Amazing Zelazny - A to Z Blogging Challenge Over!

So, I didn't really complete the blogging challenge. I missed the last three letters, because I tried to take too much on and didn't get everything finished. My daughter's birthday and party was this weekend, and that comes before blogging. I thought I could get everything done, but I couldn't. Instead, I focused on what was more important to get done. I've been beating myself up a bit about this over the weekend, but now it's the last day of April, and I had a plan for Z, I should at least make the last post of the challenge! Enough self-pity.

Roger Zelazny was an amazing author of fantasy and science fiction novels. He gave us the Chronicles of Amber, a series of ten novels set in a world much like our own, but very different as well. Amber is considered his magnum opus, but it was not all he wrote. However, it is the only work of his I have read!

When I first started talking to my now husband online (yes, I'm an example of online romance success, through role playing games!), he was playing a character from an Amber role playing game. I was just an elf woman I had made up, generic fantasy, but he brought me into his story, and eventually I read the books, and love them as much as he does. 

There are ten books in the series, the first five feature the character Corwin, a Prince of Amber. He's a member of a royal family of powerful near-immortal people, who can write reality to their liking - or rather, Shadow. He is arrogant to a fault, but still a likeable character as he travels from our Earth to Amber, following his own agenda even when it conflicts with his brothers' or sisters'. 

The second half of the series, the last five books, feature Merlin (not Arthur's wizard), the son of Corwin, and his adventures. He's younger and a little less arrogant than his father, but truly his son in more than blood. His journeys take him to places different than his father's at points, showing another side to the story.

The books are wonderful, and leave you aching for more. But there's good news! There is a role playing game based on the series, as I mentioned before. And it's available in PDF form at Drive-Thru RPG: Amber Diceless Role Playing Game We've only played the game between the two of us, it's a hard game to get into if you haven't read the books - at least Corwin's five. It was one of the first systems my husband played in though, as a young teenager, and he has fond memories of it.

Zelazny truly had a great mind, to write such wondrous stories and tales. His books are worth looking into, if your reading list isn't too long already!

Now that April is over, I will no longer be posting six days a week, since that took a little too much out of me. Being new to blogging, it takes me quite a while to put together a post, so I'm going to spread them out a bit. I'm thinking maybe three a week: Sunday, Wednesday, Friday if I can. Not tomorrow Wednesday though, ha.

I do hope you enjoyed the A to Z Blogging Challenge, and reading the days I did make it! What was your favorite post of the month? And what were some of your favorite new blogs you found through the challenge? Share in the comments, and please come back again for my normal posts!

Radiant Rapunzel

 Last A to Z Challenge post of the week! Today's letter is R, for Radiant Rapunzel, the first character costume I made for my daughter.

 We're big fans of Tangled in my house, so when I asked my daughter what she wanted to be for Halloween, she picked Rapunzel. I might have encouraged the choice a little bit... and then she tried to change her mind after I bought the fabric and started planning the costume - no turning back then! (If you look above, this dress is one of the items in my logo banner!)

I stubbornly refused to buy the Disney brand Simplicity pattern for this costume, partly because I thought I could do better without it, and partly because I do not like single-style patterns, and there were no other dresses it showed as options. The Cinderella costume pattern from last year was different - it can be Snow White also. Instead, I used a formal girls dress pattern my mom had handed down to me. I think she got two copies of it by mistake one time. Free patterns can sometimes be best patterns, and Simplicity 4764 was a good fit!

Pretty flower girls, aren't they? I liked the skirt and sleeves, but the bodice needed work to be Rapunzel's.

This was my sketch, to get an idea I could draw and scribble on, not one of my daughter's books or her play table with Rapunzel on it! I decided to just make the bodice wider, and fold over and sew for the corset parts - it didn't need to be supportive or shaped around breasts, not for a two and a half year old!

 I did a lot of this work in a marathon sewing session, staying up all night watching The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition, finally - after probably five or more years of having those dvds and never watching them. (I watched all of our Star Wars dvds while sewing the Cinderella costume [original trilogy]) Remotes can make handy pattern weights!

My first attempt at widening the bodice for the corset inlay wasn't quite wide enough... the wider one was actually my third attempt! Good thing I got extra fabric, and this didn't take much yardage.

This is a little bit of the steps I took - figuring out how far apart, fold, pin, sew, iron, sew more!

The sleeves weren't too complicated, once I discovered the ribbon I thought would work for stripes was too sheer and wouldn't show up. Extra bit of pink satin to the rescue! I cut the pink satin close to the shape of the sleeve - narrower because there wouldn't be stripes in the underarm area, taller because I wanted them caught fully in the seams. Then I cut strips, ironed down both sides, pinned to the purple sleeves in rows, and stitched them on. Adding the lace at the bottom is just the perfect little touch!

For the skirt, I made the main front panel a lighter purple, with two overhangs of darker purple coming over that on both sides. Gathering the skirt together to attach to the bodice can be a pain when it's a full skirt, but that rectangle sure does look pretty when it's all together, doesn't it?

Here you can see the dress almost finished... with sleeves, then the grommets! I love my grommet presser, it's so nice to come up with a project like this, and know I can add in grommets with ease. This dress also has the MOST trim I've ever put on a single dress - but it's all costume-appropriate. Since in the movie, Rapunzel makes her own dresses, I think she just has a thing for lace.

I may be a snob when it comes to store bought costumes, but I can be a sucker for licensed accessories... This year, she didn't get the princess shoes (they were sold out anyhow), but she got a light up crown that came with a musical necklace and a purse - mainly I wanted the iconic crown! And she already had the doll, I can't resist taking a photo of doll and costume!

 And here, the princess herself in her dress! She still loves it, even though the satin snagged early on. Maybe it's because I let her sit on that bridge? There is a lot of length hemmed up in the skirt with the idea of letting it out as she grows taller, but with the snags I'm thinking that's a no-go. Oh well, she can have fun with it now!

Thanks for joining me again on the A to Z blogging journey! Check out the other bloggers in the challenge and come back next week for more!

A Quiver of Queens

Welcome to the regularly scheduled post for today, for the letter Q! Today I would like to feature a Quiver of Queens, some of my favorites from history and fiction.

Queen Elizabeth I of England has always been one of my favorite queens, considering we share a name and all. She rose from the adversity of her birth - her mother was decapitated when she was a toddler and her sister later imprisoned her - to be one of the most loved monarchs of England. There's even an era named after her, the Elizabethan Era, also sometimes known as the Golden Age. Under her rule, English drama flourished, especially William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. I've watched movies and read books based on her life, and they're all great. Especially Cate Blanchette's portrayal of her. And Phillippa Gregory's British historical romance novels are great - there's one or two featuring Elizabeth I, others about her father, mother, other Tudors and even back before her family with the War of the Roses players. Fun fact - she's the featured ruler of the British Empire in the video game Civilization 5.

But she's not the only great queen around. There are plenty of other historical queens who did great deeds and ruled well, but Elizabeth I is still my favorite. For fictional queens though, I have some other favorites...

Queen Guinevere of Arthurian legend is a conflicted character - does she really love Arthur? In some stories, she does, in others, it's just a marriage of convenience. I want her to love him, Arthur deserves a true love after all he goes through. Child of the Northern Spring by Persia Wooley is a good story about young Guinevere, I never read the following novels - now that I've discovered their existence online I want to! Another favorite Arthurian tale focusing on this queen is Queen of Camelot by Nancie McKenzie. I'm a little into Arthurian legend, so I have a few books about it. I'm always disappointed when Guinevere turns to Lancelot, because I want Arthur to be happy!

Another queen with heartache is Queen Amlaruil Moonflower of Evermeet, a nation in the role playing game setting of Forgotten Realms. She wasn't meant to be queen, but rose to the position, and then through an cruel mistake loses her king but has to keep ruling without him, holding the nation together. She is featured in Evermeet: Island of Elves by Elaine Cunningham, a very interesting history of elves in Forgotten Realms.

The queens in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series provide many different styles of ruling - or yearning to rule. Queen Cersei is a queen you love to hate, Stannis' queen is not really worth thought, while Daenerys' journey to claim her father's throne makes you love her but sometimes wonder at her choices on the how to get there.

Queen Gogo in the movie 300 is worth mentioning for her amazing speech before the council - she's a strong inspiration for characters I play that focus on diplomacy. Aurora's mother in Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel's mother in Tangled both show love toward their long-lost daughters without speaking, just lovely. And of course, the Scarlet Empress of Exalted is a queen, well more than a queen, and amazing in her role.

Queen Cleopatra of Egypt is always an interesting topic, with the Ptolemaic custom of brother-sister marriages and her affair with Marc Antony. Queen Catherine the Great of Russia, more commonly called Empress, revitalized her country during her long rule, while Queen Marie Antoinette of France led a dangerous life of court intrigue - never really in power until her husband's decline, but often in the public eye until her public execution.

That's an exhausting list of queens to read and write about! Do you have a favorite above, or another queen you admire or love to read about? Share in the comments!

Thank you for joining me through this crazy blogging journey from A to Z! Come back tomorrow for something that starts with R!

Jingle Jumble

Today's post in the A to Z Blogging Challenge is brought to you by the letter J, for... a lot of things!

J is for Jingle Bells, in metallics or colors

 Pretty little baubles that make a fun noise - they're even great on jewelry!

 J is for Jelly Beans, that can make pretty pictures

 They're also great to put in a cup for cake pops!

J is also for John Carter, my current literary obsession!

The first novel in the series is A Princess of Mars, and it's very good! I'm on book three now, all for free online (I'm reading the free kindle versions, but you can read them on any computer or mobile device, or buy the books in a store). The stories are great, you can't help but love John Carter, the loyal fighting Virginian transported to Mars. There was a movie last year based on parts of the first and second books, and while the movie was pretty good, the books are so much better (and there's a shirt on ThinkGeek to prove it) and well worth reading. It's somewhat historical science fiction in more ways than one - the first book was written one hundred years ago, and set after our Civil War, so John Carter is from about one hundred and fifty years ago - yet he travels to highly advanced Mars, which makes the book more science fiction. But the premise and story are still interesting today, so many years later.

Thank you for joining me once again for the A to Z Blogging Challenge, come back tomorrow for something starting with K!

Incarnations of Immortality - Book Series

Welcome again to my A to Z Blogging Challenge! Today's post starts with I for Incarnations of Immortality, a book series by best-selling author Piers Anthony.

There are eight books in this series, but the eighth book is hard to find and I saw bad reviews of it, so I have not read it yet. The first five books are the core series, focusing on basic Incarnations, while the next two, For Love of Evil, and And Eternity, feature the Incarnations of Good and Evil. The series is set in a fantasy and technology Earth, not far in the future. In this near-Earth, there has always been magic, and technology advanced similar to ours, but magic never lost power.

The books are about mortal people who BECOME the office of a certain fact of life - Death, Fate, Time, Nature, and War, as well as Good, Evil, and Night (in the final book I have not read). These mortals are no longer mortal, but Immortal, and have to deal with the duties of their office, be that taking souls, weaving the threads of life, commanding wars around the world or helping the earth heal after a great calamity.

The first book is called On A Pale Horse, and concerns the Incarnation of Death, the Grim Reaper of common tales. This was published in 1983, and is the best book of the series. It could be a stand-alone book, it really focuses on what it is to BE Death. The main character has the office thrust on him early in the book, and tries to refuse doing the job until he realizes the dangers of there being no death in the world.

The second book is Bearing an Hourglass, and features the Incarnation of Time, Chronos. This book is different, as Chronos lives backward from the time he takes the office. I was confused with the skipping timelines in this book and never really got through it. Some day I might try going back to it. My husband did finish the book, and says, "It was okay. Not great, but okay."

The third book is about Fate, titled With A Tangled Skein. There are actually three Incarnations of Fate: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, all living in the same body. I liked this book because the main character was female, and she goes through many trials throughout the book, and really deals with being Fate.

The fourth book, Wielding A Red Sword, is about the Incarnation of War. This was another character who tried to buck his responsibilities, trying to follow his own heart instead of fulfilling the duties of his office.

Being A Green Mother is the fifth book, about Mother Nature, the Incarnation of Nature. This was actually the first book I read, because I found it in a used book store and liked the cover (the pretty hair and face on the girl and the wooded background, not the exposed leg and low cut collar). On its own, this is a good book, but as the character doesn't actually BECOME the Incarnation until near the end of the book, it doesn't really jive with the original premise in On A Pale Horse.

The final two books I have read are For Love Of Evil and And Eternity. The book about the Incarnation of Evil is interesting, as it tells the story of how he became Satan, the history of the office through the ages. The book about the Incarnation of Good was less thrilling - concerning more the lack of action of the Incarnation of Good, and the journey to remove him from office and replace him with someone new.

There is one family in the series who plays part in all of the books, interwoven with the main characters of each book. I tried drawing out the family line, then became more interested in other books. I have not searched in a while, but a few years ago there were a few websites devoted to the series.

Overall, I enjoyed the series a lot more in high school, than later in my twenties when I really went back and thought about the books. I would recommend On A Pale Horse to anyone, the rest of the series if you really want to continue with the other Incarnations.

Thanks for reading this entry for the A to Z Blogging Challenge, join me again tomorrow for something starting with J!