Fantasy

6 entries. 2,105 words.

January, 2013

• Sanderson Takes Over. 2013-01-01 12:53 AM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I’ve been trying to get through the Wheel of Time books before A Memory of Light comes out on January 8, and since I am now 20% finished with The Towers of Midnight, I think I can safely say that I am going to make it. Light! What a reading frenzy. I was keenly interested to see what Brandon Sanderson would do with the series, and so far I’m quite pleased. I can definitely see the change in writing style (mainly in shorter sections and paragraphs and sentences), but I expected that. What I didn’t expect was the emotional impact that Sanderson brought to the series. Sanderson did something that Jordan never managed: He made me actually care about Rand for the first time since the first book. Rand’s been such an insufferable, stubbornly indecipherable butthead of a hero for so long that I frankly hoped the Dark One would win the Last Battle. 399 words.
• Finished A Memory of Light. 2013-01-15 8:22 PM.
  • Writing
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  The Third Age is finally over. I powered through books 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 all in a row, which has left me exhausted, yet exalted. Say what you want about it, but you can’t deny that The Wheel of Time is EPIC. I quipped on Facebook that they should retire the category of “epic fantasy” after this because nobody else could possibly write anything as epic. I’m trying to think of anything I’ve read that had a similar scope. Lord of the Rings, obviously, but that was only three tiny, tiny books. The only other books I can think of (that I’ve read) that came close in terms of sheer immersion were Stephen R. Donaldson’s _The Chronicles of Thomas _Covenant and possibly The Sword of Shannara, which I remember as incredibly epic in scope, even though it was only one book, and I read it when I was a teenager. 291 words.

May, 2013

• Game of Thrones Season 3. 2013-05-23 6:42 PM.
  • Television
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  Okay I’m going to say it. Or write it. Whatever. Game of Thrones is getting a bit dull. In the books, it’s fine to have twenty different storylines, because it’s an epic fantasy after all and you get to stay with the characters for at least a chapter before moving on, and they are usually long chapters. In the television series, you get to spend roughly thirty seconds on each story in each episode, so it’s nearly impossible to form any kind of attachment with what’s going on. We see so little of Daenerys that I really don’t care what she’s doing over there in the desert anymore. Every time we see her, all she’s doing is whining about slaves. I almost wish they would devote each episode to one specific character’s story instead of trying to weave them all together. 199 words.

July, 2013

• Latest Audibooks I've Listened To. 2013-07-01 3:13 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I’ve been on an audiobook kick lately. I realize it’s “cheating” to listen to a book instead of read it, but it’s just so darn convenient. You can actually accomplish other things simultaneously while listening to a book (like driving, washing dishes, playing games, paying bills, etc.), whereas if you read a book, it’s pretty much all you can do. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, read by Wil Wheaton. Great nostalgia book, although I could have lived without the cliche “real world is better than the virtual world” moral. 411 words.

August, 2013

• The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. 2013-08-02 2:17 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  I started reading The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold … and this time, I actually *mean* reading, not listening to the audiobook. (There are people who insist that listening to an audiobook is the same as reading, but IMO they are very different media consumption experiences.) I picked it up because I saw that it was the next book in The Sword and Laser book club, so on impulse I got it. Not because I wanted to participate in The Sword and Laser, but because I’d wanted to read a Bujold book anyway because her name appears somewhat frequently on the Hugo award winner list. 276 words.
• The Curse of Chalion, Part 2. 2013-08-19 6:33 PM.
  • Books
  • everettrenshaw.com
  
  This book really grew on me. I almost stopped reading it at about 20%, but pressed onward, and I’m glad I did, because I feel like I learned something important about writing from this book. When I got to about 35% I was hooked, and when I got to about 40% I was riveted. I won’t spoil it but if you’ve read the book you probably know the events that caused the riveting. The book has a lot of religious themes after the 40% mark which are really interesting. 529 words.