changed us in profound ways.

For my part there were two teachers who had a large hand in making me who I am today.  The first one was my grade 6 homeroom teacher, who I think made me into the hardcore reader that I am today.  I was always an avid reader as a child, but most of the other teachers didn’t really care, and cracked down on me when I was reading in class after my work was done.  But she never did.  She was always happy to see me reading, and would talk to me about whatever I had in my hand that day, and encouraged the whole class to read by bringing in graphic novels of some classics.  We did a whole unit on Macbeth at one time, reading from these graphic novels.  We all thought it was so awesome.

The other teacher was actually my high school librarian.  I remember when my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I spent the first two months in that library, researching the disease.  After the first week the librarian asked what I was doing there, missing classes all the time, and I told him the truth.  He walked away and came back with a book about his wife and daughter, one who lost her leg to cancer, the other her breasts.  And he told me I was welcome as long as I wanted.  He even ran interference for me once when another teacher came looking for me.  I think he was the first one to give me hope during that dark time in my life.  He was the first one who showed me that it wasn’t a death sentence for my mom, that my sisters and I wouldn’t lose our home and family, we could get through it.  I don’t think I ever really thanked him for that.

So for the past few days I’ve been thinking about these teachers, what they meant to me, what they must have meant to other students before and after me.  And how something so innocent as being interested in what you’re reading, or being understanding when you’re going through a crisis at that age can have such a profound impact on your life as to change -even just a little- the very core of who you are.  It’s astounding.  Ripples in a pond, you know?  I think it’s only when we look back at these people of our past who helped to  shape us into who we are today can we truly understand those old sayings like that.