I Don't Get It

I just don't understand people sometimes.  I really don't. 

I'm a bit of an Arthurian scholar.  And I might be a little bit obsessive about Arthurian Legend right now.  It really doesn't help that the fourth series of Merlin was teased at San Diego Comic-Con recently. 

Anyway.  The thing that is really getting on my nerves is the fact that everyone in the world seems to consider Morgan le Fay to be evil, vengeful, or something of the sort.  She is expected to be this evil queen or evil sorceress that is always out to get Arthur (and Merlin in the television show). 

What people don't understand is that Morgan - Morgana as I prefer to call her - is not evil.  She has become portrayed as evil, but she never was like that.  Not originally.  She was a powerful sorceress from the isle of Avalon.  She was a shapeshifter and a healer.  She was the eldest of nine beautiful sisters.  She was not evil.  Not until she was made to be. 

She was not even Arthur's sister until the time of Chretien de Troyes, who wrote for the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine.  She was not even vengeful until the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and that was only when Arthur killed her lover.  

Some people have tried to shift her portrayal back to how it should have been, but it never lasts.  She is the victim of so much misportrayal.  It actually makes me a bit sad to see what people are doing to her.  


The way she is being portrayed in Merlin is one of those ways.  In series one, she was amazing.  She was my favorite character.  In series two, her romance with Arthur was dropped inexplicably, even though it was beautifully done before and absolutely wonderful (anyone notice that they decided to make her Arthur's sister after that?  Stupid writers) before that.  She was overlooked and manipulated.  It only gets worse from there, and now even the actress who plays here considers her darker side to be the true Morgana.  Lovely.  


I don't think that's how Morgana is supposed to be.  Maybe that's just me and my love of the legends, but I don't think it's fair for them to do this to her character.  All she ever gets is the blame.  That's just not fair to her.  Would it kill people to treat her character properly?

Books I Finished in July

July was a really busy month for me, I have to say.  I was out of town a couple of times, always on the go...I actually didn't get a whole lot read, to be honest.  I wish I had read more.  I really do.  I loved the books I read, but there just wasn't enough time...

The Winter King
Ouran High School Host Club Vol. 1
Honored 
Enemy of God

These were all interesting books (or in the case of the manga, it was funny).  The Winter King and Enemy of God were the first two books of The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell.  I actually just finished the third one (Excalibur) today.  It's another take on Arthurian Legend that was very, very good.  I would highly recommend it, though it is a tad bloody and a more adult version of the tale.  It's not really graphic, but there is a lot of death in it.  It's still a really good read and a lot of fun. 

Books I Finished in June

It's once again been a while since I posted anything on here.  I kept meaning to, but I keep forgetting.  And surprisingly, June was a slow month for me as far as books.  Not as slow as July has been, but I've been super busy in July as of yet.  So, these were the books I read last month..

The Iron King
The Iron Daughter
The Iron Queen
The Sleeping Beauty
The Snow Queen
The Looking Glass Wars

They were all very good.  The Sleeping Beauty and The Snow Queen are both part of a series called The Five Hundred Kingdoms, which I love.  And they're books that can be read out of order because there are a couple of recurring characters at most.  There are currently five books in the series, and I've read three of them (#1, 4, and 5).  The Fairy Godmother, the first book, was a little more graphic than the others and did have some sexual content, but Mercedes Lackey is actually a very good writer and the other two don't have anything bad in them whatsoever, which I liked a lot.  I've got the other two - One Good Knight and Fortune's Fool - waiting to be read at this point.  However, being as busy as I was for the last week or so, it was hard to actually read a more than a bit of One Good Knight while I was traveling...

Anyway, all of those are great books - I loved the Iron Fey series and I'm looking forward to the next book The Iron Knight coming out this fall.  I'll write more on those later, but that's it for now. 

Arashi - Truth

I love this song. A friend of mine introduced me to K-Rock and J-Pop (Korean rock music and Japanese pop music) a couple of years ago and I fell in love with this song when she sent me the link to it. The sad thing is that they aren't very well known here in the States, it seems, and this was practically impossible to find on YouTube because the official PV (promotional video) was taken down some time ago. So, enjoy the music, ignore the video. It's just Kingdom Hearts...

Delain - Invidia

I found this song about a week ago via Pandora on my phone. It played on the main channel I listen to and it was so good that I had to e-mail myself before I lost track of it. It really fits a couple of the characters I write and I love the name of the song itself. The word is fun to say, that's for sure. And it's a pretty word. Invidia actually means 'envy: spite and resentment at seeing the success of another (personified as one of the deadly sins),' which I think is actually a pretty interesting definition.

Well...

It's been a while since I blogged about anything.  Heck, it's been a while since I logged into this account to do anything.  I haven't really had a whole lot to say, I suppose.  Things have been a big crazy at points - we went to an amusement park at the beginning of the month and I've been cleaning my room while attempting to make a dent in my other goals.  So far, my room is a lot cleaner.  Well, my books are organized, mostly.  I've been trying to get through a bunch of those, too.  So far, five books this month and I'm in the middle of another one right now.  Things have been a little busy, really.  I've been trying to write, on top of all of the other stuff I've been doing.

Today was a big day as far as the cleaning went.  I had a bunch of boxes that were just sitting in my room that had stuff in them - they're all ready to go to the storage locker except for one, which I'll be working on when I go back upstairs later.  I feel like I've really made a dent today as far as that goes.  It's empty under my bed now and I've gotten a bunch of clutter put away on my dresser and everywhere else.  I'm pretty proud of myself, really.

Other than that, the only major thing that I can think of is the season three finale for Sanctuary.  I love the show, but I hate the finales because they are ALWAYS cliffhangers.  Always.  Even the mid-season finale was a blasted cliffhanger.  I got to that one right after the next episode came out, though, so that one wasn't a big deal.  This one, though, I have to wait until fall to see.  Ugh.  Not cool.  And one of the other shows I watch is on the bubble right now.  There's no news as to whether or not it's been renewed or canceled.  Really kind of annoying, if you ask me.

Anyway, I'm going back to writing...

Review: Solitary

I should probably start out by saying that this is not the kind of book that I usually read.  I'm a fantasy/sci-fi kind of person, mainly.  I don't read a whole lot of YA (Young Adult) stuff anymore with the influx of everything vampires, starting with the infamous famous Twinkle Twilight Saga.  Vampires are not my thing, but that's a tangent that I don't need to go on.

Solitary was pitched to me as Travis's take on Twinkle by the author himself.  I took a brief two-week class with him through my school in January (which I loved), and one of the things he did was give away a free book to anyone who wanted it.  After we chatted after the class for a while, he said that I would love this book.

Boy, he was right.  I was hooked on it before I was even done with the first chapter.  I couldn't put it down.  I was, quite unfortunately, interrupted and forced to go to bed in the middle of it.  I was not pleased by that, to say the least.  Anyway, when I finally did get a chance to finish it, I couldn't put it down again.

Chris Buckley is a normal kid who moves to a town called Solitary in North Carolina after his parents split up.  There, he meets a mysterious girl named Jocelyn who is the most beautiful creature he has ever laid eyes on.  Their relationship has a very interesting dynamic - one moment they're friends, then the next she pushes him away.  As Chris becomes more involved with her, things start happening.  For one thing, he decides to go down this hole in the neighbor's yard.  Not a good idea, Chris.  Suddenly, a creepy voice floats out of the darkness, and Chris bolts because it scares the heck out of him.  Much later: new creepy hole beneath the cabin.  The creepy voice returns, saying 'I see you, Chris.'  It scared me half to death, but in a good way. 

Between said dark hole and creepy/scary/probably demonic voice and something else that happens, I was scared half to death.  I have never been so scared after reading a book.  The weird thing?  I loved it.  I don't know why, but this seemed like a good kind of scared.  I wanted to know what was going on.  I wanted to know what was happening and I was really mad at Travis when the book ended because it just wasn't fair.

I found Chris's narration easy to read and very easy to get into.  It was like I was actually Chris.  I felt his pain when he was upset and I could easily relate to everything he felt.  He was a great narrator and an awesome character in general.  I really felt bad for him because he was really the only responsible one in the house with his mom acting as she was...which was probably because of the divorce.  Then there's his missing uncle.  It's like he disappeared without a trace.  Yet another thing for Chris to wonder about as he has to get used to a new town, new friends, and people acting weird.

Then there's Gus.  He was a good character and a believable bully.  I didn't like him because of that, but I think he really made Chris's situation really realistic.

I really liked Jocelyn, too.  She was another really great character and she was really sympathetic.  I really felt bad for her as things went on and how things went down as time went on.  Her relationship with Chris was really well done and she seemed very real.

Overall, I really loved this book.  The plot was amazing and left me hanging on every word.  I fell in love with the characters and I want to know what's going to happen next.  This book easily rates five stars out of five for me.


Yes, it's better than Twilight.

And now, I'm going to go bother my mom to make an Amazon order.  I want Gravestone...