Jan 9, 2012

Books -I- WILL READ

The Black God's War by Moses Siregar A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham The Subtle Knife by Phillip Pullman A Tide of Shadows by Tom Bielwaski Infinity Blade: Awakening by Brandon Sanderson Any thoughts?

Jan 6, 2012

Behemoth: 1000 HP 999 MP

So, I finished Paolo Bacigalupi's The Alchemist, and I was quite pleased. The non-stop tempo, jaw-dropping characters, the plot, and the overall themes in this small little novella are what makes The Alchemist shine above most fantasies. I've read most fantasies. This leads me to my point of this blog post. Personally, I'm sick of those 1000 page Behemoths that love to call themselves Epic Fantasy. Now, don't get me wrong, I love new worlds and strange cultures, and I really could indulge myself into these, but can I really sit their in my rack, reading about the same topics over and over again? No. War this and war that, I will show you this epic world that I built for 20 years, but wont show you the characters who drive against it, but use them as windows. Thats all Fantasy IS these days. I mean, SHIT!!!! What happened to novels like A Wizard of Earthsea, a 40k word novella, Epic in every way and scope and yet manages to be readable? I loved The Alchemist, loving Who Fears Death, and Moses Siregar's Black God's War, which only uses war as a backdrop, NOT as some war novel. The only 1000 page behemoths I truly appreciate are The Wheel of Time, the first series I've ever read, and Sanderson's The Way of Kings, which hosts a great and strange alien world, quite strange to Fantasy fiction itself, but uses his characters as catalysts to show the reader what TRUE leadership is and, itself, is just a speculative look at humanity. Everything else to me is trash. I have no more love for those types of novels. I did, and thought it was cool. But my reading of the genre has matured. Any thoughts?