Happy Birthday, King's Warrior

Happy Birthday, King's Warrior!

Today is King's Warrior's very first birthday! Yes, King's Warrior is four years old, but since it was released on Feb. 29th, technically today is it's first actual birthday.To celebrate, I thought I'd share a list of some of my absolute and extremely random favorites from the fantasy genre.Jenelle's Favorite Fantasy...Dragon - this is a hard one, but I'm going to have to go with the dragon from the BBC television series, Merlin. I think the reason I love him so much is because he's just so thoroughly DRAGON. He's willing to talk and can be commanded by certain individuals, but he's also extremely powerful and, like the Ents from Lord of the Rings, he isn't quite on anyone's "side" as nobody is quite fully on HIS "side." I'm cheating slightly, because it's not a book.... but it's too hard to choose. There's Smaug, of course! And the drakhoun from  the Tears of Artemon by Sarah Ash, and Death-in-Life in Tales of Goldstone Wood, and the Dragon in The Oath, and Strabo from the Magic Kingdom of Landover series, and Kazul from Dealing with Dragons, the dragons in Jane Yolen's Pit Dragon series, and now I'm falling in love with the dragon from HL Burke's The Dragon and the Scholar... I just LIKE dragons, okay? I cannot pick. I love them all.Princess - Cimorene from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, definitely. She's so feisty and pragmatic. I love how she can be sarcastic and respectful all at the same time, and how she hates being interrupted when she's focused on something.Quote - "It was a sad song, a heartbreaking song, wild and proud... about all the losses a human heart might hold dear and remember. We are alike, you and I, she thought, homeless wayfarers in a world that is not our own." -- Stephen R. Lawhead, Taliesin - something about this quote has always just resonated within my soul with its truth and epic-ness.Battle - I am going to have to go with the entire book A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson. The entire Wheel of Time series leads up to this book and the entire book IS a battle... which was, for me, a thoroughly satisfying way to end the story. I didn't love the way the book ended, but it remains the most impressive battle scene I've ever read. Second place would, of course, have to go to the Battle at Helm's Deep from the Two Towers.Villain - it might be a bit cliche, but I'm gonna have to go with Voldemort. Not many other villains give me the creeps quite like he does. Sauron definitely takes the "ultimate villain of all time" slot, but for me, he's just a bit too impersonal and removed from events to be my favorite villain.Bard - This one has to be a toss up between Fflewddur Fflam from Alexander Lloyd's Prydain Chronicles and Eanrin from Anne Elisabeth Stengl's Tales of Goldstone Wood. Very interesting, different, and yet somehow very similar characters and I love them both so much. I tend to have a weakness for "minstrel" type characters (which will come as no surprise to anyone who has read my books!) and it all began with Fflewddur Fflam. Eanrin is a much more recent addition to my favorites list... though it means no less (actually, more!) that he has found a place there.King - Ben Holiday from Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom of Landover series. I love him so very much, and I enjoy that he comes to be king through an extremely random series of events, that he is in no way prepared for the responsibilities involved in being king, and how he rises to the occasion and refuses to give up even when he discovers that his kingdom is on the brink of falling apart. He's no Aragorn, of course, but he is noble and stalwart and loyal nonetheless.Cover - Okay, this may not be strictly fantasy, but it is my favorite book cover EVER right after the ones Angelina created for my books and for my Grandma's book... and I also really love the cover for Five Enchanted Roses, but anything that has my name on it feels like cheating... so... despite the fact that this is more Urban/Gothic than strictly fantasy, it does have a dragon in it, so I always counted it as fantasy. It was an extremely sad day for me when I discovered that this book had undergone a cover change:*shivers* it's just so..... CREEPY and AWESOME!Romance - I'm gonna have to go with the one in Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. I love it so much. I'm not going to say anything more about it, because it gives too much of the mystery in the story away... but it's beautiful... and complicated, and there's nary a triangle to be seen.Character - I don't know why I pick such difficult categories to choose from... but, if I'm honest... probably Haplo from the Death Gate Cycle. (Though there's a book I'm getting the privilege to Alpha Read and the main character in that definitely has the makings of getting up there very near or possibly at the top of the favorites list... but since that book isn't published yet, I can't really say any more about it).Series - Um. Lord of the Rings. No contest.And that concludes Fantasy February! I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. If you're worried that the fun has come to an end, fret not! There are some plans coalescing to continue the fun, and to allow you to have an easy, but more active, part in it all. Stay tuned for more information on that!I shall leave you with this silly clip from one of my favorite, ridiculous movies, Pirates of Penzance and another February 29th birthday:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXhJKzI1u48 What are your favorite fantasy things? Feel free to write a blog post about them or just tell me in the comments!