Raithe

Well.. historically speaking Spartans.. um yeah, homoerotic and fasicst? Yeah, thats really quite accurate for Spartan society..

Very nice.

Well amazon delivered my copy the other day.. I managed to block out some time and boom , about 7 hours later I had a finished book in my lap thinking "dang, now I've got to wait a year for Towers of Midnight"... There wasn't too much that struck me as jarringly non-jordan writing. A couple of things I wasn't too sure on, but they do tend to have that bounce from character to character... I'll go with the "still a damn enjoyable read" and a few things to make the mind tick over and go "hmm.. that could mean...."

Ah, all good to whet the appetite more..

I went through it with a ranger/spirit shaman/shadowdancer type... What I liked was figuring out the little bits and pieces that actually altered the future of your companions.... even within the good/evil variety of endings there were a few different results of what happened to them..

Ah, the scurrying around for the scraps of fresh AP news...

And Tolkien practically created the idea of "tree-hugging elves" because part of the epic story was based on his "industrialisation = evil, green fields & forests = good". To be fair, that was because he enjoyed country life and didn't like how many of the places of his childhood had been changed in the name of "progress". I do tend to feel the Wheel of Time feels more organic then LotR, the characters grow and evolve in a much more fluid manner then those in LotR. Although I'm willing to admit that might just be a personal bias because I knew a lot about how LotR came about, whereas the WoT I don't.

It didn't so much trigger it, as push the epic fantasy into public perception, which made it "popular" as opposed to more of a subcategory. Like it was with Conan. But I'm one of those who didn't think LotR was a good read, but I do admire the effect it had on pushing fantasy literature in general.

I preferred everything in KotOR 2 over 1. More feats and force powers, more ways to approach situations, much better choices an consequences, better writing, better characters (HK factory is just an awesome moment), etc... Also KotOR 1 is surprisingly a terrible PC port and has crashed three times as much as KotOR 2 so far, and I'm not even halfway through the game. The problem is KotOR 2 is only really great if you have the restored content, which I tried and it frankly adds a lot to the ending. The HK Factory? I didn't think the sith lords restoration project had wrapped up and released that stuff yet.. or did you get access to it via some place else? I wasn't sure on who else was trying to restore the content that hadn't been technically finished...

I've got the audio books of 1-11 on my ipod... Although I don't think I've ever actually sat down and listened all the way through on it

Kotor I was interesting in that the "Dark Side" ending was very much more cinematic, star wars feel to it then the "Light Side" ... Maybe it was just me, but the "Light Side" win just felt.. sort of anti-climatic.

The audio books are interesting , but there is a small problem for people who don't already have a grasp of the character names. A couple of people I know who tried listening to them kept getting confused by how some of the characters names sound similar when spoken. Or at least, sounded similar when they listened to the audio books.

That's one working theory... As I've said, I find the technical side of it good, I can appreciate the details and the effort Tolkien spent in building up the world, the history, the characters.... But that doesn't make it a good "read". There aren't that many characters that really grab you and make you root for them, and it does tend to bury you in irrelevant details that don't really have anything to do with the story... But I'm willing to admit thats just how I feel when I've read it.. That and the minor annoying things.. like if the Eagles were smart enough to rescue Gandalf.. and were capable of flying into Mordor to rescue Sam and Frodo.. why no-one thought to put the one ring in a packet, tie it to an Eagle's leg and say "hey, fly into mordor and drop this off in Mt.Doom would ya?"

Could always catch up with Burn Notice... (especially if you're waiting impatiently for Alpha Protocol...) Although they are in that annoying mid-season pause at the moment... dang it.

One of the classic sequences that I'll always remember.. Custom fantasy world with some elements lifted from Forgotten Realms, city state.. campaign set along the lines of a "try to be political, with everyone playing evil manipulative bastards". The players : A High Priestess of Talona (Goddess of Poisons, Diseases, and generally icky stuff) The Guild Leader of a Thieves/Assassin's Guild. Agent X - The Minister of Internal Security (played by myself, with a Mantle of the Mundane - so no-one could ever remember my face...) The situation: The Guild Leader in a situation of having started a guild war in the streets with a rival guild. The rival guild having connections with the local temple of Mask (god of thieves and the like). He had gone out of his way to bribe a dragon to fly over the city, swoop down, and raze the buildings containing the rival guild and the temple. (Which he'd had some followers mark the rooftops so the dragon would know which buildings to hit..) To prove what a evil mastermind he was, he invited all the power players in the city to a flash dinner in his mansion (which happened to be on a high point of the city, and gave a wonderful overview of the city). Part of his plan was to time everything so when after dinner drinks were served he could invite everyone out on the balcony just in time to witness the dragons arrival and subsequent demolishing of said buildings... And then just as he mentioned he had something he wanted the guests to see later.. What actually happened: The Priestess of Talona thinking of doing him a favour had already managed to set up a series of magical time bombs that blew up those very buildings halfway through the main course... Leans over and whispers to him something along the lines of : "I thought you were having trouble, so I figured you could owe me one for dealing with it. Those Mask worshippers were getting on my nerves anyway." Now picture his reaction : The dread Guild Leader who commands legions of assassins and faceless killers... jumping up in the middle of dinner.. giving a "Holy Crap! All that money! The magic items I gave the dragon!!.. The buildings aren't there!!" He paused, he looked around, (out of character he suddenly snapped out "Who don't I like?? I can still paint some more X's!") then he called wildly to one of his minions for a pot of paint.. then took off out of the balcony with some Boots of Springing (really wild jumping skillz) bouncing from roof top to roof top whilst giving a cackling, hysterical commentary of "Crap, Crap , Crap.. I can paint some X's before the dragon gets here! I can! " Now, for all of the campaign up to that point, that player had been trying to play up the whole cliched, dread and daring assassin leader. Ruthless, cool, using silence to intimidate his minion..... Everyone else there were just killing themselves with laughter as we watched him totally unwind like that..

It's one of those odd things. Sometimes an abundance of detail can be great and seriously add to the atmosphere. Sometimes it can just bury a story in amazing dullness.

If you want the really bizzare (and for a further trip away from the dragon age subject) .. the Star Wars Revenge of the Sith sold in Hong Kong.. with the english subtitles on the dubbed chinese track.. and it's just..

The thing that can be said for Hayden.. he had the annoying kid from Phantom Menace beat.. Now there was a reason for the nickname of "Manaquin Skywalker"

And Star Wars only became exceptionally detailed _after_ the original trilogy. A lot of the background universe was fuzzy, no real details on what the Republic had been, for years fans thought the "clone war" had the clones as the evil bad guys fighting against the Republic.. Oh, and Harrison Ford used to get really irritated with Lucas for not giving details on how he was meant to fly the Millenium Falcon.. Apparently being told "just press random buttons and look like you know what you're doing" wasn't focused enough since he had to repeat it all any time he was in a scene in the pilots seat.. Of course, Lucas is happy making fun of himself for basically only using "Bigger" "Faster" or "More action" as his means of directing.. he's really a visual editing director type.

What's a forum post without there being a huge can of worms? Actually, I remember an interview with Jordan where he got asked about why Matt wasn't in that book, his reply was something along the lines of "A bloody wall fell on him! I didn't really expect people to find paragraphs of Matt wrapped in bandages, in bed, doing nothing beyond healing that interesting...."

There are some areas that draw out too long... but I have to say, it's infinitely better then Lord of the Rings.. Although I'm one of those people who admire the sheer technical aspects of Tolkien's work (while remembering he wrote it all purely as someplace to hang his created language of "Elven") and applauding it's effect on the fantasy genre.. while thinking that as a fictional set of books to read was fairly fracking appaling. Impecabbly detailed, crafted with extreme attention.. but a good read? Eh..that not so much. Whereas I found the Wheel of Time had an awful lot of soul and characters you can really get interested in. Even in the drawn out sections, and some of the lesser books, I still had to turn pages and go onto the next book just to see what happens and how it all evolves...

What, you didn't know? He's actually "The Middleman" of the time...

The new author did an extensive blog on it.. Apparently by the time he had about 2/3 of the plot, sub-plots, character arcs and such done he'd reached the point of 750,000 words. Which is a bit silly for a single book. So they sat down, hashed it out, and are going to be releasing 3 books, the idea is one a year. Starting with "The Gathering Storm", followed by "Towers of Midnight", and the final book "A Memory of Light".

His widow was the editor for all the books he wrote, and she's continued in her role as editor for the final books. Also, during the final few months of his illness, Jordan sat down (or at least, propped himself up in bed) to tell the story to his friends and family (who also recorded it) plus he was one of those authors who built up a seriously extensive collection of databases of characters, plots, subplots, arcs, and general notes...

Now for those of you who aren't total 21st century purely electronic geeks... The new book from the Wheel of Time goes public in just a couple of days, and I ran across an advance review of The Gathering Storm at Tor.. Personally it did kind of amuse me some..