Fina's Commonplace Book

If there's anything that the publishing market is saturated with, it's fantasy. With so many stories available, how do you sort out the mediocre from the truly great? With patience. As a fantasy bookworm, I've had my share of badly written fantasies. But fortunately, there's always gems, and I've been lucky to find several excellent fantasy books (and series!) that I'm sure you all will appreciate. Photo by  Ricardo Cruz  on  Unsplash 1. Fawkes by Nadine Brandes A historical speculative fiction set during the reign of King James the First of England, Fawkes explores family, faith, and race in a thought provoking, honest, and sometimes emotional look at the Gunpowder Plot and those who took part in it.  Thomas Fawkes is dying. Soon, the Stone Plague in his eye will spread, and he will be nothing but a statue. Without his Color Mask, he's helpless, and so he travels to London to find his father, Guy Fawkes. Through him, Thomas is soon tangled ...

Editing can take a lot of different forms. From taking a completed draft and adding whole new plot lines, or going line by line and changing punctuation and wording, the word "edits" encompasses  a lot  of different things. Photo by  Glenn Carstens-Peters  on  Unsplash Recently, I wrote a snippet of a scene for my YA fantasy novel,  Blood Curse.  I knew from the moment I typed it up that it was going to need work (read: EDITS), and I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to show you all my method for going through a scene edit -- not a large scale, plot changing story edit, or a line edit, but something in between. Here is the original scene, as I typed it: I frowned. “But --” Bang! Pain shot through my temple and I stumbled forward, staring around blindly. What -- Gro took off with a startled scream. Kay cursed. “Get down!”   He shoved me to the ground as another shot whizzed over our heads. “What’s --” “They’ve fo...

Summary Nova Artino wants vengeance against the Renegades -- a band of superheroes who are dedicated to preserving law and order after the chaos of the Age of Anarchy. Nova has reasons to hate the Renegades, and nothing will stop her in her mission to assassinate her prime target -- Captain Chromium, the head of the Renegade Council. Well, almost nothing. When she is inducted into the Renegades, she meets Adrian Everheart, and suddenly, everything gets more complicated. Adrian Everheart wants justice. As a member of the Renegades, he knows that obeying the code is vital to maintain order. But when he discovers the mysterious villain Nightmare may have something to do with his mother's murder, he is desperate for answers. Under the guise of the Sentinel, he searches for the answers to the questions that have plagued him for years. My Review I really liked this book. The whole idea of a superhero uprising -- and then superheroes trying to rebuild the world afterwards -- was s...

The agent sits, tied to a chair in the middle of a concrete room. Around him, half a dozen gang members lounge against the walls, rifles hanging from their hands. There's nothing to worry about. They have Agent Smith, and soon, they would have the information he possessed, too. No need to be alarmed. Suddenly, the steel door flies open with a bang. There stands Agent Smith's partner, Lady Ross, her black leather jacket spotless, her hair and makeup all in order, a pistol cocked in each hand. "Hey, fellas." She smirks at the guards, who, stunned, don't raise their guns until it's too late. Lady Ross kicks one in the face, sweeps another's legs out from under him, and takes out the rest in short order. "Come on, Smith," she says, cutting through his bonds with a single swipe of a knife. "You men just always have to get captured, don't you?" Photo by  Sofia Sforza  on  Unsplash Lady Ross is probably an all too familiar fa...

I am a young earth creationist and am not afraid to admit it. I believe that God created the heavens and the earth in six literal days, and that He created all of life in that time as well. It is to me the only logical and explanation of how we all got to be here. But obviously, not all Christians would agree with me. Recently, I watched a video of a presentation by Francis Collins, who is a founder of the theistic evolution website, BioLogos. Theistic Evolutionists believe that God created all of life using evolution, and just "got it started". While this view presents numerous, undeniable problems, I will only focus on one today, one which I think is the most important aspect of the evolution/creation debate. While I was watching Dr. Collins' presentation, I was appalled by the twisted theology of sin, death, and humanity he presented. According to him, God started the evolutionary process and sat back, watching eons of death and mutation and "survival of the f...

Here we go. Superhero movies seem to be a topic of great debate in today's culture. "Are you DC or Marvel?" "Batman or Iron Man?" You can't escape it. Well, I'm going to be up front with you - I like some Marvel movies. I like some DC movies. Batman movies are the best (not up for debate.) Get ready for my list of the best superhero movies to date. Prepare to be amazed. Or not. 1. The Dark Knight Trilogy I'm sorry, all you Marvel fans, but The Dark Knight Trilogy has to be the best series of superhero movies I've ever seen. And here's why: it wasn't created to satisfy popular demand. It wasn't one of those movies that have to be churned out within a couple months to keep on schedule. The writers, director, producers, the actors - all of them worked together, and worked hard, to create, not an acceptable superhero movie, but a great superhero movie.  And that's what they accomplished. The Dark Knight Trilogy encompas...