Alexis Steinhauer's Blog

Blue or Red

Salutations! It's been a while since my last post, but I'm seeing another empty white box that's begging to be written in, so here I am, writing in it.

First off, I'll answer that question I asked so long ago: why are Kyaza and his family Ruby Dragons, when blue has been my favorite color since before I knew what the name of it was?

The answer is this - originally, Kyaza and his family were blue. They were Sapphires, and I was thrilled to be writing about blue dragons. Then, at some point it occurred to me that I'd made the blue dragons of my world evil, and that made me unhappy. Red is my second-favorite color, so I whisked the Sapphires off to the good guys' side, and made Kyaza and his famly Rubies instead. I like my red dragons to be evil . . . I just couldn't do that to my precious blues.

Yeah, I know it's silly, but that's the way I work.

On another note, I recently discovered that there was a movie made about Final Fantasy VII! I'm obsessed with Final Fantasy and with VII in particular, literally half my daily thought processes have something to do with Cloud or Sephiroth or Vincent or . . . well, you get the idea.

First, I was ecstatic. Then I was terrified, because so many movies based off of things I love are so wretched. I didn't want that to happen to Advent Children.

It didn't. The movie is seriously good. The animation is just gorgeous. The bad guys, Kadaj and his gang, are melodramatic wimps, but Cloud and Company are just about perfect. The fight scenes are awesome, and the mythology fits beautifully. Sehpiroth was Sephiroth, which is all I can ask, since he can't be improved upon.

Anyway, yeah. I love the thing. If you like Final Fantasy, watch it. I'll certainly be seeing it again and again.

So, signing out for now. Hope you are having a great day, whoever you are! Happy reading!

The Hobbit and Other Things

Hello again! I said over a month ago that it would probably be a week until my next post. Lame, eh? I apologize, but Christmas prep has been dragging me down, and it's also come to my attention that I'm apparently an awful writer, so I've not been much motivated of late.

I'm still clawing my way out of that particular grave, so this post might not be the cheery, chipper thing that I'd like it to be. Again, I apologize, but if I stall any longer I'll feel even more the fool.

First, I told you all that I'd let you know why Kyaza, my protagonist, has red hair. There are actually two reasons for this, and here they are:



Meet Valen Shadowbreath, from the video game Neverwinter Nights. I love this guy. I loved him when I was about ten years old, and I still just adore him. I know every line he has on that game, commenting on our surroundings, in every conversation and in reply to anything anyone says to him, by heart. I can quote huge blocks of his dialogue and descriptions. See, I'm a giant fan. He's one character I would love to meet in real life, scary as I'm sure he is. He's beautiful, isn't he, and he's saved my life too many times to count, and he's an amazing character to boot.

All right, all right, fangirling over, I promise. But really, he's amazing. He also has red hair.

The second reason why Kyaza has red hair is Dustfinger, from Cornelia Funke's Inkheart trilogy. Again, I loved Dustfinger years ago, and I still do. At first when he appeared in Inkheart, I didn't know what to think of him--I'd love him for ten pages and then think he was creepy and weird and annoying, and then I'd love him again. He's an incredible, three-dimensional, entertaining character who I love more and more as the books progress. He also has ginger hair.

So, you see, between Valen and Dustfinger, who are both two of my favorites, Kyaza just couldn't have anything but red hair. He almost had black hair, for Sirius Black, and brown hair for Murtagh, but I settled on red because I'd loved Valen long before I'd loved anyone else--and because Dustfinger was there to reinforce the idea. Kyaza's hair is my clumsy way of paying homage to both of them.

So, now you know. I'll answer another question next time...how about this? Why is Kyaza's family made up of Ruby Dragons? This isn't a great question unless you know me, and are aware of my obsession with the color blue. Seriously, even I thought I would be the first person to write about blue dragons, but Kyaza and Company are red. I'll tell you why next blog post, I promise.

Oh, I'm not finished ranting yet. You see, I went to see The Hobbit movie yesterday, and I need to talk about that for a bit.



This is Ian McKellan, AKA Gandalf. I grew up with The Hobbit, you see--my mother read it aloud to me several times before I could read myself. I've read it more than a hundred times on my own, and I know most of it by heart. Thus, I know that Ian McKellan is a perfect Gandalf. He was in LotR, and he still is. I love him. He doesn't act like Gandalf, he just is Gandalf.

No, his actor is not my problem. My problem is that Gandalf had several lines directly from the book The Hobbit, which sounded dreadfully cheesy on-screen. There is just no way to adapt most of the dialogue from that book into a movie, but they tried anyway, and made Gandalf repeatedly look like a dunce of the highest degree. Also, he had more camera time than anyone else in the movie, by a lot. I love Gandalf, but he spent as much time out of the book as he did in it. Thus, when I see him more than I see Bilbo, I get frustrated. Nearly everything awesome that Gandalf said or did in The Hobbit movie, he'd already done or said before in LotR.



This is Martin Freeman, as the famous hobbit himself, Bilbo Baggins. I liked him. He did a good job as Bilbo, and his reactions in the movie were surprisingly believable. I think I could have loved him, if he was on-screen more. As I said before, Bilbo wasn't even the main part of the movie. I love Gandalf and Thorin, but poor Bilbo, who the movie was named after, had less camera time than either of them. He spent most of it kind of lurking in the background.



This is Thorin. He looks awesome, doesn't he, with his dwarvish costume on? The problem is, he looks like an awesome human wearing a dwarvish costume. No giant nose, no inhumanly heavy brows...he's just too humanlike. He doesn't look like the Thorin Oakenshield I've had in my head since before I could read. This is not the actor's fault, however--he's an amazing actor, and his voice is gorgeous. No, I blame whoever gave him his dialogue. He talked about Bilbo all the time, and he would say three horrible things about Bilbo, and then out of the blue he'd say something nice, and then three more horrible things, and then something nice. Rarely did he have a reason for his temper tantrums, or his sweet moods. Usually he'd just say it out of nowhere.

I didn't hate Thorin, though. I liked him, I thought he was awesome except for when he contradicted himself. I just wish he had been more of the Thorin from the book...but hey, we can't have everything, can we?



Does this look like a dwarf to you? No, I didn't think so. This is Kili. He, along with his brother, Fili, were the youngest two dwarves in the party. Kili, here, has such a pretty face...I'd love to see him as, say, Bard, from later in the book. Or some other Dalesman. Just...not...a dwarf. Please. He doesn't even have a beard, for goodness' sake! That's got to be, what, two days' growth? Three? Maybe he'd look like an awesome dwarf, if his makeup was better--I don't know. But he's too thin and pretty, and young, to be a dwarf. Young dwarves do not need to look like young humans--young is a relative term, Tolkien himself said it. And look, here's Fili and Kili together:



They're both too thin. They have no bulk. Yes, they're beautiful--but they're not dwarves to me.

And here's Fili:



He's a bit more dwarflike than Kili, at least he has extravagant hair and a moustache. But still, he looks like a young human. Look at how fine his eyebrows are.



Here are Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur. Except for the stupid hat, Bifur and Bofur look all right. I could live with them as dwarves. I could also live with Bombur, except that he looks like nothing more than a fat joke waiting to happen. And guess what? His only purpose in the movie was to supply a dose of fat jokes and cheap humor to it. He never did anything that didn't relate to his weight.

Please, I'm begging you, don't do this to me! Bombur was fat, yes, but he was also a living creature, a character on his own. It's so crude and lazy of the movie-makers all around to use him as a tool like they did.

The other dwarves I would waste my time talking about, but aside from the fact that half of them have pointed ears and the other half don't, I don't think they were around enough for me to talk about intelligently. Balin was all right, I'll say that. I hated the way his beard curled at the bottom, but his character was good enough and he did look suitably dwarflike. Cue applause for Balin!



Look at Uglúk, isn't he horrible? He's an Uruk-hai, yes, but still basically just an orc. One of the rabble of humanois monsters that J.R.R. Tolkien used to build the evil armies. This is what monsters look like, my friends--he's slimy and dark, wrinkly and evil and he just exudes malice.



And this is the Goblin King. He looks pretty scary and evil in this shot, doesn't he? Zoomed in on his eyes, which are quite well done, and as long as he's not moving or talking...yeah, okay, he looks like a monster worthy of J.R.R. Tolkien. But then, we also get this:



Another fat joke! Good grief, I was already embarrassed to be watching this movie because of all the terrible Bombur jokes, but then the Goblin King comes along. Full-body, he was just a big (like, twelve feet tall), flabby, disgusting mess whose jowls flapped around every time he came on camera. He moved just so that we, the audience, could be treated to an excellent shot of his jiggling belly and his rippling jowls. And the special effect of it wasn't good, either--it looked very poorly done. You can also see all of the goblins huddled behind him in a pile in that second picture--flesh-colored, skinny beasties that all look pretty much identical. Their makeup is poor and unimaginative. In LotR, every orc was unique, and stood out as being a singular monster, even if they were only on-camera for three seconds. Apparently, people care less about the goblin/Hobbit rabble than the orc/Uruk/LotR rabble.

I do hate to keep comparing The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, but this brings up another point of mine--I can't help it, because almost everything awesome in The Hobbit was LotR! You don't believe me? Let me draw comparisons.

The scene where Theoden was making a speech about Gondor. "Where was Gondor?!"

Thorin makes almost the exact same speech about the elves. "Where were the elves?!"

No aid from either Gondor or the elves, apparently.

The scene where Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli hide behind a rock and watch the Rohirrim come wheeling around, after slaughtering the Uruks.

Thorin and Company re-enact the exact same scene, diving behind/under a rock while the good guys (elves) wheel around killing monsters. The same camera angles were used, the same scenery--yes, I know it's Middle-earth and I should expect some of the same scenery, but really? It looked like the exact same spot as from LotR.

The Council of Elrond scene in LotR is famous.

There was a second Council of Elrond in The Hobbit! Complete with Elrond and Gandalf arguing, and Saruman cracking bad jokes. I'm sorry, my friends, but Saruman, in the books and in the LotR movies, didn't have a sense of humor. He only did here because he wouldn't have fit into the movie if he didn't crack at least one bad joke. This was very, very poor taste, and a bad adaption of Saruman to boot.

The entire Galadriel scene in LotR, with Frodo and Aragorn talking to her a few minutes apart?

We get to see it all again in The Hobbit, with Gandalf acting like a humble, forlorn little boy as Galadriel encourages him. Again, we get almost exactly the same dialogue. Galadriel even touches Gandalf's hands and face.

The Hobbit scene in the goblin "tunnels", (the tunnels that looks suspiciously like the scene from the old PS2 video game The Hobbit) where Gandalf, Thorin and Company fall three thousand feet down the cavern on a double-decker wooden bridge? (A bridge that doesn't splinter or break, despite crashing off rocks all the way down. Less than a minute earlier in the movie, Bombur walks on one of these bridges and falls through--but with over a dozen party members on this piece of bridge, and a three-thousand-foot drop, the bridge doesn't break. Even assuming Gandalf magicked it to make it stay together--which seems like the kind of convenient magic that Tolkien never, ever indulged in--none of the dwarves lost their grip, or went flying off into the darkness? Also, none of them were killed upon landing...and none of them were killed when the corpse of the two-thousand-pound Goblin King landed right on top of them a moment later...)

The bridge scene, in Moria, was almost exactly the same as the escape-from-the-goblin-tunnels scene.

The scene where Gandalf goes over the edge, sayd, "Fly, you fools!" and Frodo screams, "Gandalf! Noooo!" in slow motion? If you look. I bet you'll find a strikingly similar scene in The Hobbit...

It goes on and on and on. Ninty-eight percent of what was awesome in The Hobbit had already been done!

Also, Radagast...ugh. When Gandalf mentioned him at first, I smiled, because that line was funny, and it made the geek in me very happy. But then Radagast appeared, soaking up a good half hour of the movie, and he was such a lame character. He wasn't funny, he wasn't cute, he wasn't entertaining or heroic, and he thought he was all of the above.

Also, the Witch King makes a surprise appearance in The Hobbit--he tries to stab Radagast, who just puts his staff up, and the Morgul Blade that the ghostie Witch King was using clangs off and hits the ground...and turns corporeal when it lands. What?! Why?! Why?! And the Necromancer...agh, I won't even get into that bit.

So, my rant is already overlong. Let me just say that I was sorely disappointed, and pretty much everything I was afraid of, happened in this movie. I was afraid that the charming mood of the book would be translated into cheap, crude humor, and it was (the trolls and Bombur come to mind...). I was afraid that they would try to give the characters the exact dialogue from the book, and they did--which is a commendable effort, but please realize that a lot of the dialogue from The Hobbit book just can't be translated smoothly to a television screen. I wish it could, but it can't. And it wasn't.

The humor and the light, cheery bits of the movie clashed dreadfully with the disgusting, dark parts. Gollum was awesome, of course, but we'd already seen him...although, I will say that I felt dreadfully bad for him there, at the end (even though he ruined it ten seconds later by shouting out, conveniently, that he would hate Bilbo forever. Naturally, he would, we already knew that, it was unnecessary and lame). Honestly, I'm having trouble deciding whether this movie was made for seven-year-olds or older teens, because it has the elements of both in it that don't mesh well together.

Also, I was disappointed by the soundtrack. I absolutely love everything about LotR's soundtrack, and I was hoping for more of the same type of thing in The Hobbit. Instead, they used exactly the same soundtrack. Rivendell appears, cue Rivendell music, the One Ring appears, cue the One Ring music, someone is marching/advancing in slow motion, cue the advancing in slow motion music. I can never get enough of those musics, but I was expecting more imagination than just recycling LotR's masterpieces.

Ah, yes. And I need to say that I absolutely loved Elrond's character in this one, he was beautifully done. I am in awe of how Elrond-like he was, and how elflike as well. Perfect.

Orkrist was another high point of the movie--it may very well be the coolest sword I've ever seen, and I want one just like it. If I was going to kill orcs, I'd do it with that sword. It's got to be my favorite.

I did like it, overall. I thought it was okay, and once the disappointment wears off, I'll probably look much more favorably on it...but not right now, I just can't, I'm afraid. I'd say it's about a six out of ten, when I was so hoping for a ten.

Anyway, now that my annoying ramble is over, I'm feeling somewhat better and I'm signing out. So, goodbye, and good luck with whatever you're doing! I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best on all fronts, especially The Hobbit #2!

It's Been Too Long

Hello again! Looks like my last post has been gelling for a while, so I thought I'd make good on the promise I made a few weeks back. I said I would drop a completely irrelevant and, for me, probably embarrassing piece of information regarding my books. Well, then, the next post I write, in a week or so, will contain the answer to this question:

Why does Kyaza, my protagonist, have red hair?

Believe it or not, there is a solid reason. So, while I'm waiting for that, I'm going to rant a little about redheaded characters in literature. You may have noticed that ninety-nine out of one hundred times, the author will make some remark about their character's "fiery red" hair, or their "fiery temper."

Why is this? Not all characters who have red hair need to have fiery red hair. Not many real people do, unless they dye it. So, why are there next to none in literature who have red hair without it being dark and luxuriant, or bright and fiery? Why? The phrase "fiery red" doesn't actually tell you what shade of red it is, except that it's very bright. It doesn't tell you if it's golden-red or red-red or brown-red. And let's face it, before it became a repetitive phrase (if there was ever such a time), it wasn't that imaginative or insightful to begin with.

Please, people, please, I implore you, if you ever write about a redhead, do not say that they have fiery hair or a fiery temper. Please, just don't do it. I don't think I can take any more.

Needless to say, I save the fire in the Dragonfate books for my dragons' breath, and not their hair. If I ever said that Kyaza had a fiery temper or fiery hair, I very much apologize, and I don't remember it. I actively try to avoid using phrases like that.

. . . Anyway, now that my rant is over . . .

Farewell, all! Good luck in all your endeavors!

What I Love - Music

Before you read this, know that I'm a big believer in the "to each his own" philosophy--so I don't care if you disagree with me, you're great just the way that you are. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

All right, so, there's not much going on around here. Mostly reading, writing, waiting for Halloween, and hoping I don't catch the head-cold that's circling the town. And petting my cat. The usual. I have, however, decided that I am the only person out there who avoids Country, Pop, and Rap music like the plague, so I'm going to try and define the amazing stuff that I listen to. I'll start with my top-ten favorite bands.

1. Metallica
2. Flaw (And anything Chris Volz)
3. Communic
4. Megadeth
5. Iron Maiden
6. Nevermore
7. Skillet
8. Overkill
9. As I Lay Dying
10. Opeth

Ouch, I hate doing top-tens, I always have to leave out so many awesome names. I'm going to define my music taste some more, then: I also listen to some classical. I enjoy Phantom of the Opera and pretty much anything Sarah Brightman, and some good musicals and some ordinary opera.

Other bands that circle around the bottom of the top-ten, depending on my mood, are: Pyramaze, 40 Below Summer, Alter Bridge, Thousand Foot Krutch, Black Label Society, Killswitch Engage, Nightwish, Jag Panzer, Disturbed, and Oddland, in no particular order. There's a lot more stuff that I listen to, but these are my favorites. I wish especially that I could fit Pyramaze and Oddland in my top-ten. Maybe they'll put out more albums and squeeze in.

Anyway, so, that's me as far as music goes. Music and books are the two greatest luxuries in my life--I don't know how I'd survive without them.

Good-bye, then, and good luck with all your endeavors!

I'm in Hufflepuff!

Hello all! I just found and took this somewhat extensive Sorting Hat test, and it turns out I'm in Hufflepuff! Yay, I love the underdogs! I got 72 out of 100 on both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and 42 on Slytherin, but I'm way more Hufflepuff. Check it out:

The sorting hat says that I belong in Hufflepuff!

Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot, and treat them just the same."

Hufflepuff students are friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working. A well-known member was Cedric Diggory, who represented Hogwarts in the most recent Triwizard Tournament.

 

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

May I mention while I'm here that I LOVE the Harry Potter books? Yes, it's my blog, so I may!

I LOVE the Harry Potter books!

Anyway, not much else going on. Hanging out on Goodreads, writing, cuddling my creampuff of a cat, reading, walking....the usual. Dreading the onslaught of winter. Looking forward to Halloween. I still dress up every year, although I stopped trick or treating years ago; I'm going to be a Norse-style princess this year. Halloween is always loads of fun. I count how many kids we get, and we vote on how many of which costumes--ex. princesses, fairies, Batmans, etc.--we think we'll see.

So, bye! Good luck in all your endeavors!

So busy!

Hello again! Many thanks and love to everyone, and a happy, happy October!

Still writing Dragon's Crown, it's coming along. Writing this one is crazily hard, because I have to get everything just right. I need to close every plot thread and see all of my dear Dragonfate friends off at the end, because I don't want there to be a fifth book! I'm poking at every step before I take it; it's a pity I can't stand outlines, because it might actually make my job easier.

For anyone who doesn't know, I'm a huge fan of Christopher Paolini. I just created a fan group for the Inheritance Cycle here on Goodreads, and if you're a fan, I'd love to see you there! It's a group for talking about the merits and drawbacks of every facet of Inheritance that you can think of, and lots that you can't!

I also have an idea. There are lots of weird facts and backstories behind my own books, and I'd love to share some of them with you. So, I'm going to compile a list, and pretty soon I'll start a weekly Weird Facts gift for anyone who reads this. Sound fun? Good! You'll like them, I promise, most of them are really stupid and/or embarrassing to me.

I designed a new Dragonfate logo yesterday, it'll be appearing on my website once we get it all redesigned. It's pretty cool, and it took hours of work because none of my art programs are compatible with each other!


Okay, so, that's it for now! Goodbye, and good luck with all of your endeavors!

We Are Fans

Hello again! I know I said that I would only write once a week or so, but I just couldn't resist.

I wrote a message to Carol Berg, my favorite writer, via Goodreads yesterday--I just told her that I'm basically obsessed with her books and that I can't wait for the next one to come out.

And guess what? In something like five hours, I found an answering note in my inbox! My favorite writer answered me! And she was so sweet about it--turns out I'm not the only person who loves Aidan.

Yes, I'm crazy, I know. I can't help it. Carol Berg is amazing, and one of the most underrated authors out there. I wish it were otherwise.

So, there it is. We're all fans of something, right, or we wouldn't be human . . .

All right, goodbye, and best wishes from me!

So It Begins.....

All right, this is my first post. Obviously. The shyness factor made me resist for a while, but I can't see an empty sheet of paper--or an empty digital screen--without wanting to write on it. So, here I am.

My name is Alexis Steinhauer. I have e-published four books, three in the Dragonfate series and one in a new series called the Felling. I'll put them at the bottom of this post so I can say that I did.

I love cats and dragons and blue, as well as the rest of the list on my author bio here on Goodreads. Oh yeah, another fact about me: I absolutely adore Goodreads. My favorite books generally, but not always, involve what I write about: dragons, faeries, fantasy. I also enjoy a good mystery, Robin Hood, some great children's books, and a handful of animal-based books and truly amazing classics. I'm obsessed with the written word in general.

So, my life isn't actually all that interesting, but I'll try to find something to write about once a week or so. If you decide to contact me through a comment or a message or an email, I promise I'll try to respond. I'd love to hear from you, actually, cliche as that sounds. Here on Goodreads, my email address is raven.almonyhr@yahoo.com . . . And, since this post is getting hugely bloated, I'm just going to--oh, wait!

I have two fans on Goodreads, Judith and L.J.R., I believe are their names. Neither of you have read my books, as far as I know, so I just want to say that it's sweet of you to lift my number of fans away from 0 when you might hate my stuff. Thank you!

And now, those books. I loathe html, but thankfully, Goodreads makes it easy for me. I'll put them down and then go scamper back into my shadowy corner where none of you can see me.












I'm working on the fourth and final book of Dragonfate; the series isn't quite finished. Farewell!