Of authors and books

Bland day today and yesterday. Nothing happening of worth. Actually did lots of work... yay me. Other news... Haven't been too much of a mood to write anything intensive for YvtW 2.0 either. Or write anything for GJ, apparently. Not many of the fanfics I'm tracking have updated... *le sigh* Maybe I'll just go and read old fanfics...

*wracks brain to find something to say*

Um... since reading This Scepter'd Isle at B&N and noticing how many new hardbacks Mercedes Lackey has out lately, I checked her website and the Firebird Arts & Music site to see what else she's got out or has coming out in the near future. So far, The Fairy Grandmother sounds like an interesting read... somewhat of a twist on traditional fairy tales - something ML is well known for. Charmed Destiny is a collection of three stories by three authors, one of whom is ML, and looks interesting as well... something about "a arranged medieval marriage with a unique and well deserved ending for the abusive lord." I love how ML has so many strong female chars and good male chars in her stories.

Coming up in April is the anthology Dragon Quintet, edited by Marvin Kaye. Two of the five authors in it are Mercedes Lackey and Tanith Lee. *grin* How can I possibly not read it when it comes out? (Or at least read those two stories.) I've always loved TL's short stories (as opposed to her series works, which tends to lose me in her tendency toward overreaching metaphors in conjunction with twisted plotlines).

To celebrate, I'm gonna go and reread The Origin of Snow, from Tanith Lee's site. It's a good example of her typical writing style when it comes to fantasy... though my favorite has always been her (probably one and only) humor-fantasy short novel. ^_^

LOTR Fics

All That is Gold - short and humorous fic. Young Estel learns a new song about the fall of Gondolin and the bravery of a certain Lord of the House of the Golden Flower... much to the utter mortification of Glorfindel.

Eloquent Remembrance, by Sphinx - one shot, post-LOTR, Silm-based, and angsty. After Celeborn finally crosses West into Valinor, he has a somewhat belated conversation with his father-in-law regarding marital decisions, bloodlines and other verbal landmines. Or as Celebrian says... "My mother had some rather...interesting..speculations as to how this meeting would go. ... I believe her exact words were 'Let the fittest survive'."

So Near, Yet So Far, by Sphinx - 6 chapters fic taking place in Imladris before the Council of Elrond in FOTR, focusing mainly on Aragorn and his foster family. Very angsty fic... somewhat annoying in that it keeps referencing an earlier fic/incident that I haven't read yet. The first half of the fic is nicely emotional and stuff. By the time I hit chapter 4, I was all for smacking Aragorn a couple of times to make him stop whining and take his head out of... ahem. Fortunately it manages to redeem itself by the end of the chapter. Chapter 5 is ripped straight out of the movies, extended versions and all, and a glaring reminder of how much the A/A romance in the movies sucked. Chapter 6 is slightly better by the end. Overall... it would've been a vastly better fic if it didn't follow the movie, and if it had been condensed down to 4 chapters or something.

What Can be Learned In Dreams - Don't bother reading this one unless you're a rabid Legolas fan (which I am) AND don't mind other LOTR chars being downplayed in comparison (which I'm not, as much, anyway). It's a WIP and also ought to be marked AU, since a *lot* of liberties have been taken with canon. But mainly, I just wanted to quote a couple of lines in the last 2 chapters that had me laughing. (Oh, and note: it's not a slash-fic... so far, anyhow) ( clipped quotes )

Icons housecleaning

Well, I've been weeding out icons every time I put them in, and with how unwieldy my list's gotten (ie. how hard it is to find something I wanted every time I post), I thought I'd do a major clean-out this time.

So I've cut everything down to 100 icons exactly. Which means I took out a lot of icons, condensed a few (such as the 3 elven rings), and added a few of the Mei Ren set to push it up to 100.

Don't worry, I'm sure the number will still increase in the future. Whenever I feel like getting around to making icons again, anyhow.