My Favorite Female Fantasy Characters

Ever since I borrowed The Sword of Shannara from my brother in middle school, I've been a fan of fantasy books. Since then, I’ve noticed that my favorite female fantasy characters have some things in common. They all have a troubling childhood in some way shape or form, they all leave home to avoid the fate chosen for them to follow their dreams, and they all end up becoming better people as a result. Each one of them suffers in order to achieve her dreams, and that suffering ends up making each one a stronger person - heroic in fact. Here are a few of my favorite female fantasy characters.

Paksenarrion from The Deed of Paksenarrion series

Sheep Farmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold

Author: Elizabeth Moon

Since Paksenarrion was young, she dreamed of becoming a mercenary like her cousin. When her father tries arranging a marriage for her, Paksenarrion instead runs away from home and joins a mercenary company. The trilogy follows her development from mercenary, to knight, to Paladin (a holy knight in service to a god). Paksenarrion is the best representation of a Paladin I have ever read, and a truly heroic female character.

Talia from the Heralds of Valdemar Trilogy
Arrows of the Queen, Arrow's Flight, and Arrow's Fall

Author: Mercedes Lackey

Talia is Holderfolk. Hold communities are male dominated and puritanical. Men are allowed to have multiple wives, and it is common practice that girls are married off at the age of 14. Talia runs from her home and spends the night in her favorite hiding spot after being told that her marriage has been arranged. Before she can go back to the Hold to accept her fate, Talia is chosen by the Companion Roland to be a Herald (people who act as arbitrators, soldiers, messengers and, at times, spies for the queen). By being chosen by Roland, though, she also becomes the Queen’s Own Herald. Basically, the Queen’s Own becomes the close companion and advisor to the queen. The three highest ranking people in the kingdom are the queen, the heir, and the Queen’s Own. Of course, Talia needs to complete Herald training first. Unfortunately, the last Queen’s Own was murdered, and unknown people are plotting to get rid of Talia as well

Menolly from The Harper Hall Trilogy

Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums

Author: Anne McCaffrey

Menolly loves music. As the youngest of many siblings to the Lord Holder of Half Circle Sea Hold, she was mostly ignored. She became fast friends with the Harper of the Hold who recognized a kindred spirit who loved music as much as he did. The Harper teaches Menolly everything he knows, and she becomes a talented musician and composer of songs. But tradition says that females cannot become Harpers. When her beloved friend dies, her father lets Menolly temporarily fill the position of Harper until a new Harper can be sent. When the new Harper arrives, Menolly not only has to turn over her classes, she is not allowed to tell the new Harper what she did. In fact, she is forbidden to sing or play instruments again so that the new Harper could not guess who had so ably instructed the students until his arrival. Menolly ends up choosing to live Holdless (on the planet Pern on which she lives, this is considered deadly) in order to keep her music, and manages to Impress 9 dragon lizards (creatures native to the planet, but so rarely seen that some people think them myth). Meanwhile, the Master Harper of Pern continues his frantic search for the missing male apprentice whose music was sent to him by the late Harper of Half Circle Sea Hold.

Online Tools and Applications

The last assignment for my Library 2.0 program involved checking out various online tools and applications. Here is a list of what sites I checked out and what I thought of them:

Google Docs: This is a handy tool to share documents with your co-workers. You can create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and forms to share on this site. You can also convert similar Microsoft Office files to share. One of my Excel spreadsheets converted with no problem, but some of my signs made in Word didn't fair so well. The converted sign had no graphics. Also, as a result, the line spacing was thrown off. To my disappointment, Publisher documents can't be uploaded unless they are made into a html or pdf documents. Hopefully this will be added as a feature in the future.

Zoho: This one seems to be a major competitor of Google Docs and seems to have similar features. I like the look of Zoho Projects. I'm going to be trying this one out in the near future.

Basecamp: Basecamp looks very exciting. It is a way to collaborate online with your co-workers on a project. After touring it's options, I can see how useful a tool this can be. I was extremely disappointed, though, to learn that it isn't free. When you click on "Sign up for Free" it takes you to a payment page with an option of a 30-day trial. The minimum monthly cost is $24 a month for a basic subscription. Sigh. Zoho Projects looks very similar, and it really does have a "free" project subscription. I will be trying them instead.

Rollyo: Rollyo is a customizable search engine. Very cool. I've added it to my del.icio.us account.

Snipshot: This is a handy picture editor. I am definitely going to be using it at home. It has also been added to my del.icio.us account. This picture I took of Lake Point Tower to your left was edited using Snipshot. I was able to tilt the image and crop it. I love that it shows you the last picture you worked on and lets you re-open it in case you realize you missed something.



fd's Flickr Toys: I enjoyed playing with the Jigsaw puzzle creator. I wish you could make an online puzzle to play with, though. I love the Flickr Uploader. This tool makes uploading to your Flickr account a breeze. It also lets you add descriptions and tags as you upload. Definitely a time saver.

RedKid.net: This is a fun site that lets you make fun banners, signs, etc. for free. The smiley face sign on the top of this blog comes from RedKid.

Shelfari and LibraryThing: Both of these websites let you create and organize a list of your books online. LibraryThing has a little more flexibility, but they charge when you have more than 200 books. I use Shelfari. They don't charge (which is a good thing, since I've already listed 177 books in about 2 months), and they have a cool looking shelf widget that you can add to your blog. I used both the shelf widget and the list widget on the right sidebar of my blog. Clicking on either will get you to my Shelfari bookshelf (if you're interested). :-)

Zotero: This site helps you organize, collect, and site research resources. I plan on trying this one out with my next research project.

Library video on YouTube

Thought I'd share this video my friend Ann made with some teens for a summer program at Park Ridge Public Library. The musketeers at the end are SCA fighter folk Ann and I both know. I love their garb!

Garden Spells

Garden Spells
by Sarah Addison Allen

Last night I finished reading Garden Spells, and I have to say I truly loved it. This is a light, fast read that was truly touching.

Click on the title of this blog for a summary of this book.

I loved the rebuilding of a relationship that takes place between Claire and Sydney. The reality of the pressures of being labeled as different in a small community rang true to me even though, in this case, some of those differences were paranormal in nature. The uniqueness of the budding relationship between Claire and her neighbor amused and delighted me. While this book isn't for people who only like serious, dense reading, this book is great for someone looking for a poignant and unique story with a touch of romance.