My Google Diary for Dreams of Gods & Monsters

Dreams of Gods & Monsters

by Laini Taylor
Format: select

When I read, I ask a LOT of questions. Here’s some stuff I searched or wondered about while reading Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor.

From my Review:

Dreams of Gods & Monsters was an epic and beautiful finale to one of my new favorite fantasy series.  The romance made my heart melt.  There was a Star Wars joke about using a Tauntaun to keep warm which I loved.  There was more of the blunt, honest humor that I laugh out loud at. Read more…

 

• Read my Google Diary for Daughter of Smoke & Bone
• Read my Google Diary for Days of Blood & Starlight 

Places

The Plaza of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome (pg 66)

They were over the plaza, Michelangelo’s colonnades curving beneath them like outstretched arms.

– Laini Taylor,  Dreams of Gods & Monsters (pg 475)

 

Awesome References

Tattooine?

By the time the plane’s wheels touched down on a desolate stretch of desert runway, the sun had cleared a ridge of mountains and revealed a land the color of dust. The single building that served as a terminal was squat and fashioned seemingly of the same dust.

The Middle East? Eliza wondered. Tattooine? A sign, hand-painted, was illegible in exotic, curling letters. Arabic, at a guess. That probably eliminated Tattooine.

-Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters  (p. 238).

Is it Gollum??

Razgut crooning over his pain like a baby just makes this image of Gollum pop in my head.  And once it did, it never went away every time he showed up in the book.

He could kick him, oh yes, and Razgut would croon to the pain all night long and comfort it like an armful of babies, and in the morning he would count his bruises, and number his spites and miseries, and go on smiling, and go on knowing all the things that no one remembered, the things that should never have been forgotten, and the reason— oh godstars, the most excellent and terrible reason— that Jael should leave the Stelians alone.

-Laini Taylor,  Dreams of Gods & Monsters  (pg 259).

 

Religion

World Religions

A big theme in this book was religion.  I really liked this quote because even though it is fiction I think it highlights really well the dynamic of world religions.

“Are you beginning to understand what this means?” Dr. Amhali asked, very intense. “Do you see how the world will interpret it? The angels flew to Rome; it’s all very nice for Christians, yes? Angels in Rome, warning of beasts and wars, while here, in a Muslim country, we unearth… demons. What do you think the response will be?”

– Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters (pg 248).

Nephilim

Even though I wasn’t a fan of all the back story, I did like the references to the Nephilim. And since Hieronymus Bosch was mentioned in Daughter of Smoke & Bone, I had to include one of his painting here that was based on one of the biblical references to Nephilim (Genesis 6:1-4).

It was the term, in ancient texts, for the offspring of the better-known “Nephilim,” who were the first fruit of angels’ congress with humans.

– Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone) (pg 352).

Nephilim scripture, both biblical and apocryphal, all the angels were male. The Book of Enoch— a text that was canon to no group except the Ethiopian Jews— tells of the leader of the fallen angels, Samyaza, ordering his hundred and ninety-nine fallen brethren to, essentially, get busy.

– Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters  (pg 352).