Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)

The movie is releasing in a couple of days and I needed a refresher-course. After all, if I am going to be one of those *p-shaw* *tch*, the book was loads better than the movie types, then I better get my facts right!

Harry is now a full-fledged teen hero. He has heard ‘The Prophecy’ and has resigned himself to the fact that he will ultimately have a showdown with good ol’Voldy wherein one of them will DEFINITELY kick the bucket. All around the wizarding world, the Death-Eaters are wrecking mayhem. Harry, Hermione and Ron are effectively tangled in a rush of hormones and unexpected attractions. And Snape (at his nastiest best), has finally got the much-desired position of 'Defence Against the Dark-Arts' teacher.
Enough to make a normal teenager go barkin’mad.

But Dumbledore, being the supremely cool guardian/ protector/wizard that he is…has decided that it’s time for Harry to know exactly what he’s up against. Trips into Voldemort’s formative years (courtesy, The Pensieve) reveal that killing the former is not going to be a field-trip. His Mighty Big-Headedness had come up with the idea of ‘Horcruxes’. He had split his soul into six fragments and enclosed them in different objects with the seventh fragment residing in his own body. These objects could be anything, anywhere and to kill Voldemort means having to track them down first and destroy them. Ace villain move, that!

So accompanied by Harry, Dumbledore sets off on what the latter would call: to pursue the flighty temptress, adventure.

A relatively snappy read, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is engaging. After wading through the onerous 'Order of The Phoenix'…things finally seem to be going somewhere. The book is a tribute to the brilliance of Albus Dumbledore and is woven with the usual blend of humour, emotion and unexpected surprises.

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)

I always find the second in a long-running series the most-fulfilling. After the first, we have the character profiles down to a tee, have decided on our favourites and our pet-hates and can easily summon up the landscapes and surroundings. So now it’s just a question of belting-up and getting ready for ACTIONNNN!! And...Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets does just that.

Harry knows who’s baying for his blood (Malfoy, Snape and good ol’Moldy-Voldy) He has a clearer picture of his powers and abilities. I won’t mention the plot as most of us already know it by rote and those who don’t, are getting converted...as I speak!

This was the only book in the series, which had a singular, central mystery which effectively intertwined all the other goings-on. Rather than laboring on about Harry’s traumatized past and his future trials…..it dealt with his actual adventures in the present. Mysterious mumblings in the walls, an unknown beast lurking in some obscure chamber and hapless victims, it has all the makings of a classic detective novel. Harry gets a chance to prove that all the adulation and hero-worship is justified, and puts up a knock-‘em dead, magnificent fight. Rowling manages to weave in her wise homilies towards the end (it’s the choices that define us and not our abilities) and yet again, it fits perfectly. Not preachy, not patronizing but tailor-made to clear Harry’s misgivings.

FANTASY by George R.R.Martin

The following passage captures everything I feel about the Fantasy-Genre.



"The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.


Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab.


Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end.


Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot.
Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?


We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.


They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth."