The Preview, and Something Sweet!

So. The Game of Thrones trailer is out a wee bit earlier than usual. I’m cautiously excited about this season. The trailer looks good and I have loved the show so far, but the later in the game it gets, the easier it is going to be for it to completely jump the shark. Martin’s writing schedule being what it is, who really knows what sort of compromises they’ve made to cover themselves in case they don’t have more book to work with before they need it? That said. Sand Snakes! Yay!!!

We have another marvelous book review from Rebecca Bradley coming tomorrow. You can read her January review of Disclaimer here.

We’ll also have our usual Agent Carter, Arrow, and Walking Dead recaps with the next installment of the Planescape: Torment series thrown into the mix.

Since this is #1000Speak week, we’re taking a break from the Feminist Fridays, but those will be back next week with a post at Things Matter. Do stop by a few of the blogs on the Femininst Friday schedule on Friday, because several of us will have compassion posts.

I will have the next installment of my Tolkien series at Part Time Monster tomorrow. Oh yes, I will! I may also run a series I have on trolling behavior for Just Gene’O this week. That one is contingent on me getting a lot of stuff loaded, but I am trying, because if I’m going to post four days in a row over there, I’d just as soon do it on the four days before #1000Speak.

Next week, Rose’s series on Masters of the Univers/Princess of Power returns and will run every other week thereafter. And Diana is cooking up some fun stuff for later.

We are absolutely awash in content, folks! Do stop by this week and thank at least one of our fabulous contributors for that.

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I’d want with me on a Deserted Island

The good folks at The Broke and the Bookish have a weekly meme post called Top Ten Tuesday.

This week, we’re listing the 10 characters we’d most want with us if we were stranded on a deserted island. This one was a LOT of fun to write.

1. Arya Stark from Game of Thrones. Because when Chuck Norris has a problem, and no one else can help, he doesn’t hire the A-Team. He hires Arya Stark.

via Cheezburger.

2. Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. He can cook a meal out of almost anything. He’s honest to a fault. He’s tougher than he looks. And you know it’s good luck to have a hobbit around.

3. R2D2 from Star Wars. Even though we think of him as a movie character, he’s been in plenty of books. He has an electric prod to keep agressive monkeys at bay, reconnaissance capabilities, and tons of valuable knowledge stored in his memory bank. He handled himself very well on Dagobah and doesn’t need food to function. Plus, just think how cool it would be, if you were stranded on a desert island, to have a DROID for a companion.

4. Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next. She’s a brilliant detective who can travel into fictional stories, and she has a fun sense of humor. Like Master Samwise, she is tougher than she looks. I would pray she could manage to rescue a copy of Robinson Crusoe from the shipwreck.

5. Scheherazade from 1,001 Nights. Life on a desert island would just be  more pleasant with a master storyteller who also happens to be a beautiful and crafty genius.

6. DC Comics’ Oliver Queen, aka Green Arrow. He’s a helluva lot more amiable than Bruce Wayne and he has experience with desert islands. He’s also a keen-eyed archer and a master bowyer. If I managed to bond with him or save him from dying while we were stranded, I’d be set for life once we were rescued, because he’s also a billionaire.

Here’s a one-armed Oliver nocking a kryptonite arrow with his teeth to fire it at Superman in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (long story). Oliver and Green Arrow are © DC Comics. Fair use applies.

7. Gideon from the Bible. The advantage of having a mighty warrior with a humble background who’s good at thinking on his feet and has a direct line to a divine being should be obvious.

8. Orpheus of Greek myth. I just couldn’t do without some music. Since I must have a fictional musician on this list, I’d just as soon have him be a demi-god who can charm the very rocks with his songs.

9. Breehny-hinny-brinny-hoohy-hah, aka Bree, the talking horse from C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy, my favorite of the Narnia books. This list wouldn’t be complete without a talking animal and kid’s lit/YA character, so this is a twofer.

10. Iorek Byrnison, the armored talking bear from Pullman’s His Dark Materials. If I’m going to have a Lewis character on this list, I have to add a Pullman character. And you must admit, having an armored bear as a companion is a real asset when you’re in a survivalist mode.

Related articles

• Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Characters I’d Want with Me on a Desert Island
• Top 10 Tuesday – Link up with The Broke and The Bookish
• Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Characters I Would Want With Me On A Deserted Island
• Top Ten Tuesday, #19: Deserted Island Comrades
• Desert Island Characters
• Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Characters I Would Want With Me On A Deserted Island

Game of Thrones: The Mountain and the Viper for Bookies (Spoilers!)

Good day, everyone! I hope you’ve seen the latest episode of Game of Thrones from June 1st, since this post contains all sorts of spoilers for it. You’ve been warned.

If you are a book reader like I am, you knew what was coming, but that in no way destroyed the tension for you. I honestly hoped against everything that the Red Viper might somehow make it out alive where so many other characters have not. I know I couldn’t have been alone in that hope. I suppose the best any of us can do is remember the character for how great he was.

Comic artist Jeff McComsey has taken things a step further and illustrated the duel based upon descriptions in the original novel, A Storm of Swords—the third installment in A Song of Ice and Fire.

This art is by Jeff McComsy, and it is too good not to share.

Check out his 12-page effort.

As a lover of comics books, especially bold work in a unique style, I am elated to see one of my favorite moments from one of my favorite novels illustrated so faithfully. If someone hasn’t considered it already, McComsey should be contacted about the ongoing project to turn Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas into comic books. I’m sure he could contribute quite a bit to that.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Tweet me @quaintjeremy.

image by Jeff McComsey. Check out his awesome blog, Sequential Killustrations. You can even buy his stuff on Etsy. Via the incomparable Geeks of Doom.

10 Memorable Fantasy Books and Series: Top Ten Tuesday

The great folks at The Broke and The Bookish have a feature they call Top Ten Tuesdays. I’ve wanted to join in for a couple of weeks, and since today’s theme is “Choose Your Own Topic,” I decided to whip something up. These are the ten fantasy books/series that I find most memorable.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. Hands-down my favorite fantasy book of all time.  It’s packed with beauty, tragedy, altruism, and hubris. It’s the book that made me want to write fantasy.

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series.  It’s a series of stories about Dream of the Endless, known to some cultures as Morpheus 😉 Dream has six siblings: Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium. Destiny’s as old as the universe, and the rest are only slightly younger. As you might imagine, their family dramas can be intense.

George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire doesn’t need much of an introduction. I’m eagerly awaiting the next installment. I like the intrigue and the elements of realism he brings in, such as having a lot of maimed and disfigured characters. You’d totally expect that in a world that’s wracked by war and plague, but not all fantasy is this well-drawn.