A seemingly hopeless winter falls on you and your regiment as you lie in wait at Valley Forge. You are tired, your shoes are nearly worn and the smell of death and disease lays heavy on the camp. Rumor has it Washington is planning something before year's end. Personally, you think he's going to surrender. Only one way to find out. You trudge through the peppermint-colored snow around the doctor's tents as you make your way to the officers' cabins. 

     In this story, you step into the role of a soldier in the American Revolution at one of the key turning points in the war as you participate in the battle of Trenton and witness the events firsthand. 

Cybercrime Detective Lieutenant Adrian Frost is a rookie gaining fast recognition in the Rockhaven Police Department in large part thanks to his father's legacy in the same role. Adrian seems to be off to a solid start until a powerful client consults him for help strictly off the books. The case revolves around the disappearance of several children and an eerie allusion to an old animated film that may hold the key to cracking the code these criminals have left in their tracks.

EndMaster's Prompt Contest 2

Following your father's legacy, you step into the role of a Captain. The leader of an expedition into the far reaches of space in search of a fertile planet worth colonizing.

Your expectations to uncover old artifacts and resources left behind by possible alien life are blown away when you and your team discover far more than you ever intended to find.

An entry for EndMaster's Prompt Contest.

Being marked is not a promising existence and that's something the Children of Cain know better than anyone else. Matthias wanders back to the land of his progenitor to claim an inheritance that should've been his. Welp, this is what I got ladies and gents. 

For this contest PRAISE ENDMASTER.

When an important King goes missing, it's up to you to steal the only magical artifact that may be capable of finding him. You must accomplish this while navigating the politics of your organization, the whims of your client, and about a half dozen things trying to kill you daily.

For the Corgi contest...

Entry for Mizal's 2020 Jungle Contest.

You are Stor Pendelhaven. a Half-Orc boy who has a natural prowess in the arcane arts. Your parents have enrolled you in the Lynalia Academy. A magic school created under the joint effort of the Factions to promote unity and prosperity. What path will you take in this compelling adventure? 

Good hunting in your bot crusade Sherbet and congratulations.

lmao 

Well If I'm going down I'll do it kicking and screaming. I Await The Council's Decision.

Well, I'm gonna try to turn something in before the deadline but it's not looking good at all. This ain't just a slaughter we're getting massacred out here. 

Death waits in line at the DMV

I shall not waste this 2nd extension though I definitely wasn't going to waste the first... 

I'll take prompt 19 m'lord. 

This aged poorly. Ngl I was rooting for Team Alpha especially at the end there. Who knows? Maybe with all those time rifts opening up in the dark sector there's an alternate universe where Abbot and Cook survived 

     I think I would agree with Gryphon and mizal that Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite of the series for most of the reasons you listed above. The one thing I would add to that is Reepicheep who is my favorite comic relief character in the series just behind Puddleglum.

     One of my main gripes with The Last Battle which you may have seen or not was the villains. I felt like Jadis, The White Witch, got cheated out of being the last antagonist since she is a recurring force of evil in the world and Lewis could've easily done the whole evil within Narnia plot with her puppeteering the false Aslan instead of a character we've never seen before. To me, it just makes more logical sense for her to be behind the false Aslan plot since The Magician's Nephew which is the book before kind of sets her up as the antithesis or the opposite of Aslan with her tempting Digory at the garden and then eating the fruit herself which is a clear reference to the garden of Eden. She also transforms into a flipping serpent in The Silver Chair which is another allusion to the garden of Eden and the serpent's temptation. She's clearly the main villain of the series.

I've never heard of Lewis's space trilogy before. I'll have to check it out.

DISCLAIMER: SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA SERIES

     Before I jump into this let me preface this by saying I enjoy most of the books of The Chronicles of Narnia series. I have a few gripes about the 1st and 4th books of the series, but for the most part, I enjoyed the simple plot and recurring characters. My primary bone to pick with C.S. Lewis is the seventh and final entry to The Chronicles of Narnia which I thought was very poorly done and the ending was abrupt and confusing.

     I know these books are intended to be children's books because of the shortness of length and illustrations. However, some of the plot points throughout the series are needlessly rushed to their conclusion when I thought Lewis could have gone into more detail with them.

     I'll list a few examples of the ones that stood out the most to me. In The Magician's Nephew, the first book of the series, Digory and Polly end up waking up Jadis (sometimes referred to as the white witch) from her dying world of Charn going back to the real world and then tricking her into going with them to the creation of Narnia in a span of fewer than 24 hours. While this might seem standard for a story about children with world-hopping rings the pacing of the plot is all of this happens within about thirty pages. Now for so many important events to happen all at once with little to no explanation of the significance of freeing Jadis the empress or bringing her along with the children to the birth of Narnia without checking in on the character's states of mind while all of this is happening is leaving some unanswered questions for the sake of accelerating the plot.

     The same thing occurs in the fourth book of the series Prince Caspian. Caspian has to take back the kingdom from his evil uncle Miraz with the help of the four Pevensie kids Lucy, Peter, Edmund, and Susan. We're never given to opportunity to learn more about Miraz or his motivations except hearing it from other characters because in the chapter he appears in he dies due to the treachery of his captains. Also, the entirety of the war is won in one battle which bothered me. I know the same thing happens in The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, but there it makes sense because, without the White Witch, her army is leaderless. You don't get the same feeling with Miraz and the Telmarines because they proceed to fight the battle with Miraz dead anyway.

     Again, these are minor nitpicks but the reason I cite these examples is that they throw logic out the window for the sake of telling the story the author wants. Now I can suspend my belief in a fantasy novel well enough. Do you want this world-hopping adventure that Digory and Molly take in the first book to end with the creation of Narnia all in one day? Fine. Do you want to have wars won with only one necessary battle to ensure victory? I can live with that. What I can't live with is the existence of book seven The Last Battle which in my humble opinion is a terrible way to end a fantasy series.

     The Last Battle is easily the worst book in The Chronicles of Narnia because from start to finish it is a convoluted mess. The last book in the series should've been The Silver Chair the one that comes before this book simple enough. Lewis could've easily combined aspects of both books and made it a satisfying conclusion to his series but nope! Instead, we are stuck with this stupid monkey named Shift and Tarkaan Rishad as the main antagonists of this final book. Not even Jadis who has been a recurring villain throughout the entire series! The plot starts off simple enough. Shift the monkey puts a lion skin on his donkey servant Puzzle and pretends he is Aslan tricking all of the talking animals. Shift then makes a deal with the Calormenes which are basically Narnia's version of Arabs that live south of Narnia past Archenland.

     The warlord he makes the deal with named Tarkaan Rishad ends up manipulating Shift for his own purposes and ends up eventually taking over Narnia and enslaving the talking animals. The Narnian King Tirian is captured and it is up to Jill and Eustace ( who are also two kids who've been on Narnian adventures) to save Narnia.

     To make a long story short they fail and are thrown into the stable where the fake Aslan is. What they don't know is that the God Tash (which is the God of the Calormenes though it is established earlier that Tash is a false god and Aslan is the real God, but apparently Lewis retconned this and now Tash is some sort of demon) Tash the bird demon is waiting for them. Tash grabs the monkey Shift and Tarkaan Rishad and takes them to basically hell, but the stable for the good people is a portal to Aslan's country.

     After all this, Aslan shows up and ends the world with the good people going to Aslan's country which is a copy of Narnia kind of like "I saw a New Heaven and New Earth" from the Bible and the bad people go down to Tash falling into shadow. Aslan then explains to all the people there, Digory, Molly, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and Jill that they will have adventures in Aslan's world forever because when they were brought to Narnia from the real world it is explained to them they were in a railway accident and DIED. Also, Susan, wasn't there because she didn't believe in Narnia anymore for some reason so in my mind Susan won in the end because she didn't die in a freaking railway accident and was now in Narnia with Aslan forever which is basically Lewis's version of heaven.

     So The Last Battle in my mind was a really weird book and a strange way to end the series. What Lewis should've done in my opinion is made the final confrontation between Jadis the Witch and all the people from our world who visited Narnia and then maybe kill off a character or two to make us sad and have Aslan explain they're with him now and they'll be able to see him or her again in this world or their own world as they are one and the same. Then we could have some sad goodbyes with them leaving Narnia for good and the promise of more adventures to come.

 What are your thoughts on how this series ended? Do you have a favorite fantasy series in which you felt like the author totally screwed up the ending and left a sour taste in your mouth? Let me know what you think or don't it's up to you.