As a reader (and keeper of books) one thing I especially like are bookends. I have some standard black wire bookends which do the job of keeping my books from falling over. But, they just do the job, nothing more. I prefer bookends with some drama, some personality and some mystery even. Sometimes I like a romantic style, sometimes architecture catches my eye and I have bookends which are not really bookends but chunks of rock and stone from old buildings.

Whatever bookends attract you they still need to be functional. The purpose of bookends is not to pose fashionable at the end of a row of books. Bookends need to hold up your books, keep them from falling over on bookshelves and then slipping and slopping their way onto the floor. Bookends are great.

I have a lovely bookshelf but... the sides were not designed with the idea of keeping books in place. The sides are left open and my books fall through if I don't use bookends to hold them in place. I also use this for my very small collection of video games and my even smaller collection of movies on DVDs. So, bookends aren't just for books and book readers.

Gargoyles Would Look Great on my Bookshelves

Don't those gargoyles look great. Sitting there, quiet, still and supposedly made of rock with rock for brains too. However, I suspect when you head off to work, school, or whatever it is you do with your day, the gargoyles will read your books. I hope you pick something good for them to read. Change around the books they hold too. You don't want to leave them with nothing new to read.

You don't need to leave your gargoyles milk and cookies, that would be silly. You're just thinking of Santa. But, a well placed bookmark would be a great idea to keep them from turning down pages to mark their place in your book.

Does a dragon count as a gargoyle? I think so. Dragons have been seen on the sides of buildings among the other odder looking gargoyles. I wonder if they all have their books tucked away up there, hidden from public view?

Gargoyle Girl, is/was a site by Gigi Pandian. It's still online but no longer updated.

The words "never seen again" are the creepiest phrase I've ever heard. They show up in childhood fantasy tales, as well as horror stories. So any story, fiction or fact, with those words haunts me. They are creepy and fascinating and a mystery usually not solved.

I turned on Tubi and watched a few episodes of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction last night. One of the episodes, 'The Kid in the Closet', was about a boy with a monster in his closet. His older brother teased him about it and then, to prove there was no monster, he went into the closet and shut the door. They heard him making a ruckus, yelling and banging at the door, then it went quiet. The Mother came in to see what was going on. She opened the closet, no one was inside. No older brother. But, his shoes and a pile of the clothes he had been wearing were there, without him.

Police were called, inspected the closet and found no way for him to get out. At the end of the episode they said he was never seen again and claimed this story is based on a true event.

Any time someone is never seen again is creepy. The police thought the boy had run away. On the show they left that sort of hanging, but doubtful. Also, the police had not found any way he would have gotten out of the closet, other than the door. His clothes and shoes were left in the closet. Those two things seem a bit odd, even after I found out more.

It turns out, according to the source I found after a bit of a search, that the boy did run away. So, how did he get out of the closet? The police didn't notice the ceiling panel when they looked? I guess he was at least wearing his underwear, the show didn't say all his clothes were left in the closet. So, it is still a little puzzle. It is possible the whole thing really is a hoax, in spite of the show saying it was fact, not fiction.

A bit of digging turns up at least one comment on the show’s IMDB message board, posted on February 12, 2008, in which the commenter shared her correspondence with someone who had worked on Beyond Belief and knew the actual truth:

“The Beyond Belief: fact or fiction story about the monster in the kid’s closet was based on an actual event that I personally investigated,” she was told. “At the time it happened there was no explanation for the boy’s disappearance— until two weeks later when it was learned that he had climbed out of the closet through a ceiling panel and ran away from home. He stayed at a friend’s house surreptitiously until the friend’s mother discovered him hiding in the attic of their home and exposed the ruse.”

The show’s producer wouldn’t discover this very important detail until it was far too late.

Source: Stranger Dimensions - Beyond Belief: The Kid in the Closet

Can you buy and then read the last book in a series, knowing there will not be another. Once you read the final page all the adventures will be over. When you close the cover all those characters will become just memories.

This is The End for Rachel Morgan and the Hollows series of books by Kim Harrison

Letting go of a great book is hard. But, knowing this is the last book in what has been such a wonderful, readable adventure... that's really hard. Kim Harrison's series of books with Rachel, Ivy, Jenks and the rest of the group living at the old church in the Hollows has become my complete favourite in the urban fantasy/ horror genre.

Multi genre series: urban fantasy, alternate history or horror? Not always easy to find in a bookstore.

The Hollows is a location just outside of Cincinnati. Our current time line all changed when the existence of Others came to light. Tomatoes became deadly, for awhile. The people divided themselves into Others and humans/ everyone else. Rachel Morgan doesn't know it but she's a demon witch or witch demon depending on how you look at it. Long ago Rachel was saved from death due to her demon blood and this becomes an important part of her life as the adventure moves along from the world of paranormal bounty hunter, vampire culture bystander, a witch shunned and a demon who can perform dark magic but at the cost of collecting smut on her aura. The story covers 13 books so you don't need to know it all before you even begin, at the beginning.

The Misadventures of Rachel Morgan...

There are a lot of great characters in the Hollows

My favourite character (other than Rachel) is Ivy. Kim Harrison herself once wrote that Ivy scared her as she wrote the character even. That always stuck in my mind. The vampire culture and history was given a lot of focus as the Hollows series goes along. I liked the backstory evolving for Ivy and her vampire kin. I hope her story gets more attention, maybe a book of her own.

My other favourite is Algaliarept, most often known by the short form, Al. Rachel dated a few men (and Ivy) during the series but this was never the focus. It is all about the story, the adventure. But, of all the men in Rachel's adventures: Nick, Kisten, Glenn, Pierce, Trent, David and a couple others on the fringes, Al is the only one I really wanted her to care about and keep around. Al is more than just the character in the pages of a series of books. I really will miss Al because what other story could you find a demon who can be self serving, almost romantic, sometimes gentlemanly and old fashioned and yet kind of sweet in his own odd way. Al doesn't seem likely to be the guy who gets the girl at the end of the last book - but he is the one who has stuck by Rachel and been a faithful companion even in the beginning when he cursed her for his own reasons. Al is just complex and misunderstood.

How I Started as a Fan of Kim Harrison and The Hollows

I was so lucky! By luck and good fortune I found a blog the publisher was running to promote more of their books. All I had to do was request the book I wanted to read and the publisher sent it to me. Within a week or two I had a fresh, new hardcover book sent to my door. It had that great smell which only a newly minted hardcover book gets. I was so impressed, I even wrote about it in my blog before reading the book at all.

Then I did read the book. Great story. Not muddled by romance and dating and the endless drivel of boy/ girl stuff. Characters I loved and wanted to know more about. A real storyline which grew as each book came out. Every book could be read on it's own but... how could you read just one and not want to know what happened before and what happened next?

From the start I was a fan of Kim Harrison's writing, her story and her character, Rachel Morgan.

It all began with Ardania...

Majesty, then Majesty: Northern Expansion and then Majesty Gold - I bought all of them new in early 2000 and onwards as each became available. I played with my nephew, Zack. He was a little boy then. Majesty was a game I didn't have to explain or apologize for. It was kid friendly without being one of those games Zack came to call "educational" as a code for Mother approved.

Now Majesty 2 is out. Has been out a few years actually. I'd love to see what they have done as an encore to a game I already rate as one of the best for fun and ease of play. A simple game which does not need an entire day to play a round or complete a few missions. Most games the downfall is length and finding a good place to stop. Majesty comes in a series of missions with definite beginnings and endings. Connected to a central story but not turn based where a game can be unending.

Majesty is the fantasy simulation game where you build your own kingdom. The problem is... your citizens don't just co-operate the way they do in other strategy, simulation and city building games. In Majesty they can decide not to help you at all.

The little characters in Majesty won't work unless you pay them

You may find Majesty is a bit more real than you like. The game play is pretty simple. You won't need to struggle to understand how the game works or what you need to do.

But, monsters will attack. They come from outside your kingdom, wandering in. However, they also come from right under your nose, the sewers inside your kingdom. At any time a big rat will step out right into your village and start destroying something. You aren't usually as prepared as you thought you were. Plus, your people may not be helping you when you need them.

In that way, the game of Majesty is not the light weight it seems.