(no subject)

[shadowkat]

1. They've announced Stephen Colbert as the replacement for David Letterman - which is an interesting choice. The Colbert Report is pure satire. What will he do in the Letterman slot?

2. Doing quite a bit of sketching at night. With colored pens and pencils. And not drawing from pictures or photos or objects, but from my head. Haven't done that in a while. It's relaxing. And I'm actually good at it.

Drawing used to be how I relaxed. It's always come easily for me. Writing was harder. Drawing was easy.

3. I've fallen in love with the Kate Daniels series. The characters are fascinating, as are the themes, metaphors, and lovely tid-bits from various mythologies, religions and legends interspersed throughout. This has got to be the best world-building that I've seen in an urban fantasy or fantasy series in a long time.

Been a while since I've fallen in love with a series of books or anything culturally speaking.

Comments

[sophist.livejournal.com]

I'm going to catch you. Just finished the 3d Kate Daniels book.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ah - so I'm guessing you're enjoying them?

The dialogue is great in these books. I've been laughing my head off in the third one.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like the banter. And I like the creativity in coming up with the villains.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm loving the mythological references. Magic Strikes is delving in Jewish mysticism and Hebrew mythology. With Golems, the magic box.
I also think Kate Daniels family roots may go back to Russian/Jewish mythos.

The writer clearly has an interest in mythology, specifically Eastern Europe and Middle Eastern/Indian. Along with Celtic.

The writer also has a background in biochemistry - which explains the details on the shapeshifters.

Honestly...I think this is by far the best urban fantasy series I've read to date. (I've read five...the worst is Charlain Harris' Sookie Stackhouse mysteries which the HBO series True Blood is based.)

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Andrews does do her research. She must spend a lot of time reading books on mythology. Also weaponry.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The weaponry is taken care of by Gordon Andrews...her husband, who was a Sgt. in the US military, and served in, I think, the Gulf War. So he knows about warfare, weaponry, and military strategy and regime. He writes some of the Curran POV stories...

He's not as adept a writer as she is.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Nice to have an expert handy.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yep - we get long paragraphs describing the weaponery and what it can do. Most books? You just have a trusty gun or sword or staff.