Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #6)

by Kevin Hearne

I said to Granuaile, “We may have a faery tail.” <Yeah! This is the kind of faery tale with children who wander off and get in trouble in the forest. Usually they die because they don’t have a wolfhound along—or parents. You ever notice the rampant child neglect going on in faery tales?>

Missed anime refrence but I respect the dog’s observation

Then he’s misunderstood the nature of beauty. It doesn’t stay, except in our minds. <Oh! I think I see. That’s true, Clever Girl! Sausage never stays, because I eat it, but it’s always beautiful in my mind.>

Two ways to put it

My theory is that Oberon might be a master of Tao. He always sees what we filter out. The wind and the grass and something in the sky, sun or moon, shining on our backs as we run: They are gifts that humans toss away like socks on Christmas morning, because we see them every day and don’t think of them as gifts anymore. But new socks are always better than old socks. And the wind and grass and sky, I think, are better seen with new eyes than jaded ones. I hope my eyes will never grow old.

A wondeful sentiment and another reason to avoid immortality

love you, Atticus. If I ever have puppies, I’m going to tell them stories about this food. It’s legendary.>

Humans are officially elves to dogs. We live for lifetimes and watch over families

<Oh, so that makes it okay? Of course it does. He could call a wolfhound a kitten and you’d make excuses for him.>

Good old Shakespeare

Our minds are all that defend us from the horror of the void. The majority of the time we simply think about something—anything—else, and that itself is an act of defiance against the vast nothing of the universe.

Yes that got me through all of high school

For all that we may sometimes despise our fellows and be driven to rages and petty revenges, I think we are even darker creatures when we are alone. We can learn to fear our own thoughts more than the lash of the whip or the slap in the face.

Wow so much nostalgia for high school

You need to think strategically instead of suicidally. If Atticus were here, he’d kill me for even allowing you to risk yourself this much. Oberon gave a soft whine. <If he were here, I wouldn’t be suggesting it.>

Your life is not your own keep your hands off it -sherlock

<There are starving puppies in Iowa who’d be grateful for that food,>

All the poor people in the US

and their eyes weren’t limpid pools of oh-my-god straight out of manga.

This weeb

Part of me wondered how he’d managed to pull a hood over those antlers and added that there was no good reason for a ghost to wear a cloak or anything at all, but another part reasoned that one of the few perks to being an unhoused spirit must be the ability to wear impractical clothing for effect.

I love his character

Ever notice how you never have time to do something until you decide that you do?”

greatness is in the act of creation and not necessarily in the finished product. Creating is the yin to the yang of our consumption and the doorway to beauty that we all want to walk through. Creating is how I tell the world I love it.”

All these little gems

“I have +20 verbal dexterity.”

This geek

The current popular image of Zeus as a cheerful, avuncular type perplexes me. I know it comes from a silly kids’ movie, but I’m not sure they could have gotten it more wrong. Zeus was never avuncular. He killed his father, raped his sister, and then married her, calculating that sanctified incest was marginally better than the unsanctified kind. After that he conducted a series of what are generously called “affairs” with mortal women, though sometimes tales will admit he “ravished” them, which is to say he raped them. He turned into a swan once for a girl with an avian fetish, and another time he manifested as a golden shower over a woman imprisoned in a hole in the ground. His actions clearly paint him as skeevy to the max and the most despicable of examples. He’s not the kind of god that belongs in kids’ films. He’s the kind that releases the kraken.

Preach it

The mad fucker just laughed that insane laugh and pulled his sword out of his ass. Zeus, now afflicted with acute priapism, gasped and asked him to do that again. Jupiter slapped him to the ground and barked at him to get his priorities straight. Obviously there was some tension between them.

That is perfect

“Who you are?” Loki said, and I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement. “Fffffind out. I wuh, wuh, will!” <I think the trickster’s figured out you tricked him,> Oberon said.

Little slow on that old boy

“As you wish.” <One day, Atticus was amazed to discover that when Jupiter said, “As you wish,” what he really meant was, “I love you.”> I almost laughed. Gods, not now, Oberon.

Horrors

Dagda, whose reputation, like that of many pagan deities, suffered somewhat at the hands of Christian scribes. He was sometimes depicted as a rather oafish sort with an abnormally large reproductive organ. It wasn’t because he was freakishly gifted in truth; it was merely to mock and stigmatize his sexuality. To the Irish he was unequivocally good, gifted with vast powers, and his carnal proclivities represented his urge to create life rather than an aberrant personality. Sometimes the life he created was a son or daughter of extraordinary magical talent—namely, Aenghus Óg, Midhir, and Brighid. But sometimes the life he created was bloody dangerous, and over the years a vast menagerie of magical self-sustaining horrors was born.

I can understand that he he is a symbol of life more than anything else. And life can be vicious

it, turned out to be one of my favorite rooms ever. A tree grew in the far corner to my right, its trunk allowed to stretch up through a hole in the ceiling and spread its canopy there. The floor was a lovely trimmed lawn. Starting on either side of the tree, walnut bookshelves lined the walls, oddly but fabulously filled with nothing but graphic novels and manga. Centered in the room, a copy of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta was set precisely in the middle of a matching walnut coffee table set low to the ground, Japanese style. The room invited you to pick a graphic novel and read on the grass, perhaps leaning against the trunk of the tree.

I want this room so badly

the sun cannot shine as bright without a proper darkness to counter it. The world had gone a bit gray.

The sort of balance star wars just doesn't get

“Gods damn it, how long was I on that thrice-cursed island? Nobody will tell me. You’ve gone and cocked everything up again, haven’t ye?” My old archdruid literally hadn’t aged a day since the Morrigan put him on the island, and he was still as charming as ever.

Oh I love this crazy old man