February is Fantasy Month Final Week//

Welcome to my final February is Fantasy Month post. How many of you are sad to see it end? How many of you are thinking "finally"?

One last post and what better way to do it than to take part in the fantasy favorites blog tag?

Pictures gotten from Pinterest and Goodreads respectively.

Rules:

Thank the blogger who tagged you. Thanks Jenelle for coming up with all of these awesome questions. Also for hosting February is Fantasy month. It's been fun!

Include the graphic somewhere in your post.

Answer the questions.

Tag a few blogger friends – and let them know they’ve been tagged

Have fun!

And now onto the tag...



What is your favorite fantasy book?

Okay, wow, we get straight to the deep questions *blows breath out for several seconds trying to stall* Um, my favorite fantasy book???? Sheesh. You're really gonna make me choose? Okay, I guess I'm going to go with the Storm Siren trilogy* and no, I'm not going to pick one book. It goes to the whole trilogy.

*second place goes to the Ascendance Trilogy

Like, Nym isn't my favorite heroine. Eogan isn't my favorite hero. This world isn't my favorite fantasy world, and the magical elements aren't my favorite. But somehow all of the elements added together make my favorite fantasy book series and I'm not entirely sure how that works???

Honestly, this series is such an inspiration for my own fantasy books. It was through this where I first started trying to make up my own fantasy language. I will forever laugh out loud any time I come across the term Bolcrane. It's my favorite thing, not gonna lie.

That twisty cliffhanger ending of the first book is my muse. I will forever be trying to write an ending just as cruel and unpredictable as that one*

*Yes that's right, readers, you have this series to blame for my cliffhangers.

So yeah this one gotta go to Storm Siren.


What is your favorite fantasy movie or TV show (or both!)?

This isn't even a question. Lord of the Rings. No doubt. I probably wouldn't even be an author, or even a fantasy lover without these movies. It is rare that I like the movie more* than the book. I tend to like the book more than the movie on principle, but this is not the case with Lord of the Rings. Don't get me wrong, the books are great! But the movies are a cinematic masterpiece.

*the only other movie where this is the case is How to Train Your Dragon

If you were mean and made me have to choose I would be forced to choose The Two Towers. Sam's speech at the end will probably always be my favorite part. "Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to see the end because how could the end be happy? How could things go back to the way they were when so much bad had happened?" <<<< got that bit from memory so it's probably not word for word. But I love all of the movies. Boromir's death will forever drive me to tears. Eowyn's plight will always garner my sympathy. Aragorn will be my favorite until the end of days and I'll probably freak out every time that scene at the end of the first movie happens where he takes on all of those orcs on his own while telling Frodo to run. "I would have followed you to the end. To the very fires of Mordor itself."

Who is your favorite fantasy hero/heroine?

Oh wow, another mean question. To help make this question easier for me to answer, I am going to stick with the main characters in a book, and not any love interests. They muddy the water. With that distinction now in place, I'm probably going to have to go with Sage from the Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer Neilson. This guy is so crazy smart, I love his devious little mind. Also, his sarcasm speaks to my soul. My sassy son...

Not that I don't love Nym from Storm Siren or any of the other characters from other books that I've read, but if I had to pick only one, it would be Sage. Which is probably because I tend to like guy characters more (hence me having to remove all of the love interests from the equation). But also, like I said, he's my sassy son.








Who is your favorite fantasy side-kick?

So I've thought long and hard about this and even though I love so many characters from Scarlet Moon by S.D. Grimm I can't really say that any of them are specifically side-kicks. They are all main characters. That book has a lot of main characters.

Therefore the sidekick role is gonna go to... *drum roll please* MILES from you guessed it Storm Siren. I love that slimy little weasel with a lisp with all of my heart. This guy is probably the character I have seen have the biggest character arc because I absolutely loathed him in the first book and by the end of the third book I was basically like, "Okay characters, you know I love you all, but if it comes down to saving yourself or saving Miles, you'd better save my Lord Protectorate or you will have me to pay. Got it?" Good. Because I seriously love Miles so much.

Who is your favorite fantasy villain? (the one you most love to hate?)

Oi, so that's hard because I love twisted complicated villains as much as the next person and it's a good thing that I'm not doing my own books because then it would be Ismena all the way*.

*Mommy is sorry for everything she did to you

But if not Ismena then I guess I'm going to have to go with Draewulf from *ahem* that's right, Storm Siren. This shape shifting body snatching wolf-thingy has all of the diabolical villain traits down pat. Also, I kinda love him for his habit of shoving his hair behind his ear.

Bonus points the the villain that I hate to hate Jasyne Crowe from Unblemished. I really liked that misunderstood psychopathic grandpa.

Jeb needs to get his ugly face off of this cover stat

My least favorite fantasy villain who I just have to hate- even though he might not technically be a
villain just the person who ruined the series for me, and might not technically be straight fantasy (urban fantasy if anything)- Jebidiah Holt from the Splintered trilogy. I hate him with every fiber of my being. Even more than Draewolf. And even though I just love hating this jerktastic dumb noodle, I would actually rather that he not exist so yeah. Draewulf wins this round.






What is your favorite fantasy sub-genre?

Shouldn't this question be easier for me to answer since I did a whole post about fantasy sub-genres at the beginning of the month???

I guess I'm going to have to go with good old fashioned High Fantasy. Especially since at least 90% of the stories that I've mentioned here are High Fantasy. Though Storm Siren is kinda steam-punky...

What is your favorite thing about fantasy?

Can I cheat and say everything? Because seriously, I love everything about fantasy. The tropes, the types of characters, the world building, the magic, the dragons. Everything.

What is your favorite fantasy realm?

Oh gosh, I think this might be the hardest question yet because my favorite fantasy realm isn't Middle Earth, and it isn't Narnia, and it isn't the world from the ascendance trilogy. They're all great but they are missing elements that I like and/or I don't actually like the magic system in them.

Honestly, I can't think of a favorite fantasy realm outside of my own darling Amar. Because the thing is, I should probably want to live in my favorite fantasy realm. Except... fantasy realms can get pretty violent. Lots of wars, and I notice that there are a great many people who seem to end up dead. Hmm... I'd rather not be one of those people. Let's see, it has to have dragons and magic, and preferably if there were any dark lords, they were defeated already. I don't know, actually, I guess the world I would probably want to visit is Doon. Pretty Scottish setting, hot Scottish guys galore even if it doesn't have dragons... This is not my favorite fantasy world by a long shot, but I absolutely cannot think of a favorite fantasy realm so I'm just going to go with one that I want to visit right now. In other words: the fantasy world I am least likely to die in.


What is your favorite fantasy magic system?

Oh look at that, a question that I don't have to agonize over. And the prize goes to the magic system in Black Mage by Rachel E. Carter. Maybe it's because I just finished this series, but I know the magic system in this book so well. It was described with such detail.

I came to feel like the character's magic was a character all its own. Not because it had a personality or anything, but simply because it was so well developed throughout all of the books.






Sell me a fantasy book! Have you written a fantasy book? Give me your best pitch for it!

*chuckles ominously* So, I've actually written several fantasy books, but I guess the one I will "pitch" right now is A Certain Sort of Madness because I feel like between all of my talk of A Winter Dark and Deadly and the next My Time in Amar book, this book baby doesn't get as much attention.

A heist in a fantasy world, imaginary friends, a band of misfits, dragons... well, just the one; and Alicia. One slightly crazy, slightly naive girl based off of both Rapunzel and Alice from Wonderland who has untold magical powers. Throw her snarky cousin and a monkey into the midst and...

I mean, what isn't going to go wrong?


Okay, hopefully that sounds all right. I came up with it on the spot when I realized that I didn't actually have a pitch planned.

Have you read an exceptionally great fantasy book recently? Convince me to make it my next read!

You thought I was going to mention Storm Siren right? Well, you were wrong, hopefully I already sold you with all of my answers that were already about Storm Siren. Since, I didn't mention this in the post I'm going to recommend My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison even if I haven't read it recently, though I've been hankering for a reread.

This book is Magical Realism at its finest. It's also a unique twists on the fairy tale retellings of both Cinderella and Snow White- yes two of them, but you will have to read it in order to figure out how that works out Mwahaha

Rallison is an expert on creating lovable (and shippable *waggles eyebrows*) characters. Savannah is definitely my runner up to Sage as my favorite heroine in this genre. I just feel her so strongly. Also, it's hilarious so yeah. Please stop reading this now and go read it.

Look, I'll even leave you a link to its Goodreads and Amazon pages because I'm nice and you seriously need this book in your life.




So that was fun! For me at least. I hope you all enjoyed it too.

I tag...
Faith
Lila
Merie
And everyone who read this blog post and thought, hmm... this seems like fun.

Still want more February is Fantasy month? Check out these blog posts here and here! And make sure that you check out the giveaway because it has dragons. Translation: IT'S EPIC!!!

You're turn. Have you enjoyed these February is Fantasy month posts? What is your favorite fantasy book/movie/villain/or sidekick? Have you read any of the books I've listed here? Comment bellow!