The Hero's Prophecy - A Basic Introduction

In my last post, I explained just how this series came to be, but now I will explain some of the books, the three main characters, and the main enemy as well as some basic information. The first thing you should know is the main character. His name is Steve, yes, to Minecrafters he is mainly known as the Default Skin (Unless you count the second Default Skin in 1.8). Here is a picture of the simple hero in my book:

So, now you can see him. Not much right? Correct, but he has skills. There is a Prophecy that has slowly been taking form over the years. Part of it says, without giving too much away, that a boy will slay the Ender Dragon to save the world. But it will be a battle, and not everyone will come out alive. This boy's brother will be caught, and be imprisoned in another dimension, the End, and they will lose their mother after this boy meets her again. But who is this boy? Well, part of the Prophecy describes him as looking like his father when he was young, and his father's name is Herobrine. No, in this book, Herobrine is not the evil ghost of Notch's dead brother, he is actually one of the good people. With the Prophecy out, everyone thinks for sure it is this boy in the picture above - Steve. He was given away when he was a baby to protect his life, but now that he is nearly fourteen, and memories are coming back to him. Steve is sent away to a town full of survivors and fighters so he will be ready when he learns the Prophecy. But things don't go easily for Steve. People want to kill him, and monsters won't leave him alone. Well, here is one thing you should know: being killed by a person in the world of Minecraft means you will come back, also known as re-spawning, but you're not so lucky if it comes to monsters. Steve spent most of his life in a town called Farmington where he defended the people every night from all sorts of evil monsters. He started doing this since he was thirteen, and now nearly being fourteen years old, Steve has gained a lot of skills in Archery. But I really do not want to give away a lot so onto the next character: Hero.

I am sorry, but I don't have  a picture for him besides some (in my opinion, bad) drawings/sketches. I will actually be showing those soon enough, but right now, I might as well describe him. Hero is the younger brother of Steve, but they are complete opposites. Steve's only goal is to keep himself alive, but Hero has other ideas. He has two main goals: Being cool and slicing off monster heads with his sword. Hero always wears hoodies and keeps his enchanted iron sword strapped to his side. If he did not live in the Nether, Hero would probably be one of the popular kids in town or in school, but thanks to the Ender Dragon (I will get to him soon) Hero's life is not like that. He has blonde hair, blue eyes, and much lighter skin than his brother, taking on the appearance of his mother in a way of eye and skin color. Because of that, everyone knows Hero is not the one to slay the Dragon even though his father is Herobrine. But once again, I don't want to give away too much just yet so here is the next character: Sadie.

Sadie is a lot like me when it comes to our personalities. She is a researcher, likes reading, hates fashion, very organized, and knows a lot about non-fiction things. She is also a good leader thanks to her knowledge and her organization, plus she is an expert when it comes to map reading and planning. Sadie's story is kept secret to nearly everyone besides a few people. A few years back, the Ender Dragon came and destroyed Sadie's town, magically locking every building and home and catching them on fire. Luckily Sadie had been outside writing but it had also meant the death of nearly everyone else. A few weeks before that, Hero had been in her town warning schools about the Ender Dragon returning and Sadie was one of the few people who actually believed the news. Because of that, Hero and Sadie became quick friends and started training once a week at a hideout they made just outside of her town. Well, once Sadie's town was destroyed she fled to the hideout and called Hero and the others (Steve was not there then). A portal was opened and she was brought to the Herobrine Family Castle to live and train there. Since then, Sadie has just told people like Steve that she lived at the castle for training. I also don't have a picture of Sadie yet, but I might be able to sketch something up. Now, I have one last person, monster more like, that I must list - The Ender Dragon.

The Ender Dragon... the King of monsters, also known as the King of Darkness. His home is in the End, one of the three dimensions in the story. He has the power to possess people, even immortal people like Herobrine, and he is slowly gaining power to take over the world. If not stopped, the world would be changed forever. Once again, I don't want to give away too much yet so here is a picture:

 Sorry, he might be sort of hard to see, but that is the Ender Dragon. In a future post about Minecraft, I will try to get better pictures or a video of him. For now, that will have to do though. You now know a little about the Prophecy, the three main characters, and the Ender Dragon, so I will be signing off here, but be prepared because next I will introduce my hobby of music.

Reading as a Hobby - How not liking a book can quickly change

I am back again today as promised, and I am here to introduce one of my hobbies - reading. I have always liked reading, and one of the very first (possibly the first) chapter books I ever read was about fairies. Since then, I have always really liked fantasy books, but then I discovered a sub category under fantasy - Adventure. I base nearly all of my books off adventure, I read almost all adventure books, and of course, I like a good adventure every now and then. But what have I read that falls under this category? Quite simple really, here is the two best series I have ever read: The Percy Jackson series and the Harry Potter series. Thanks to those series, I decided I like adventure and fantasy equally. Here is how it all got started:

A few years ago, when I was about ten or eleven, I decided to read the first Harry Potter book. It sounded like a cool book, the cover was also really cool, and I thought, well, let's do it! so I pulled the thick book off my shelf and flipped to the first page after staring at the cover for about a minute (I do that a lot). So I started slowly reading each word, wondering: why is this so boring...? To me, every word made no sense, and I had no idea what was going on. So after finishing the first few pages I simply gave up and tossed the book back on the bookshelf. From then on, I had fully decided I would never pick up another Harry Potter book again, but I was wrong.

About a year or two later, I had ran out of books to read on my bookshelf besides some easier reads and parts of the Harry Potter series including book 1. Remembering my past experience with Harry Potter I just decided not to read anything that day. Finally I went to my mom saying something like, "I have nothing left to read, mom!" Of course, this is how she replied if I remember correctly, "You still have the Harry Potter books, go read those." "But I tried the books before and it was so boring!" "You were younger then so the words were harder to understand." With that, I found myself facing the bookshelf, hand on the dust-covered Harry Potter book, probably thinking, Well, here goes nothing. After that, I picked up the book, went on my bed, and started reading. To my surprise, I could understand every word and the book itself was amazing. Within less than a week - probably more like 3-4 days - I finished book one. Then the second. And the third. And so on until the series was finished. But for some of the books I had to get them on the Kindle (for one book a month) meaning it took a long, long time to finish the series since I had to wait for some of the books. So, it turned out, I just loved the Harry Potter series, and now it is probably my second favorite. What pushed it aside to second place? This:

 The Percy Jackson series... it is one of those series that once again amazes me. I read this series just last year when I was twelve, but the story of how I came to like it is slightly different from the one I just told you. I once again was out of books to read, but now I was using the library instead of the Kindle meaning I had way more books on hand and I would get them sooner. The thing is, I had no idea what to read next. In my opinion, nothing would ever beat Harry Potter, but something did. I asked my mom after researching for a while, what she thought I should read. My mom looked online and nearly instantly found a series she thought I might like: the Percy Jackson books. She told me what the first book was about and my first thought was, Nope, not my type of book, but I chose to read it anyways since what else was I going to read? I actually had tried to read the Harry Potter series again earlier that year but I found out I can never re-read a series so I was stuck finding a new book. Anyways, once the book got in at the library I was only semi-excited because yes, it was a new book, but I doubt I would even like it. Once I was set on my bed, book in hand, I once again stared at the cover for about a minute, thinking about what would happen, and then opened the book to page one. I started reading and by the first sentence I knew instantly this was my type of book. I quickly flew through the first and then just as quickly for the rest once I got them in at the library. After the series was over, I was instantly regretting the fact that I could read a good book so fast. Now what was I going to read? Well, I started reading the follow-up series to it called the Heroes of Olympus but that was not as good, and I am actually still waiting for the last book to that series which comes out in October (13th I think). Since then I have been reading other series such as Fablehaven (my 3rd favorite), but none are as good as the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series, then again, that can quickly change. Knowing this must be hurting your head by now, I will be signing off and moving onto my next topic - writing. Be warned, it is hard for me to stop once I get started on something good.