November 8, 2022 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Series I Should Read Someday


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

IBooks lined up against a yellow wall. The books are placed so that their spines are facing upwards and they’re all touching a book on each side. Every book is closed. have mixed feelings about series.

When they’re well written, they’re my favorite sorts of books to dive into because of how deeply you can get to know the characters throughout the course of them. It’s thrilling to see a character slowly evolve over the course of several adventures, especially if they maybe weren’t particularly likeable at first. I love it when characters are given space to become three-dimensional individuals who feel just about as real to me as anyone I’ve met. This is difficult to accomplish for any author, but it’s so rewarding when it does happen.

Series that try to stretch out their original storylines too far are disappointing, though. I’d much rather read a tightly written standalone novel that wraps up all of the major conflicts and ends on a high note  than I would something about the exact same characters that had clunky pacing, or not enough going on in each book, or that put their characters in the same sorts of conflicts over and over again to justify creating a series when the protagonist really should have learned his or her lesson on that topic in book #1.

I’ve had experiences with both of these sorts of possibilities (and many grey areas in between then), so I never know what to expect when I start a new series. Will it horribly disappoint me two or three or six books from now? Is it worth my reading time? Will I find the first book pretty decent only to be shocked by how much I adore the rest of them after the world building and character development has been firmly established?

You never know what might happen. Here are some series I hope to read someday. Just don’t ask me exactly when that will be. Ha! Have you read any of these books and, if so, did you enjoy them?

The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1) by Robert Jordan book cover. image on cover is a drawing of knights riding horses under a full moon.

1. The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1) by Robert Jordan

Multiple people have told me I’d love The Wheel of Time series.

 

His Dark Materials (His Dark Materials #1-3) by Philip Pullman boo cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of a child sitting on top of a polar bear.

2. His Dark Materials (His Dark Materials #1-3) by Philip Pullman

I once read that Pullman wrote this series partially as a response to the Chronicles of Narnia series. While I don’t know for sure if that’s true, it does make me curious to see what all of the fuss is about.

 

A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1) by Ursula K. Le Guin book cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of a castle with a moat around it. There is a green dragon between the castle and the moat.

3. A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1) by Ursula K. Le Guin

Her short stories make me smile, but I’ve never explored her longer works. Maybe this is a good place to start?

 

Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, #1) by Diana Wynne Jones book cover. image on cover shows a drwaing of a house that has legs and is walking across a green field.

4. Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, #1) by Diana Wynne Jones

This has been on my TBR for so long that it has apparently become a series now!

 

 

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) by N.K. Jemisin book cover. Image on cover shows an ornate metal carving on a door. The carving looks like curled ferns lying on top of each other.

5. The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) by N.K. Jemisin

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November 3, 2022 · 1:00 am

Changing His Destiny: A Review of Well of Fate


Well of Fate - A When Ravens Fall Short Story by Savannah Jezowski book cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of a squirrel crawling through a dark corridor with a tiny bit of light streaming through the tree branches above. Title: Well of Fate – A When Ravens Fall Short Story

Author: Savannah Jezowski

Publisher: Dragonpen Press (Self-Published)

Publication Date: July 31, 2018

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Adventure, Historical

Length: 39 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

Discontent with his life as a tale-spinner, Ratatosk the squirrel goes searching for the Well of Fate hoping he can change his destiny. But what he finds at Yggdrasil will test the very core of his resolve. When he faces the unexpected dangers beneath the great tree, Tosk will have to choose between saving himself or risking all to do the right thing. Changing his destiny proves harder than he ever imagined.For fans of “When Ravens Fall” and Norse mythology, reunite with old friends and meet new ones in this compelling short story about destiny and hard choices.

Review:

Courage comes in many forms…including small, fuzzy ones!

Ratatosk was a brave and assertive squirrel who refused to take no for an answer. I haven’t read many books that have squirrels as protagonists and so had no preconceptions of what he would be like. It was delightful to get to know him, especially once I realized why he was so eager to find the Well of Fate and what he hoped to accomplish there.  I’ll leave it up to other readers to discover for themselves what he was looking for and if he found it, but his adventurous spirit was perfect for this setting. He might be a little miffed at this comparison since they’re not the same species, but fellow fans of C.S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader might also be quickly reminded of a character in that book that acts a lot like Ratatosk and would happily go on adventures with him if they lived in the same universe.

It would have been nice to see more attention paid to the conclusion. While I know this was meant to be a teaser for a full-length series, the writing in that scene felt a bit abrupt to me, especially for those of us who were being introduced to the characters and setting for the first time in this short story.  I wanted to give this a full five-star rating and would have done so if this tale had been given a chance to wrap everything up more satisfactorily. Everything else about it was well done!

The world building was handled nicely. Obviously, there wasn’t a lot of space here to explain how everything worked or what was going on with certain backstories, but I received enough information to understand why Ratatosk’s quest was so important to him and what dangers he may face along the way. An air of mystery about the rest of it is a good thing in my opinion. It kept this reader feeling intrigued and asked questions that I can only assume will be fully answered later on.

You do not need to have an in-depth understanding of Norse mythology in order to appreciate this short story, but knowing a few basic facts like the names of their most important gods would be helpful.

Well of Fate – A When Ravens Fall Short Story was a wild ride. 

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November 2, 2022 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: What Sci-fi/Fantasy Book You’d Like to Visit

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers I try really hard not to repeat answers for the two blogs hops I participate in here, but this week’s prompt was such a no-brainer for me and most of the speculative fiction I read is about such dangerous worlds that I’m going to need to be a little repetitive today.

There are two books in Becky Chambers’ series so far: “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” and “A Prayer for the Crown-Shy.”

I would love to live in Panga, the peaceful island where Sibling Dex lived a quiet, happy existence and developed a friendship with one of the descendants of the robots that had abandoned humanity generations ago.

What I love most about this series is how it learned to include conflict without putting anyone into terrible danger. Sibling Dex’s conflicts are more about personal development and trying to foster diplomatic ties between humanity and robots instead of anyone being at risk of physical harm. It was a much calmer reading experience than a lot of novels are, science fiction or otherwise!

No matter who you are, you would find safety and community in Panga. You don’t have to be cunning, intelligent, lucky, or wealthy to thrive there. Their entire economy is based on living in harmony with nature and your fellow humans.

It’s a simple life that includes manual labor for everyone who is capable of such things. If you can’t do physical labour, many other types of work are equally valued, and everyone has all of their basic needs met no matter who they are or how much they’re able to contribute.

There’s something appealing to me about that sort of social contract, especially since characters can change jobs so easily if a previous assignment no longer suits them for any reason. I love that freedom and flexibility for everyone in a society to find the best way for them to contribute without anyone going in debt for education or being discriminated against due to harmful stereotypes about what someone who performs role X should look like. If you have the interest in and aptitude for X, you can do it in Panga without anyone caring one whit about your sex, gender, race, age, disability status, etc.

Not only are all basic human needs automatically met in this world, many of the higher-order needs like seeking a purpose in life or finding self actualization are surprisingly easy to pursue as well. (it doesn’t mean anyone will necessarily succeed at them, of course, only that it’s much easier to worry about those things when you already have the first few levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs sorted out).

I think I could be pretty happy in this world, and I would be thrilled to visit it.

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November 1, 2022 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Unlikable Characters You Can’t Help but Love


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Drawing of a grumpy man slamming a door shut as several much smaller people run away. The image credit for today’s post goes to Edward Lear, an English artist and poet who lived during the Victorian era. The grumpy man in this sketch made me chuckle.

Let’s see how many answers to this topic I can come up with as I often have trouble finishing books that feature unlikeable characters.

1. Evelyn Hugo from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

Why: I didn’t actually end up finishing this book because of how Evelyn behaved. She was ruthless, self-absorbed, and not a narrator I necessarily trusted to tell me the whole truth.

With that being said, I loved her grit and determination. From what I could tell, she found a way to thrive in a sexist society that was at best deeply hostile to women. I don’t know how her tale ends yet, but I think I will someday go back and finish it.

She wasn’t someone I’d ever want to invite into my inner circle or trust to treat me fairly, but she was a very interesting person for sure.

 

2. Marilla Cuthbert from the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery 

Why: I pride myself on being able to get along with just about everyone, but Marilla was such a rigid and grumpy person when she was first introduced in this series that even I would have trouble finding common ground with her.

What made me eventually love her was seeing how she softened and mellowed as a result of her relationship with Anne. Yes, she was still someone who saw the world in pretty black and white terms, but she also learned to appreciate other perspectives as she grew older.

I admire people who continue to work on their weak spots throughout their lives. That’s exactly the sort of person I hope to be when I’m her age.

 

3. Sookie Stackhouse from the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris 

Why: Sookie was not the sharpest crayon in the box, and I often felt annoyed with how often she put herself into danger in this series instead of listening to the reasonable advice of the folks around her who knew more about vampire and werewolf culture.

I deeply admired her creativity and resourcefulness, though, and kept reading because of how invested I was in what would happen to her next. Just like with Marilla, my first impression of her was much less encouraging than how I felt about her a few books later. Some characters need to grow on you!

 

4. Eva from We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 

Why: Eva irritated me because she never wanted to have kids, agreed to have them anyway, and then complained about raising them every step of the way. There was a big reveal later on in the storyline that completely changed my opinion of her, though, so keep reading.

I thought it was interesting to go back and look at her previous complaints after that twist. It made me see her life in a completely different way, and that’s all I can say without sharing spoilers.

 

5. Ove from  A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman 

Why: Like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, this is also a book I need to go back and finish sometime.

When I left off with Ove, he was a grumpy, negative man who looked for the worst in everyone around him. That’s the sort of character I prefer to take in small doses, although I know from reading other reviews that his personality will change as the plot moves forward. I do expect to love him once he stops being so pessimistic, though!

 

 

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October 28, 2022 · 1:00 am

A Review of Vespasian Moon’s Fabulous Autumn Carnival

Vespasian Moon’s Fabulous Autumn Carnival - A Long Short Story by Berthold Gambrel book cover. Image on cover is a drawing of a large yellow full moon with a black bat flying near the top of it in the sky. There are two jack o lanterns at the bottom of the cover near the title. Title: Vespasian Moon’s Fabulous Autumn Carnival – A Long Short Story

Author: Berthold Gambrel

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 18, 2019

Genres: Paranormal, Mystery, Romance, Holiday, Humour

Length: 54 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Federal Agent Jane Raczyck is tired of her job. So is Sheriff Sixtus Davis, the head law enforcement officer in the town of Turpin’s Gulch. But when Raczyck’s agency sends her to work with Davis on combating the drug epidemic in the small Appalachian hamlet, the two are compelled to investigate the local carnival and its mysterious impresario… even though they’d much rather be doing other things together.

Review:

Content Warning: References to drug abuse, multi-generational poverty, and some of the negative consequences of living in an insular community like prejudice against and a deep distrust of outsiders. I won’t discuss these subjects in my review, and they were a minor part of an otherwise pretty lighthearted plot.

Small towns are supposed to be sleepy, peaceful little places where nothing weird ever happens….right?

The main characters were a hoot. Neither of them seemed all that emotionally invested in carrying out the roles in society that they were supposed to be fulfilling. Even when Jane behaved like a federal agent and Davis took his job as head law enforcement officer in Turpin’s Gulch seriously, there was still always an faint undercurrent of restlessness and snark in their personalities that always made me wonder how they’d break the unwritten rules of how they were supposed to act next based on their occupations and gender identities. This was exactly what the setting needed in order to thrive, and it made me wish I’d ignored my overflowing to be read list and jumped ahead to this tale when it first came out.

I loved seeing how the narrator broke the fourth wall and spoke directly to the audience when necessary. For example, this was how Jane was described: “Now, because standards of beauty vary greatly, let me simply say that she had whatever you consider to be the most attractive hair color and style, atop whatever you think is the ideal face shape, with skin colored in the precise shade of pigment you like the best,” and it made me laugh out loud when I read it. Of course the audience’s preconceptions and tastes matter when describing a beautiful woman, and it tickled my funny bone to see that addressed so openly.  Do keep an eye out for other unexpected moments like this while reading because i can’t possibly list them all in this review.

The paranormal elements of the plot were beautifully understated. Many of these scenes that included them could be explained away with rational alternatives to what some characters assumed was happening there. I love ambigious stuff like that, especially when it’s followed up with scenes that gently nudge the reader in the particular direction the author wants you go while still leaving room for other interpretations for those who wish to hang onto their own ideas about the origins of previous spooky moments. Yes, I’m being vague in this paragraph on purpose. If you want to know more, you’ll have to read this book!

While no prior knowledge of Appalachian culture is required to understand the storyline, readers who are from that culture or who have knowledge of it in other ways will find some gems here. I nodded and chuckled as I read certain passages because of how much they reminded me of certain people I knew when I was a kid or of cultural references that I rarely see mentioned in fiction.

Vespasian Moon’s Fabulous Autumn Carnival was everything I was hoping it would be and more.

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October 27, 2022 · 1:00 am

A Review of Samantha, 25, on October 31

Samantha, 25, on October 31 by Adam Bertocci book cover. Image on cover show a young red haired woman wearing a witches hat and cloak. She looks surprised as the wind attempts to blow her pointy hat off of her head. Title: Samantha, 25, on October 31

Author: Adam Bertocci

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 12, 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 50 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Samantha hates her job, her debt and her general circumstances, and if that weren’t enough, her first post-pandemic Halloween isn’t shaping up to be any fun. Unenthused about the prospect of another day (and week and month and year) stuck working in a boring health food store, Samantha hopes that dressing as a witch will help recapture the magic in her life… or at least conjure up a little Halloween fun.

But when a mysterious black cat crosses her path, Samantha’s holiday hijinks take a turn for the weird, culminating in a spooky confrontation with the scariest horror of all: her own future.

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Adam Bertocci has been praised by Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The New Republic, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Back Stage, Broadway World, E!, Maxim, IGN, Wired, Film Threat and more. This wistful-yet-witchy short story explores the mysteries of improvised cat care, growing up, and what’s really important in life.

Review:

Content Warning:  Witches and witchcraft. This is also set during the Covid-19 pandemic and contains a few references to things like social distancing, proper hand washing, and wearing a face mask in public. No one caught Covid during the storyline, though.

Halloween magic is for everyone.

This novella captured the frustration of working in retail or other dead-end jobs perfectly. Even though she was grateful to have work when so many others were laid off during the Covid-19 pandemic, Samantha was bored and restless at Esterbrook’s Natural Market. Her history degree hadn’t panned out the way she hoped they would, and she couldn’t see how her circumstances would change for the foreseeable future. I had a lot of sympathy for her and was curious to see if her dreams would finally come true. This wasn’t something I was expecting to find in a spooky Halloween read, but it fit the themes perfectly.

Samantha was a likeable and intelligent protagonist. She was the sort of person I’d love to be friends with in real life.  I enjoyed seeing how one of her biggest flaws, her tendency to ramble on when other people were hoping she’d give them a clear yes or no as a response, changed the course of her destiny. It’s always nice to see characters who are given genuine challenges to overcome and whose weaknesses make a meaningful difference to the plot.

One of the biggest reasons why I chose a five-star review had to do with how the fantasy elements of the plot were handled. Yes, I know that sentence is a vague one, but I need to be careful how I word this in order to avoid spoilers, but Mr. Bertocci did a marvellous job of playing around with the audience’s expectations of how witches should behave and how a fantasy story should unfold. He clearly knew this genre well and wasn’t afraid to turn certain tropes upside down in order to keep me guessing. Bravo for that!

Samantha, 25, on October 31 was perfect.

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October 26, 2022 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Scariest Real Life Ghost Story

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Blurry black-and-white photo of a ghostly-white woman wearing a long-sleeved dress and wearing her black hair half over her face. Unless you count the loud footsteps that sometimes rumble up and down my in-laws stairs (but that are probably just coming from a noisy neighbour in the other home in their duplex), I have never seen or interacted with a ghost.

With that being said, my father had a frightening and bizarre experience one night while sleeping at my grandfather’s home about thirty years ago.

This home was built by my grandfather on land that has been in our family for generations. There have been no sudden deaths, acts of violence, or any other tragedies in that house or on that land for as long as anyone in the family can recall. It’s a peaceful place, and yet the story of the black-eyed woman still happened.

Dad was sleeping in bed next to mom when he felt the bed gently shake as someone sat on it in the middle of the night. He awoke to see his wife sitting on the end of the bed staring at him.

It took him a minute to remember that mom did not have black eyes. That is to say, the eyes of the woman looking him did not have pupils, irises, or sclera. They were coal black from beginning to end. She otherwise looked exactly like his wife.

He looked over to the side and saw his actual wife sleeping quietly beside him, so he reached forward to swat the black-eyed stranger away. His hand couldn’t touch anything solid where she sat, and yet she was still there looking at him.

”Get out in the name of Jesus!” He said to the black-eyed woman. She disappeared like a mist.

He was not able to fall back asleep again that night.

Let’s add a few more pieces of information to the mystery:

1) During that time, my parents were trying to decide whether to make some life-changing career decisions that would make it much easier for them to pay the bills and even save a little bit of money for the future. Saying yes to those opportunities would also increase their stress and decrease the amount of time they had for anything other than work and finishing college (for my mom) and mean our family would need to move a few thousand miles away from where we lived at the time.

2) My father has seasonal allergies that required him to take allergy medicine before bed in order to be decongested enough to sleep. He is also known to be someone who occasionally has trouble transitioning from sleeping to being fully alert, especially if he’s interrupted during deep sleep.

3) They belonged to a denomination that worried about evil spirits and demons more than many other faiths and denominations do. Avoiding and casting out these spirits were common topics of conversation in our social circles.

So this could have been a hypnogogic hallucination. That is to say, a hallucination that took place while his brain was still in the process of waking up. These types of hallucinations can include seeing, feeling, and hearing things that are not actually there because your mind is still dreaming at that time. They are not dangerous, just a quirk of the human mind.

On the other hand, my mother has a sibling who had night terrors and incidents of sleep walking when he slept in that room as a kid. Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe not.

No one else has seen the black-eyed woman at my grandparents’ home to the best of my knowledge, but this is the scariest real-life (possible?) ghost story I know. I will leave it up to all of you decide if you’d rather believe it was a spirit, a mental process that can be explained by our current understanding of psychology and neurology, or something else entirely.

Happy (almost) Halloween!

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October 25, 2022 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Halloween Things I’ve Never Done


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I’m borrowing this theme from Jana’s Halloween post last year, so she gets all of the credit there. It was such a great idea for both Halloween and Top Ten Tuesday.

Sugar cutout cookies decorated to look like a ghost, bats, spider web, the word “boo,” and a jack-o-lantern. 1. Visited a haunted house attraction.

I have been inside a house that others said was haunted, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen or heard anything there that defies scientific explanation.

Haunted house attractions don’t appeal to me because I dislike jump scares.

2. Attended an adult Halloween party.

3. Dressed up as something scary or gross.

4. Played the trick part of trick-or-treating.

I once toilet papered someone’s car, but they knew about it and I cleaned everything up immediately. I wouldn’t do anything to damage someone else’s property or leave a mess, so no egging or toilet papering houses for me.

5. Seen a ghost. 

6. Participated in a seance or used an Ouija board. 

7. Visited a fortune teller. 

8. Drank a pumpkin spice latte. 

9. Eaten many Halloween-themed treats. 

10. Decorated for Halloween. 

Here’s a quick explanation of why I haven’t done a lot of this stuff.

I was a preacher’s kid growing up, and my family didn’t celebrate Halloween at all until I was in middle school. We attended harvest festivals at various churches or didn’t do anything in particular that day instead depending on the year. When my parents later changed the family rules and said trick-or-treating was okay, we weren’t allowed to pick scary or gross costumes.

While I’m no longer a member of that church, I still have no interest in contacting spirits or having my fortune read. (I do not judge those who are into those things, though! To each their own).

Many Halloween treats, including pumpkin spice lattes, are filled with dairy products. I’m allergic to milk, so I usually can’t eat and drink that stuff unless I visit a vegan bakery or find a recipe that can be modified and make them myself. Maybe someday I’ll dig into that part of the Internet and do it, though.

Do you celebrate Halloween? What common Halloween things have you never done?

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October 20, 2022 · 1:00 am

Running to Safety: A Review of One Dark Hallow’s Eve

One Dark Hallows Eve by Eldritch BlacI book cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of two sinister glowing jack-o-lanterns sitting at the bottom of a hill on the night of a full moon. A house and a leafless tree sit at the top of the hill. Title: One Dark Hallow’s Eve

Author: Eldritch Black

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 22, 2015

Genres: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Paranormal, Horror, Contemporary, Historical

Length: 43 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Beware it’s Halloween and the Pumpkin Men are coming.

It’s All Hallow’s Eve and Owen Weeks is not having a good day. Something’s stirring in the lake by his house, the dead leaves beneath this shoes crunch like bones, and even the brambles seem to twitch when he’s not looking.

Nothing’s right.

But things get a lot worse as Owen discovers a terrifying stranger hiding in an abandoned farmhouse. A dark spell is cast. Old magic, magic that raises a terrifying horde of nightmarish creatures.

As the monsters descend upon the village, Owen realizes there’s only one place left to go…across the lake. But can he survive the horror of the legends said to live below its muddy waters?

The clock’s ticking toward midnight, and soon it will be the hour of the Pumpkin Men and ancient terrors from a distant land.

One Dark Hallow’s Eve is a lost tale from Eldritch Black’s The Book of Kindly Deaths. Read it now and slip into a timeless world of dark fantasy and Halloween horror.

Review:

Content Warning: Skeletons and pumpkins who can walk.

Get ready for a gentle scare.

Twelve is an awkward age, especially on Halloween. You’re not a little kid anymore, but you’re not yet old enough for the parties that teenagers or adults sometimes attend that weekend either. I enjoyed the way this short story captured the weirdness of this in-between stage in life and how kids deal with the realization that what worked for them on previous Halloweens maybe isn’t quite what they should be doing this year. It’s not something I’ve seen covered very often in the horror genre, so it was refreshing to find here.

There were times in the plot when certain elements didn’t fit together, and yet the characters accepted all of the twists and turns without a second thought. I wish more time had been spent explaining what the characters were thinking and why no one questioned why their town was suddenly overwhelmed with monsters. Even a simple explanation would have nudged me to bump my rating up half a star or so, and a deeper one would had positively affected my rating even more.

The world building was well done. Obviously, the author didn’t have a lot of space here to go into great detail, but he made good use of every page he did have to work with to ensure that all of his readers knew the basics of what was going on and how this world was different from our own. I was both satisfied with his explanations and curious to know more. That’s a good sign in my opinion, and I will keep an eye out for what the author comes up with next!

This is part of a series, but it can be read as a standalone work.

One Dark Hallow’s Eve was a quick and spooky read.

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October 19, 2022 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Fantasy Animal You Wish Was Real?

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Sunlight streaming through the forest and a dirt road travelling through the forest. Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

My answers to this week’s question partially depends on your definition of the terms animal and fantasy.

Do modern fantasy myths count?

Where is the line between a plant and an animal?

Where is the line between an animal and human?

I will give you all two responses and let you decide which one you think fits this prompt better. Honestly, I want to pick both of them, but I’m also not 100% sure that either of them will match what all of you think of when you hear the term fantasy animal.

Answer #1: Bigfoot 

Bigfoot walking around in the Himalayan mountains. On the rare occassion I visit a zoo, the primate exhibits are the most interesting portions of those trips to me.

Part of me is sad to see monkeys, gorillas, orangutans, and other primates stuck in cages. Another part of me is fascinated by their body language, facial expressions, and social structures.

It always makes me wish we had some analogous species in North America. For example, what if Bigfoot were real? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a large, intelligent, ape-like creature roaming around our forests and/or mountains?

I like to think about what humans and Bigfoot may or may not have in common if they were real. Would they have a language? Would they have myths about the strange, hairless people that they work so hard to avoid? The possibilities are endless.

Answer #2; Dryads 

A picture of a tree that is showing it’s dryad features.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while might remember how much I like trees. There is nothing like sitting in the cool shade of  a mature tree on a hot day and listening to the breeze rustle through it’s countless leaves. It’s so relaxing.

The thought of certain trees having consciousness and the limited ability to walk around (depending on which stories about them you believe) tickles my fancy.

Yes, I know that technically dryads are spirits instead of flesh and blood animals. I’m hoping we can stretch the definition of fantasy animal enough to include them since many other fantasy animals also have features that you’d never find in the species scientists have currently catalogued. (For example, horses can’t fly…but unicorns can!)

It would making walking through the woods just a little more special if I knew that a small number of the trees there were aware of visitors and would maybe even have a conversation with you if you caught them at the right time.

Oh, if only!

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