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Ah! So many questions! Alright, @abookishhobbit, here we go.

An Ember in the Ashes (by Sabaa Tahir) is a light fantasy/romance novel about a slave girl and a trained assassin. I'll get to my rant in a minute, because things sould be in order.

The Forbidden Wish (by Jessica Khoury) is another fantasy/romance I stumbled on (I wasn't aiming for romance this week, I swear) which I found when looking for one of Khoury's other books, The Mystwick School of Musicraft, which has very fun characters and strong worldbuilding. Sort of a collision between a Ben Aaronovitch-style urban fantasy and Harry Potter's soft magic system. Anyway, The Forbidden Wish is basically a "what if Aladdin's genie was a girl" romantic reimagining. Well done so far, but I'm not even a full chapter in.

Finally, Firebringer (by David Clement-Davies) is a talking animal story, something like Watership Down, only about deer in ancient Scotland. It's got prophesies and adventures and reunions and teenage angst. It's great. I reread it every couple years.

The Rant

I have a major problem with An Ember in the Ashes, and it's mostly in the characterization of the various players on the board. An intelligent girl that can't follow simple directions (like "keep your eyes down"). A rebellion that sends an untrained youngling to spy for them, then get upset when said youngling doesn't magically do well. A hardened, ruthless assassin who's haunted by killing and hates mistreating people, but also can't conceive of winning this contest to be emperor and changing things.

It's just... painful to read, honestly.

I want to rewrite the whole bloody thing, starting with the premise that the characters actually are the way they're described, rather than acting in completely different ways to enhance the "romantic tension" or whatever.

The worldbuilding is decent and the plot has promise. I want to see this story get the love it deserves.

[kalypsos-island]

Orion, you will always be with me

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The Jungle Book by Catawampus Readings • A podcast on Anchor

I discovered and read The Jungle Book... I want to say the year that I graduated college? Somewhere around there. If you're not aware, I'm happy to inform you that one of my favorite audiobook narrators, Ralph Cosham, has recorded a version of this book and its sequel (as well as other favorite books of mine such as The Scarlet Pimpernel, Black Beauty, and Watership Down). I love love love this book, but I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea, so I'd love to hear your feedback on it. Leave any disagreements or questions in the comments below, or shoot me an email at [email protected]. :) Until next week, stay awesome my Inklings! Background music provided by AShamaluevMusic and EmilyFantasy.

I really need to get better about putting up links to my podcast regularly. XP Social media is so very not my thing.

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Catawampus Readings; Christmas Special | InkFire on Patreon

Official Post from InkFire: InkFire explores what makes Christmas Christmassy and in the process says the word so many times that it no longer sounds like a word anymore! Congratulations. I won a prize. Wishing you a very merry Christmas from the other side of the microphone. Stay warm, stay safe, and make more of those sweet,

This year’s Christmas Special, courtesy of your hardworking host!

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Another lovely episode. Drawing to the end of our time in the 2019 Fall Readings, though, which means we need to prepare for the coming Winter and the changes that may follow. 

The podcast may be going through yet another metamorphosis in the coming year, and I hope it’s a good one. :) 

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A Well-Placed Adjective

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The young man craned his neck backward to look at the hill, which he was supposed to climb to deliver his package. No, that was the wrong word. It wasn’t a hill. It was a bleeding cliff. Expanses of flat, sheer rock stretched up in blocky chunks, broken by the occasional outcropping, crevice, or jumbled rockslide. It was a slope, barely, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to haul a package that weighed almost half what he did up this monstrosity 

Groaning to himself, he got out of his delivery wagon, tethered his mule to a boulder (without getting bitten - ha!) and heaved the package out of the back and began the long, tedious process of carrying it all the way up the hill. It was truly back-breaking work, and he prayed that whoever lived at the top of this gods-forsaken hill would offer him a cup of tea, or at least tip him really well before he left. 

But there was no gate at the top. No house. No tower. No garden. No building or structure of any kind. Instead, there was another jumble of rocks tilted at crazy angles and the dark mouth of a large but apparently shallow cave. Lungs heaving, stomach churning, he fished the map out of his jerkin and squinted at it, shading his eyes from the brilliant sun. No, this was the right place. But who would live in a dump like this. 

He wished he hadn’t asked. 

Maybe it was his stomping around. Or maybe it was the shouting “hello, is anyone home?” and “ha ha, very funny!” Either way, he’d woken the dragon, and it was stumbling sleepily out into the sunlight to see what all the noise was about. He could see it was still a juvenile, but that hardly seemed to matter. It towered over him, head turned so one predatory golden eye could focus on his face as he quietly peed his pants.

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Motherhood

Inspiration: “No matter the culture, no matter how much they disbelieve in the supernatural, if you target children, their parents WILL come after you.” 

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The shadow she cast was as black as midnight, the look on her face one of impending doom. Stephen started to think perhaps he had made a terrible miscalculation, even as the child was ripped from his hands with the force of a gale. 

 "You dare touch my child?" Her voice was a rumble in her chest, her eyes flashing as with lightnings that were coming frighteningly close to striking his person.

 "I assure you, madam, it wasn't specifically your child I was targeting," he said, as charmingly as he could manage. "Your child was just unlucky enough to be the offspring of a rather unpleasant enemy of mine." 

 Nope. Nope, that was definitely the wrong line of logic to use with this one. She seemed to swell, like an indignant frog, if perhaps a frog was capable of tearing his head from his shoulders with the razor edge of her gaze alone. 

 "You have two seconds to get out of my sight," she whispered, and Stephen gratefully accepted the head-start she offered, turning tail and fleeing for all he was worth. Which, come to think of it, wasn't much at all.

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Trapped

Inspiration: Being at work and watching a little puppy press her nose against the bars of her cage, looking pathetic.

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The bars were shiny and cold, the noises in the building strange to her. Something clicked and clattered in the next room and she jumped, making her cage rattle unnervingly. Her bedding was all bunched up to one side, and she didn't want to lay on it. It smelled of strange things she didn't understand and didn't like. If only someone would come let her out, maybe she could find her way home. If only she knew where home was, maybe she could get there.