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.

I have read every book in the Lords of the Underworld series. I just finished ‘The Darkest Craving’ (Gena Showalter’s latest in the Lord’s of the Underworld series) while sitting in my favourite breakfast restaurant.

All of Gena Showalter’s books are all too easy to get into. She has a writing style which you fall into. When you actually pull yourself out of the story and look around you, it’s dark… maybe the weather has changed and did you really need to catch that bus, keep that appointment, get out of bed that morning anyway?…

The Lord’s of the Underworld are immortal warriors (and yes, I know you’ve heard that one before, stick with me) they open Pandora’s box, let out various and assorted evils into the unsuspecting world. In penance, they are each given one of the evils which they released. The rest are given to others who were prisoners in the same underworld realm at the time. Each Lord of the Underworld was created fully grown, in order to be a warrior. So they have no family, no childhood, but they do have each other – and of course, the great women they meet along the way.

Kane, the Keeper of Disaster Meets Josephina, the Blood Slave and Daughter to the Fae King

In this book the hero is Kane, the keeper of disaster. Disaster is the name (and always the focus) of the demon who lives inside Kane. So, every time Kane does something which makes him happy, Disaster causes terrible things to happen. Mostly, floors begin cracking as he is standing on them, I did think more could have been done with this in the book but it wasn’t a big issue for me.

Kane meets Josephina Aisling. He calls her Tinker Bell, or Tink. A theme with so many romance books is past pain, abuse and so on. This is true for Josephina and Kane as well. (Sometimes I find this theme gets a bit tiresome but the writing, the story and the characters save this book from falling off my list of books I will always read).

Josephina and Kane like each other right away, though Josephina actually saved Kane from hell and asked that he kill her as payment. She wants to stop being the whipping girl for her sister who lives with the rest of her family in the lands of Fae. Kane, recovering from abuse in hell and feeling the guy always left out from his group of warrior friends, feels he has finally found the woman who is “mine”.

Of course, all ends well. Kane and Josephina rule the lands of the Fae together and the bad king and queen are locked away in the dungeons under the palace. The evil brother and the disinterested sister have a story of their own and will likely appear in another book in the Gena Showalter, Lords of the Underworld series.

If you want to find a paranormal romance series you can really enjoy reading, this is your series. But, it is a light read, not a lot of depth to the story and I find the abuse which the characters suffer is glossed off rather than actually dealt with. They fall in love and all become right with the world. Taken as a good read, you will not find many which will as great as this book and the others in the series.

Get into the Lords of the Underworld series one (or more) book at a time.

My favourite of the Lords of the Underworld warriors has been Gideon, the keeper of lies. I've listed this book below. Or, you can get into the series with the first three books, or go for more and get the bigger collection if you have time for a lot of reading. These books are hard to put down.

Why Did you Watch Merlin (assuming you did)?

I may have watched Merlin for the costumes alone. The colours and styles of the Medieval wardrobes were not strictly authentic but they made a good effort while having a real flare. I remember a dress Morgana wore which really caught my imagination but then I noticed she was wearing what looked exactly like modern high heels. Not quite right historically but altogether she looked like a Princess.

The Merlin and Morgana Show

Morgana is my favourite character. I really wish the show had done more with Merlin and Morgana. In the first season Gwen liked Merlin, until the second season when she switched to being love lorn for Arthur and sometimes Lancelot. Morgana seemed to like Arthur, there were expectations for them to get together but I thought she saw him more as a brother. One of my favourite scenes was Merlin poisoning Morgana. It was the first really hard decision Merlin had to make and from there on he seemed less a boy and I think he became the dragon lord soon after. Merlin and Morgana could have worked, if they had been written that way. She would have been much different if she had a real friend she could count on.

I don’t think Morgana’s motives were ever really explained or shown very well. Her character begins as a brave princess with a few bad dreams. She isn’t told who she is, that she has power and was supposed to become someone so different from the brave princess who could hold a sword. Without real cause she becomes bitter and angry even plotting to murder Arthur. She liked Arthur in season one, trusted and confided in him. She was just as honourable and kind as Arthur or Merlin in the first season. Finding out she is Uther’s daughter does not seem like enough to cause her jump in loyalties.

The Merlin and Arthur Show

I enjoyed the rapport between Arthur and Merlin as two young men. Merlin is a bit too good to be true. Steadfast and loyal just because the dragon told him his fate was to make Arthur become a great king. But he and Arthur do develop a friendship which can almost be understood in spite of the servant and royal Prince roles they actually have. Some of the best lines and humour come from the simple moments between Merlin and Arthur.

I liked the character of Uther who I have never seen given so much depth and range in any other movie or series about Arthur, Merlin and the knights of the round table. Uther becomes a real person rather than a background story. Of all the characters I think Uther is the most human, with human flaws, pride and determination. Though he is supposed to be less than Arthur as a king he actually does make very tough decisions and choices which Arthur seems unable to do. Arthur does not want to be a the bad guy but Uther understands a king (or a parent or any other type of leader) can’t always be popular or seen by all as the good guy.

Merlin is on NetFlix Too

Overall I liked the series. I’m watching it over again on NetFlix this week and will likely rewatch and catch up on missed episodes all this month. I didn’t catch a big part of the fourth season so I am looking forward to it.

This is a great list. I haven't heard of all of these, most of them, but not all. As a reader do you like to pin down your style of fiction or does it matter more when you are writing it?

• Cyberpunk
• Dystopian
• Erotica
• Spy Thriller
• Southern Gothic
• Satire
• Urban Fantasy
• Space Horror
• Space Opera
• Young Adult Contemporary
• "Grimdark" Fantasy
• Psychological Horror
• Hard Sci-Fi
• Slasher Film
• Ecothriller
• Sword & Sorcery
• Lovecraftian
• Zombie Apocalypse
• Superhero
• Detective

via Flash Fiction Challenge: Fairy Tales, Remixed « terribleminds: chuck wendig.

It's the 40th anniversary of The Princess Bride, by William Goldman. The book was first published in 1973.

Have you read the book? Or just seen the movie? I've seen the movie a few times. Each time I find something I didn't notice earlier or I remember parts I had forgotten. I laugh, I cry and I wish there were more! It's rare to find a movie you really can bring the whole family to see - and enjoy.

Did you know S. Morgenstern, is the fictional author of The Princess Bride? If you read the book William Goldman, the author, claims to have the story from S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. Also, the author says you can get extra pages of the story (which he added to Morgenstern's original story) about the reunion between Buttercup and Westley. If you do write to the publisher and ask for the extra pages they have a form letter which they send back telling you their lawyers will not let them send out the extra pages for legal reasons.

I did read the original book version, before the book was made into a movie in 1987. Seeing the story as larger than life on the big screen at the movie theatre was wonderful. I loved the book - definitely one of those hard to put down books.

William Goldman has alluded to a sequel, Buttercup's Baby. Westley and Buttercup have a daughter, Waverly. A madman throws Waverly off a mountain but Fezzik (who was babysitting) jumps to his doom to save her. But, if there is more, it's not in print for public reading. William Goldman says he has not found the same lucky inspiration which he found for The Princess Bride. (It began as a story for his daughters, one wanted a story about a bride, the other wanted a story about a princess).