Woodworks :: The Elfwood Community eZine

	Imagine my surprise when one of the more entertaining anime series I’ve watched in recent time was sitting as a commercial release in my local comic book store. I am talking about Yami no Matsuei, domestically titled (and correctly translated) Descendants of Darkness. ( Read more )
	The greatest modern High Fantasy Epic continues in Crossroads of Twilight, the tenth novel in the "Wheel of Time" series by Robert Jordan. Its every bit as good as any other book in the series. The stage has been set for all kinds of mayhem to ensue... ( Read more )
	The Cambridge International Dictionary defines an epic as: “a book that is long and contains a lot of action, usually dealing with a historical subject"; and by that, or any definition, Tigana is an epic. It's 700 pages of magic, battles, romance, action, and adventure. Guy Gavriel Kay chooses to tell us the story of a struggle for freedom against oppression in the Peninsula of the Palm, beneath the two moons. ( Read more )
	"Every day millions of children world wide play hopscotch. Every morning and evening hundreds of thousands of commuters use London's railway and road systems. Deep in the highlands of Wales isolated shepherds cut strange symbols into the turf in order to protect their flocks. These otherwise totally unrelated groups are all unwitting participants in the same activity. They are playing the Troy Game." ( Read more )
	The Fresco is a surprisingly contemporary work for Sheri S Tepper, a writer who would seem to be more at home in the far future universe of Grass or the fairy tale setting of Beauty. In The Fresco we meet Benita Alvarez, a Latino woman with grown children and an abusive husband who makes first contact with aliens on a mountain top in New Mexico. The aliens are called the Pistach, and The Fresco is the story of their teaching humanity the skills of "neighborliness" as they prepare us for membership of a galactic federation. ( Read more )