First, a bit of news: The Warden and the Wolf King is one of twelve semifinalists in this year's Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction! If you've read at least two titles on the list, you're eligible to vote, and Andrew would be honored if you chose to support his book. Semifinals close on Monday. We'll keep you updated!This week, we read chapters 53-58 of North! Or Be Eaten. There is a chapter in this section—55—which I love because it hurts. Next week (can you believe we have only one week left in this book?) begins with another chapter which I love for the same reason. While picking an excerpt this week, though, I couldn't get away from the beauty of the language in Andrew's description of the boggan ride.But if the Phoobs chapters hurt your heart, too, and you want to talk about them, meet me in the forum.
Janner and Maraly sheathed their blades and looked out at the Ice Prairies for the first time. Mog-Balgrik’s western slope was formidable, a steep sentinel warning travelers weak of spirit to keep their distance, but if the traveler braved her icy face, the reward was sweet. A long, smooth descent to the frozen desert of the Ice Prairies lay at her back, and to those like Gammon who knew where to find them, boggans hid in the snow to bear them home.Janner’s eyes watered, and the wind of their passage deafened him, but he smiled so wide that the muscles in his cheeks throbbed. The moon cooled to white as it climbed, and it lit the ice fields so that Janner could see as clearly as if it were day. For hours the three of them glided down from the mountains, faster than the fastest horse, with a plume of snow arcing behind them like a spray of water. Moonlight caught the flying snow, flashing prisms of color on the prairie surface as they passed. White mice and snow foxes, burrowed beneath the snow for the night, twitched their ears when the boggan zoomed by, thinking that perhaps the Maker had bent low to the earth and whispered, “Shh.”—From chapter 54, "The Ice Prairies."
Andrew's birthday was yesterday! We've eaten most of the cake already, but you can still sign his card. :-)And there's a brand-new feature in the forum: The "Community conversations" subforum, where you can go to talk to other Wingfeather readers about non-Wingfeather topics. Let's be friends. :-)