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Terrific news, from Fantasy Book Review via Charlotte's Library: Jonathan Stroud is writing a prequel to the Bartimaeus Trilogy! According to Fantasy Book Review, "The new and fourth Bartimaeus book will follow Bartimaeus’s adventures during his 5,000 year career as a djinni." I'm a little unsure how that will work out, because it's tough to write a book that spans 5000 years but still has a narrative that holds together, unless it's going to be more like a series of short stories. But I loved the trilogy, and the snarky Bartimaeus was such a great character with a unique voice, so I'm holding out hope that this will be great.

Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer

by Laini Taylor

Magpie isn't like other faeries. Accompanied by her band of crows, she travels the world, capturing devils that the unwitting humans have released from the bottles in which they've been imprisoned for thousands of years. But when she finds an empty bottle with a broken seal bearing the sign of Magruwen, the Djinn King, she knows that this is no ordinary devil. For Magruwen himself to have sealed the bottle means that its occupant must be powerful. And indeed, the horror that has been unleashed on the world is a monstrous shadow known as the Blackbringer, which devours everything in its path. Magruwen and the other Djinn withdrew from the world millennia ago, and the magic of the faeries has diminished over the years. Magpie and her friends are all that stands between the world and this new horror.

It's hard to describe Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer in a way that does it justice. Start with a richly imagined world, add a heroine who is not only courageous but obsessed, stir in a bunch of other interesting characters, and throw in some stuff about dreams and the relationship and responsibility between a creator and his creations, and you've got a potent mix.

Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer is a wonderful book on many levels, but at its core what really makes it work is the interactions between the characters, especially between Magpie and the other characters. Magpie is astonishing in her stubbornness, her determination, and her devotion to her friends. She's a young woman on a mission, and she's not going to let anything stand in her way, even her creator. One of my favorite scenes has her facing off against the Djinn King, creator of the world, in a like-father-like-daughter type contest of wills. The other characters in the book are equally interesting, including a young man who overcomes his physical limitations in surprising ways, and matches Magpie in personal heroism.

The Cobra King of Kathmandu
Author: P.B. Kerr
Publisher: Orchard Books
ISBN-10: 0439670233
ISBN-13: 978-0439670234


The third book in the The Children of the Lamp series brings back 12-year old djinn children John and Philippa Gaunt on yet another adventure. This time they are trying to uncover a murderer and protect their friend Dybbuk or Buck as he likes to be called, all the time unaware that their mother, Leila Gaunt has agreed to become the new Blue Djinn of Babylon and will be leaving soon – forever.

The book starts with an exorcism by the children’s cigar smoking Uncle Nimrod on the day the children were born. The story then hurtles forward to the present day when Dybbuk seeks the children’s help as he is hidden on a small island after finding his best friend and his father murdered. As the story progresses, the children find themselves in India on the trail of a creepy cobra cult led by an equally creepy (not to mention gross) evil villain that wants to steal their wisdom teeth and thus control the children for their own evil purposes.

The Cobra King of Kathmandu is a fast-paced and wild adventure written with P.B. Kerr’s usual fascinating style. It doesn’t disappoint or feel stale. If anything, it gets the reader more excited about these amazing children.

Why hasn’t anyone made movies of these books yet? I find them exhilarating, educational and fun, fun, fun.

John and Philippa are great characters. They’re good children, they love their parents, they care enough about their friends (even if their not the best of friends) to try and save them. The other characters - Uncle Nimrod, the one-armed butler Mr. Groanin, Mr. Rakhasas, the Indian djinn with an Irish accent who lives in a bottle, Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt, the other djinn children all are so complex and interesting. They are constantly developing and the reader is finding out more and more about them with each book. I see this as a series of movies in the style of Harry Potter. They just have that feel but are something completely original and wonderful.

The imagery in this book is wonderful as well. I love when John, Philippa and Dybbuk go into Mr. Rakshasas’ bottle and find it to be absolutely huge and very well appointed – complete with an astounding library. I love that the djinn are claustrophobic and have to eat charcoal to help the feeling go away. There’s just so much to love in this series and in this book alone that I could go on for days. The Cobra King of Kathmandu (don’t you just love that title? It’s so fun to say out loud.) is highly recommended for anyone who loves a good mystery and adventure galore.

Fans of The Children of the Lamp series will adore this third installment and newcomers to the series will find that it works very well as a stand alone novel. It will however, infect the newcomer to seek out and read the first two books.

The rain turned to snow before midnight, and I was already asleep by then, feeling sort of under the weather. This morning the sky was a perfect blue and, feeling a bit less like I was getting 'flu than I had the night before, I headed out for a walk in the woods.

The best thing about going for walks in the woods are the cats, who pretend they aren't really along for the walk, but are merely there by some kind of feline coincidence. Today the cat pretending she wasn't actually accompanying me was Princess, who was extremely well camouflaged. We startled a rabbit hiding in a fallen screech-owl box, who waited until we were inches away to thump off at speed.

I don't think I've made New Year's Resolutions for a while, but I think it's time to lose some weight, get back into shape and start to think about the next adult novel while getting a lot more written on the next children's novel. Meanwhile, lots of small deadlines to get done.

I'm not sure how long this article from the Economist will stay up online, but reading it left me wishing I hadn't already written a djinn story, in American Gods, and starting to wonder if there wasn't something else I wanted to say.

All this may yet play a part in the war on terrorism. Factions in Somalia and Afghanistan have accused their enemies of being backed not only by the CIA but by malevolent jinn. One theory in Afghanistan holds that the mujahideen, “two-legged wolves”, scared the jinn out into the world, causing disharmony. It is jinn, they say, who whisper into the ears of suicide-bombers.

...The story of Ahmed Shah Masoud, the commander of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, clearly shows up the link between jinn and myth-making. Masoud resisted the Soviet Union and the Taliban from his base in the Panjshir valley until he was assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives on September 9th 2001. According to local legend, Muslim jinn were on his side. One of his fighters was said to have slain a dragon in a mountain lake during the Soviet occupation and to have brought the dragon's jewel to Masoud, with the help of Muslim jinn. In murdering Masoud, some Panjshiris say, Osama bin Laden declared war on Muslim jinn also.