*points at title* That's a children's book (9+) by Derek Landy, a sequel of one I liked a lot, so I picked it up when I spotted it on the shelf in a local bookshop.

The backcover blurb reads, "You know how it is - you think you've saved the world, and then ANOTHER evil villain turns up with an unbeatable monster and starts breaking things. Oh, yes, and you've got a skull for a head. A thirteen-year-old girl for a sidekick. And no clue what to do..."

Now, while the weird prevalence of very nearly every damn book dealing with saving the world is getting on my nerves a bit, the first book's writing style made up for that. That blurb also suggests that Skulduggery Pleasant is the protagonist, which would have been nice. Unfortunately, he wasn't.

Playing with Fire takes place about one year after its prequel, and Stephanie is a mage in training and the skeleton detective's junior partner. She is the protagonist, and the title character of the series is a supporting character only.

As to the plot, some evil mage was sprung from prison and now tries to revive some kind of Frankenstein Monster which in turn will call Lovecraft-style elder gods back to our world.

In short, this book lacks everything that made the first one interesting.

The great dialogue that was the reason why I liked the prequel was nearly entirely absent, being genuinely funny in maybe two or three places, and otherwise coming across like annoying bickering rather than amusing banter. Unless dialogue was outright dropped and replaced by action scenes with far, far too many "and"s in them. Top it off with over-the-top gore I thought I didn't have to endure in children's books.

Neither was there a mystery, or any surprising plot twists. It was pretty clear what was going on from the start, and when information was needed, it was only a question of going to a particular person who had it, all very linear.

On top of that the more interesting plot threads (I'm thinking particularly of Stephanie's reflection, a double summoned out of a mirror to take her place at home and school while she's off adventuring, possibly growing into more than a mere reflection) are left dangling for the sequel(s?). I do not like books that cannot stand on their own, and I really dislike obviously deliberate sequel hooks.

Well, that was money wasted, and I definitely won't buy the next part.

...before I forget it entirely.

I'm currently somewhat stressed with studies, will try to post more interesting things soon-ish.

Narini for Cheeko (max09-01a) Celtic Knotwork Butterfly Snow Owl Waiting for pickup A - Ayu-Asra and Angus Mousey Dreams

Skulduggery Pleasant is a fantasy/horror/adventure children's book.

The setting is modern day, with sorcerers and at least some magic creatures hidden in the corners, and the main characters are Stephanie and Skulduggery Pleasant. She is a twelve year old girl who inherits a house and strange business. He is a skeletal-undead, sixgun-toting sorcerer detective. They fight crime. More precisely, they try to find out who murdered Stephanie's uncle. Occasionally they commit crime, too, but who cares?

The real action starts when Stephanie is almost killed by someone breaking into her late uncle's house in search for something. Mr Pleasant saves her, and what with him having blown the door off the hinges, she attaches herself to him for protection and curiosity. The case develops from "let's try to solve a murder" to "we gotta save the world!", including super-powerful magic items, ancient evil cultists and whatnot.

It takes some suspension of disbelief, particularly when it comes to "wait, who in their right mind would drag a 12 year old girl into a break-in when the guards are vampires who definitely are NOT pacifist and sparkly?!", or that one big point in favour of paper-golems may be that they are easily destroyed. On the plus side, at least the book addresses the question of what the parents think of their daughter going off adventuring, by providing a double.

The plot has some nice twists and there are interesting characters to be met - and some of them besides Stephanie are female, too.

What really makes the book enjoyable for me is the dialogue - quite a bit of banter. I forgive a lot of shortcomings, including the few tropes this one employs, if a book is fun to read.

Well, I posted my favourite bit, with the missing front door, already, so have another little sample.

"They're vampires," Skulduggery said. "The Vault has vampire security guards."
Stephanie made a show of poking her head out of the window and looking up at the sky. "The sun's still out, Skulduggery. It's still bright."
"Doesn't matter to them."
She frowned. "Doesn't sunlight kill them? Doesn't it turn them to dust, or make them burst into flames or something?"
"Nope. Vampires tan, just like you and me. Well, just like you. I tend to bleach."

Maybe not the best, but pretty short.

All in all, enjoyable entertainment I've re-read already.

Some images from the end of last year, some done (or at least finished) this year, including two collections of worldbuilding-realted rough sketches.

Cardinal Basaltine Arc Goblin SketchesSketches - Elves and Orcs Uriel for Amy K. Cyrway Tear for raocow

Chronicles of Narnia
It had some nice visuals, which, no doubt, were even better on the big screen. There were some nice moments in it.
But, damn, the whole "prophecy tells us to make a bunch of children war leaders to save the world, and it works" is so bloody, painfully stupid. As was dividing the good and pad people in Narnia along species lines, and putting the good guys in mirror-polished armour and in one case on a white unicorn, while the bad guys had black iron and were all in all more on the "ugly" goblin-and-troll side.
The movie also once again made me wonder if there is a fantasy stereotype saying that women in positions of power must be evil, or if my memory is selective there.

The Dark Crystal
Yeah, I saw that a short while ago for the first time, so no nostalgia for me here (same as with the Narnia movie; I never read the books).
Suffers from the same "prophesied hero with no clue whatsoever" as the above, but marginally less grave in my mind, because the scale is smaller... Or maybe I just like the rest of the movie more and thus am more forgiving.
The trying-to-figure-out-myths part of the story was rather interesting, even if it should not have been neccessary, if the gelfling's teachers were so damn wise. The ending seemed rather predictable to me, but, eh. I really loved the strange creatures all through the setting.

Labyrinth
Same as before, was new to me.
How refreshing! A story about "personal" problems rather than saving the world. Like in The Dark Crystal, I think the strongest point are the creatures and setting, though it got a bit very random at times, and I probably would have liked it better without that swamp full of farting arseholes.
Jareth's little "I did it all for you" speech was interesting. It's also one of the rare examples where I like the translation better than the original. From the German version, I expected the line that turned out to be "You cowered before me, I was frightening" to say "You wanted to fear me, so I was fearsome", which is just a better line.

All in all, I don't consider any of those a must-see.

Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-27426-8

As the title suggests, a book on drawing animals. Ken Hultgren was an animator for Disney, the former showing in poses and walk cycles, the latter in some of the "carricature" examples.

Ignoring the preface, here we have 134 pages full of black and white illustrations, with a few explanations thrown in. Quite many of the example drawings are shown as one roughed in and one finished version.

After 18 pages of general notes (the division of the body in three parts, rule of the thumb for placement of eyes and ears, boxing in forms, examples for simplified skeleton and mannikin frames, "mood and feeling", "use of line", and some examples of textures you can achieve with a brush) the book is divided into "chapters" of very varying length devoted to one animal or group of animals each. Nearly all of those have action poses like leaping, and a page or two on carricaturing the animal(s) in question.

The first one, "The Horse Family", goes over 29 pages into most detail, starting with how the different parts of the skeleton are made up and fit together, the assumption being that the reader will be able to apply the same methods to other animals without being walked through all of the steps again. In addition to random action poses throughout the chapter there are sequences on leaping, kicking out, trot and canter. For a bit variety from the "generic horse" there's a page on draft horses and zebras each, as well as a double page on colts.

The 20 pages of "The Cat Family" is mainly devoted to lions, with a page each on Tigers and Domestic Cats.

"The Deer Family" (including stags and fawns) is covered on 9 pages including sequences of walk and jump. It only shows a "generic deer", no note on different species. By contrast, the later chapter "Dogs" of the same length has only a page of random sketches for general information, followed by one or two pages each with sketches of a particular breed. "The Bear Family" and "Elephants"  are similar in page count, with the elephant chapter being noteworthy for a for the species unexpected variation of poses (albeit none "leaping").

Five pages spared for "Cows and Bulls", four for "Kangaroos" (including a jump cycle), three each for rabbits (and a hare which wasn't labelled as such), foxes, pigs and warthogs, and gorillas, two for giraffes, and camels (both, like the elephant, sadly lacking any information about pace, their main or only gait), and a single page on squirrels.

The book is capped by a 7-pages chapter on "Composition and Animal Grouping".

I was slightly disappointed because the title implies more variety than is actually shown; "The Art of Mammal Drawing" would have been more accurate. The "The X Family" chapters are more concerned about showing (presumably) commonalities, rather than going into details of differences between species.

There is nothing like the staple of how to draw humans books, the figure divided into head-heights, so you need to be able to see or measure the proportions from the examples, or photos or models.
On the other hand, I think the many examples of "roughed in" mannikin - simplified skeleton and/or basic shapes - next to a finished image can be very helpful.

In my eyes the greatest strength of the book are the dynamic poses, and particularly the running and jumping sequences.

Considering the low price, this for me was worth it.