http://www.vickipettersson.com/home.html This novel contains a fantasy within a fantasy as the story proceeds from a line of fictive comic books in the story, into what is reality in the story. The comic books foretell the plot. This is in contrast to what we are currently seeing as Urban Fantasy and YA fantasy are being redeveloped not only as movies but as graphic novels. So that is an interesting twist on a current publishing fad. And there are some stunning images in a junk yard of dead Vegas landmark signs one of which serves as a playground slide into an alternate dimension. The physiques of the characters is also comic book like. Curvy or bony, blue-black, long hair. She is very good at drawing these pictures with words. Vegas springs up in the desert on the page. The female characters are emotionally and physically as strong as the males, which is not always how women are drawn in fiction, even by female authors.e story
kiss/suck my arse/ass -- "But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers." From "Cassell's Dictionary of Slang" by Jonathon Green (Wellington House, London, 1998). Page 699.
I was just noting the actor playing Alcide Herveaux, Joe Manganiello while watching the previews and he is one big hunk of yum! Alcide is one of the were animals that plays a major part in Charlaine Harris' series of novels on which True Blood is based.It will be interesting to see what role(s) the were communities play in the series. But, they are bringing in a lot of the were characters. It may be that fans were asking why the show was so divergent from the books. We'll have to wait (argh!) to see how the story goes.
[Middle English, from Old English werewulf : wer, man; see wVia: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/werewolf-ro- in Indo-European roots + wulf, wolf; see wolf.]
Word History: The wolf in werewolf is current English; the were is not. Werewulf, "werewolf," occurs only once in Old English, about the year 1000, in the laws of King Canute: "lest the madly ravenous werewolf too savagely tear or devour too much from a godly flock." The wer- or were- in wer(e)wulf means "man"; it is related to Latin vir with the same meaning, the source of virile and virility. Both the Germanic and the Latin words derive from Indo-European *wThe American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were "Ordog"--Satan, "Pokol"--hell, "stregoica"--witch, "vrolok" and "vlkoslak"--both mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire.Although, to my eyes and ears "stegoica" seems a lot like the Italian for "witch" and "vrolok" sure looks a lot like "warlock," so maybe we only had need of one word for many beings whose very existence, and whose actions, pushed all our buttons about the unknown and the supernatural. (I love etymology)
But, the technical thing that made me discount the rest of the book was the car. Malveaux drove a silver Jaguar - they don't say which model but as there was a back seat large enough to hold a guitar case, it think it would have to be a J-series. Now, back before the "fall," I owned a Jaguar and I loved it. But, like most people in snowy climes,I had to store that sucker in the winter, when I was reduced to an old Windstar.
Anyway, giving up on Amber I decided to go for Redwood. I found a lot of references usually relating to wands and the properties of different woods including Redwood (Sequoia). The greatest number of references were in regards to a discrimination case against pagans in Redwood City, California. Perhaps Ms. Harrison was honoring witches by pointing to this discrimination -- giving them the scent of the tree to signifying their equality despite discrimination. A bit of a stretch...Stephanie Says:
May 22, 2010 at 4:43 pm | Reply
Stephanie Says:
I asked this earlier on the spoiler page and then realized it was not a spoiler.
Dear Ms. Harrison, I have been reading the Hollows series and was planning to write in my blog about the scents you mention for different Inderland species. Where did the different scents come from? I have found references to amber and amber being burnt which are all positive attributes and nothing demonic. I haven’t started on redwood yet, but plan to as well as elven and vampire scent. But, did these scents come about through an existing tradition or are they singularly yours? I realize that pinning qualities on mythical creatures in a story is kind of numb, but I always wonder in these stories where the reality is different, if the various attributes are traditional legend or author-created. It is such an important part of your stories that I can’t imagine you hadn’t thought about it.
So there you have it -- many species, I realized this morning, have scents -- Ms. Harrison has invented the scents she assigned to the various species in the Hollows series. I have no issue with an author doing this; it doesn't overpower the storyline or characters. It even adds to the story.
Kim Harrison Says:
May 24, 2010 at 8:16 am | Reply
Hi, Stephanie.
I’m a scent-oriented kind of person, so what things smell like show up in the book a lot. It’s hard to know if the scents that I’ve assigned come from somewhere else, because I will often draw on stuff I’ve read when I was in my teens and 20s, and not even realize it, but as far as I know, the vampiric incense, that elves smell like wine and cinnamon, witches like redwood, and demons like burnt amber, are all singularly my idea. They just seem to make sense to me, so I would not be surprised if you can find another reference to similar scents in older books.
His hair was the color of the sea, the oceans. The turquoise of the Mediterranean; the deeper medium blue of the Pacific; a stormy greyish-blue like the ocean before a storm, sliding into a blue that was nearly black, where the water runs deep and thick like the blood of sleeping giants. The colors moved with every touch of light, melding into each other as if it wasn't hair at all.
(Hamilton, Laurel K., A Kiss of Shadows: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (January 18, 2001), Kindle location 4,027-4,047)
Karen Marie Moning, author of the Fever Series and the Highlander (one of them) series, suggested the following as a good, but edgy read. Download the first five chapters at http://www.staciakane.net/books/unholy-ghosts/ . The first few paragraphs are smashing! The main character is described as a fully tattooed witch, so if you are into ink you might be interested. Karen is also setting up a rather neat convention in Atlanta called Fever Con -- her blog is found down in my links section.
My husband and I have been invited to a corporate beach weekend/costume party and are supposed to dress as our alter egos. Last year we did not wear costumes and felt very out of place. | http://www.imdb.com/video/TV/vi1242171161/ |
The book is unspecified as to reading level. There is a very slight suggestion of using seduction and an adolescent crush (so far, I am not finished; who knows what could happen!), and there is also the threat of violence towards the main characters as well as a retelling of quite horrible ways to die.
Reading fantasy is unique in that if I told you I was reading a book were a with arrests an elf at a wedding assisted by a pixie you would think I was reading a children's story (except for the arresting part) or a comedy. But in fantasy, you could read such and actually find yourself as I did; in tears at the end of For A Few Demons More, Kim Harrison's fifth installment in The Hollows series. This series bring s us in on the life of a Witch in post-bio-apocalyptic America about 40 years after a virus from a genetically engineered tomato killed 40% of the human population. Because of the "Turn" Supes were able to come out from centuries of living with and as humans. Witches, Were, Demons, Pixies, Elves and Faeries are all species separate from human, and Vampires are created by a virus and are living or undead. Living vampires are either made or born, and undead is what becomes of a living vamp on death. Undeads are not nice. Elves are dying out, fairies are pests, Pixies are the gardeners of the world, Witches are licensed, Were descended somehow from humans but, unless affected by a special spell a human cannot be made Were.
Sam 140
In Vampire Wars one is represented by an avatar; I am Simpatica. The avatar has skills that you "buy" with "blood" which you obtain fighting other avatars or going on missions. 
The history of a sexual association is discussed, ... through the folklore of the Gypsies and their neighbors, the southern Slavs. For example, corpses dug up as suspected vampires occasionally were reported to have an erection. Gypsies thought of the vampire as a sexual entity. The male vampire was believed to have such an intense sexual drive that his sexual need alone was sufficient to bring him back from the grave.
That appetite for tales of undead bloodsuckers has led to more than 200 film versions of Stoker’s Dracula alone, not to mention bizarre vampire-themed spin-offs and subgenres by the coffin load (including vampire pornography, vampire blaxploitation, vampire stripper films and lesbian vampire movies).
Ultimately the sheer volume and variety of the vampire genre comes down to the fact that the vampire myth is so versatile in its symbolism. The vampire is a shape-shifter that can take the form of society’s fears at any particular time. Thus in the 1920s an emancipated, sexually aggressive young woman, unsettling for society, was labelled a “vamp”; her wicked ways would leach the very manhood from her unfortunate victim. Later on, the vampire would come to symbolise, among other things, Aids and drug addiction (Abel Ferrera’s The Addiction) but it could also represent the allure of the outlaw or rebel, the cool gang to which everyone secretly wanted to belong, as in Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys. But most of all the vampire represents the outsider, and by extension every confused, misfit teenager in the world. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article4523559.ece (8/14/2008)
