I’m putting together my list of books to read for this upcoming school term, and I’ve come up against a bit of trouble. I know that some people out there have got to have ideas I haven’t considered, so I’m throwing this out to get a bit of help.

Here are my prime targets for things to find in required novels this term:

1. Books that have deities or other forces of destiny which actively shape the lives of humans – as examples, the Shin’a'in/Tayledras star-eyed goddess from Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books OR the Cheysuli idea of tahlmorra in Jennifer Roberson’s books.
2. Books that involve a protagonist who runs away from home to pursue military or weapons training of some sort, whether entirely intentional or not. Examples: Elizabeth Moon’s Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy; Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword.
3. Books that feature groups in nomadic or semi-nomadic life, either in fantasy or in real life. I’d prefer nomads of the desert or desert edge, but others would be okay as well. Turkish or Mongolian steppes would work, too. The only fantasy novel I can think of that features this in any real way is Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword again. Others have one person or a small group crossing the desert, but I want people groups for whom that life is the norm.
4. Books that use a first person narrator, especially for epic fantasy; double especially for epic fantasy with multiple first-person narrators alternating POVs for the story. Prime example of this would be the last three books of Carol Berg’s Bridge of D’Arnath series.

Any help with any of these would be great. I’ve read a lot of fantasy, but not all of it, so feel free to give me a suggestion even if it seems like a book you think I would have already read. At the very least, I hope to stir the pot a bit.

Thanks in advance!

Well I got rather a lot of things done yesterday, but I didn’t sit down and write.  Fortunately, the things I got done are allowing me to take another shot at the writing day idea today and hopefully get things done.   

In the meanwhile, I’ll give you a bit more Shiloh. It’s a well-documented fact that she prefers napping on our shoes or jackets whenever they’re available. With the recent run of extreme cold, we’ve had a lot of snow pants and winter jackets hanging about, and since we don’t have a handy place to hang it all up to dry (we’re working on that) we’ve taken a section of our dog fence and put it against the entryway wall as a “jacket corral”. It’s not very sophisticated, but it beats having winter gear strewn about the living room. Anyway, Shiloh sneaks into the jacket pen and makes herself a bed out of whatever happens to be there.

I’m biased, but I think it’s pretty darn funny:

Happy New Year!