YAY! It appears tha0 tone of my favorite books "American Gods" will be turned into a TV show by none other than Tom Hanks for SIX SEASONS!
Read more HERE.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Missing the Wheel...
So I must admit that I have indeed been missing for quite some time through no fault of my own. You see I was transported to a land far far away, where at once a wind rose. You see, it was no ordinary wind...
It was a wind that had been heard before and in this case, it was two of the last three books in the now made epic Wheel of time series. I have to say, this whle adventure is starting to pick up pace once more. What once might have been a really crappy inerlude thanks to Jordan's death is now pickingup speed and interest again where it once began to wane since Winter's Heart. ( All right, i will be honest, well before that. Personally Fires of Heaven was my favorite one, but that is neither here nor there... )
I have just finished reading The Gathering Storm and The Towers of Midnight and let me tell you, my head is abuzz and a blur. Previously, Jordan had indicated he'd wipe his hard drive to stop someone else completing his work. I have to say, that I was expecting this and that this is proboly one of the most horrifying and yet disasterously pleasing things I have ever heard. I feel that I can see myself making the very same threat were I a little bit more crotchety as a human being. However, with him being so close to the end of the story he changed his mind, trusting his wife and editor, Harriet, and his publisher Tom Doherty to find a writer capable of finishing the series well. In theory, it should have led to disaster: typically one writer finishing a series begun by another can be an atrocious idea that only leads to very bad books. I would therefore like you to note the vomit-inducing new Dune novels (which are absolute slag, and yet for some reason I contiue to punish myself by occasionally reading one) and the ill-advised Amber continuations (which should have never been published and teh second writer - who shall remain nameless - should have been flogged for huliliation. No... I am not bitter about teh Amber continuation books...)
The amount of work required to bring Wheel of Time to a conclusion required an altogether different level of commitment and effort and I truly believe that Brian Sanderson was able to pull it off. In fact, The Gathering Storm has the most cohesive through-line in story, character and theme of any book in the series since The Shadow Rising, and possibly out of all of them.
Yes, that is high praise.
The structure of the book uses two storylines as their primary focus; initially Rand's deteriorating mental state and Egwene's efforts to unite the White Tower and end the civil war within. Might I remind you that that has raged for the past seven and a half volumes. Other characters and stories appear briefly, such as Perrin and Tuon, and Mat has a slightly bigger role, but other major characters and storylines do not appear at all. The recently-quelled civil war in Andor and the Mazrim Taim/Asha'man plotlines are notable by their absences. Instead, this part of the story focuses on two of the central protagonists, Rand and Egwene, and the experiences they go through to achieve their goals.
As for Towers of Midnight - there's a heck of a lot of action and movement, but ultimately, this book is about things *finally* falling into position for the final confrontations. Perrin especially gets a lot of development, and if you've ever thought anything like "Perrin used to be my favorite character, but. . . " you'll probably be very happy about the turn he takes in this volume.
Now down to the real part of this. Because of the nature of the coauthorship (Jordan wrote some sections of this book before he died, and the rest was completed from outlines and notes), it's hard to know precisely how much we're seeing here of Brandon Sanderson's work and how much of Jordan's, and there were one or two moments where I as a reader wondered whose voice I was reading, and one or two points where I felt Sanderson had stumbled slightly in his presentation of a character or handling of internal monologue.
Either way.. this was fantastaclly done and I can't wait for "A Memory of Light".
It was a wind that had been heard before and in this case, it was two of the last three books in the now made epic Wheel of time series. I have to say, this whle adventure is starting to pick up pace once more. What once might have been a really crappy inerlude thanks to Jordan's death is now pickingup speed and interest again where it once began to wane since Winter's Heart. ( All right, i will be honest, well before that. Personally Fires of Heaven was my favorite one, but that is neither here nor there... )
I have just finished reading The Gathering Storm and The Towers of Midnight and let me tell you, my head is abuzz and a blur. Previously, Jordan had indicated he'd wipe his hard drive to stop someone else completing his work. I have to say, that I was expecting this and that this is proboly one of the most horrifying and yet disasterously pleasing things I have ever heard. I feel that I can see myself making the very same threat were I a little bit more crotchety as a human being. However, with him being so close to the end of the story he changed his mind, trusting his wife and editor, Harriet, and his publisher Tom Doherty to find a writer capable of finishing the series well. In theory, it should have led to disaster: typically one writer finishing a series begun by another can be an atrocious idea that only leads to very bad books. I would therefore like you to note the vomit-inducing new Dune novels (which are absolute slag, and yet for some reason I contiue to punish myself by occasionally reading one) and the ill-advised Amber continuations (which should have never been published and teh second writer - who shall remain nameless - should have been flogged for huliliation. No... I am not bitter about teh Amber continuation books...)
The amount of work required to bring Wheel of Time to a conclusion required an altogether different level of commitment and effort and I truly believe that Brian Sanderson was able to pull it off. In fact, The Gathering Storm has the most cohesive through-line in story, character and theme of any book in the series since The Shadow Rising, and possibly out of all of them.
Yes, that is high praise.
The structure of the book uses two storylines as their primary focus; initially Rand's deteriorating mental state and Egwene's efforts to unite the White Tower and end the civil war within. Might I remind you that that has raged for the past seven and a half volumes. Other characters and stories appear briefly, such as Perrin and Tuon, and Mat has a slightly bigger role, but other major characters and storylines do not appear at all. The recently-quelled civil war in Andor and the Mazrim Taim/Asha'man plotlines are notable by their absences. Instead, this part of the story focuses on two of the central protagonists, Rand and Egwene, and the experiences they go through to achieve their goals.
As for Towers of Midnight - there's a heck of a lot of action and movement, but ultimately, this book is about things *finally* falling into position for the final confrontations. Perrin especially gets a lot of development, and if you've ever thought anything like "Perrin used to be my favorite character, but. . . " you'll probably be very happy about the turn he takes in this volume.
Now down to the real part of this. Because of the nature of the coauthorship (Jordan wrote some sections of this book before he died, and the rest was completed from outlines and notes), it's hard to know precisely how much we're seeing here of Brandon Sanderson's work and how much of Jordan's, and there were one or two moments where I as a reader wondered whose voice I was reading, and one or two points where I felt Sanderson had stumbled slightly in his presentation of a character or handling of internal monologue.
Either way.. this was fantastaclly done and I can't wait for "A Memory of Light".
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