Dragon Quill

Last time, vampires! Now, vampires. Yay, vampires! (more…)

Last time, our heroes just finished heroing it up to save a whole roomful of newborn babies – the most baby babies you can get!

Today:
Michael rested his chin in his hands and sighed. “I can’t believe we’re in jail.”

Okay yeah, but, like, noir + ignorant muggles. Of course you are. (more…)

Last time, a woman showed up and her appearance was only a little creepily described!

Harry gets right to the point, asking how Godmom got to him so fast. She’s all lolnope. Niceseeingyoubye? tries Harry.

She walked closer, her body moving with a lithe, sensuous grace

aaaaaaaaand so much for that. (more…)

Alright. So, last time, Harry was a piece of shit. Today, back to what he was doing when the book opened, back before he made it clear that yes, this book would be horrible.

Michael and I plunged through the hole I’d torn in reality and into the Nevernever. It felt like moving from a sauna into an air-conditioned office, except that I didn’t feel the change on my skin. I felt it in my thoughts and my feelings, and in the primitive, skin-crawling part of me at the base of my brain.

The book makes a desperate attempt to make me forget about that.

The little leather sack of ghost dust in my duster pocket abruptly increased its weight, dragging me off balance and to the ground. I let out a curse. The whole point of the ghost dust was that it was something extra-real, that it was heavy and inert and locked spiritual matter into place when it touched it. Even inside its bag, it had become a sudden stress on the Nevernever. If I opened the bag here, in the world of spirit, it might tear a hole in the floor. I’d have to be careful. I grunted with effort and pulled the little pouch out of my pocket. It felt like it weighed thirty or forty pounds.
Michael frowned down at my hands. “You know, I never really thought to ask before—but what is that
dust made of?”
“Depleted uranium,” I told him. “At least, that’s the base ingredient. I had to add in a lot of other things. Cold iron, basil, dung from a—”

And it does really good job! It’s not good enough and I still hope Harry gets mauled soon, but I’m willing to let the subject drop for a moment. (more…)

It’s time for us to jump back in time! Harry decides we really need the backstory to the fun present events.

Even days that culminate in a grand battle against an insane ghost and a trip across the border between this world and the spirit realm usually start out pretty normally. This one, for example, started off with breakfast and then work at the office.

Admittedly I’m way more sick of anyone thinking they need to start the story with breakfast than usual, but I don’t think anyone really wanted to stop and hear about what Harry’s office looks like instead of him following the ghost. Even if I accept this is basically necessary, I think a better point would’ve been to resolve the ghost thing then have an exhausted Harry quip about how this wasn’t how he expected things to go today, cue flashback.

(more…)

Last time:

I speared him into place with my most ferocious, dark-eyed smile and said, between teeth clenched
on the leather sack, “Hi. Could you tell us where the nursery is?”

Today:

We took the fire stairs.

Yup. We did just completely skip over how they managed to convince anyone to let them through after charging in like they were LARPers who’d finally lost the last vestiges of sanity. (more…)

I did threaten just doing the Exalted book, but I’ve had a break either way, so might as well get back to slogging through this.

Let’s see where we’re going.

There are reasons I hate to drive fast. For one, the Blue Beetle, the mismatched Volkswagen bug that I putter around in, rattles and groans dangerously at anything above sixty miles an hour. For another, I don’t get along so well with technology. Anything manufactured after about World War II seems to be susceptible to abrupt malfunction when I get close to it. As a rule, when I drive, I drive very carefully and sensibly.

So, solid opening. We’re recapping info for new readers, something that’s particularly important when one of the defenses of this series includes telling people not to pick up the first two books. For another, this is obviously setting up for the fact he’s about to tell us he is driving fast, and by listing the reasons that’s bad, we get a double shot of tension – speeding is even more dangerous than usual, and something even worse must be going on for him to be doing so.

(more…)