The Elfish Gene

Holly, Carlie, Jack and I went to the local library a few days ago and while all of them were off looking for books to occupy their time this summer I was browsing the stand with the new hardcover books on it while I held Jack. I came across this book about a guy who was addicted to the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game as a teenager and it looked like a good read.

In the end it was a decent enough book, but I found much of it to be repetitive. He told a lot of stories that were very similar just with altered details such as one time he was dealing with an elf character and the next time it was a dragon. Overall the message of the book was good, don't let things such as Dungeons & Dragons take over your every waking moment, but there wasn't a whole lot of meat to the story.

The Gathering Storm Cover Art

As an avid fan of Brandon Sanderson and his work I follow his blog with my Google Reader. Late yesterday he posted that the cover art for Wheel of Time Book 12: The Gathering Storm had been finalized and he was allowed to post it. Here is a sneak peak for anyone who is interested. More details can be found here.

Wheel of Time Book 12: Now Three Books

This news is at least a week or two old, and I meant to post about it back when it was fresh on my mind, but I can post about it now that I have a few spare minutes in my day.

The Wheel of Time series has been ongoing for years, and it is one of my favorite series of all time, only recently surpassed by Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. I've been waiting for Book 12 of Wheel of Time for almost 4 years and it was scheduled to be released this coming October as I have mentioned previously here on the blog.

As it turns out while working on the book, Brandon Sanderson, the replacement author for Robert Jordan, has discovered that he cannot possibly write the story in the way it was intended in any less than 800,000 words. To put that into perspective consider that most mass market books are published at about 200,000 words at most.

So, with this revelation the editors and publishers decided to release the book as three parts, the first of which will be titled The Gathering Storm and will be released in mid-November of this year. The following two books should be released in November 2010 and November 2011 respectively unless something crazy happens.

Here are some pertinent links to the information:

1. Tor Books Press Release

2. Comments on the Situation by Brandon Sanderson

3. Interview with Harriet (Robert Jordan's wife and editor)

In the end, I think I am okay with this situation. I simply don't want to wait past the end of this year to get some more of the story that I can read. If it takes three more books to finish things the right way, then by all means, I will buy each and every one of those three books. Besides, I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, and I'll take all of his writing that I can get.

The Mistborn Trilogy

I have just finished the third and final book of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy, Hero of Ages, and I have no problem saying that he has officially laid claim to the position of favorite author in my mind, and I firmly believe that his trilogy is one of, if not the best trilogy written in the science fiction or fantasy genre in a long time.

I may be slightly biased in my opinion, and some people would say that I tend to get a little too excited when it comes to the books that I read, but in all honesty, Sanderson has created a world where the magic is unlike anything ever attempted before and the characters seem more real.

There are no mythical creatures, simply humans who are caught in a moment of time where they must make decisions to either save or destroy the world. The first two books in this trilogy open the doors for the immensely satisfying conclusion in the third book, and leave you wanted more when you are done.

I think that Sanderson managed to strike an area of the genre that had not been found previously, and on top of that, he made it his own in such a way that nobody else is going to have a chance at replicating the work.

Overall, they are my new favorite books, he is my new favorite author, and everyone, I mean everyone needs to read them.

Slaughterhouse Five

I have to admit that my American Novel class has by and large been the best literature class I've taken so far at BYU, mostly because I actually get to read books and not just inane poems that have no real influence on my intellect.

We have already read several books for this class, but this past week we just finished Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I was all about this book, and didn't have any trouble motivating myself to finish it in time to talk about the passages for class each day.

My favorite thing about the book is the character of Billy Pilgrim who seems to think that he was abducted by an alien race known as the Tralfamadorians. These aliens just so happen to look like a toilet plunger with small hands at the top of the plunger handle and eyes in the palm of the hand. Strange? Yes. Excellent book? Yes. Would I read it again? Definitely.

I don't often get excited about reading the "classics" as often I find them mind-numbing or boring, but this one was an exception. We have to write a 5-7 page paper about one of the four books we've read so far this semester and I've decided to write mine on Slaughterhouse Five because I actually understood what was going on and could more easily see the "deeper meaning" behind the words so to speak.

#77: Fahrenheit 451

Well, I finally started working on my ultimate goal to read the Top 100 novels of all time this past week. I started with a book I already had a feeling would be enjoyable for me and that I had been wanting to read for a very long time. So, I went to the Provo Library last Saturday and picked up a copy of Fahrenheit 451 to read. It's only about 160 pages, so I finished all in one day, but it was a pretty good read. I can't say that I know everything about the message it was trying to convey, but for me the thing I got out of it most was the idea that free-thinking should not be suppressed. Yes, sometime free-thinking can be dangerous, dependent upon the person and what their thinking inspires them to do, but a large majority of thinking for ourselves and forming our own opinions on what is good, what is bad, what is worth remembering, etc allows us as an individual to avoid monotony and stagnation. It is a fine balance that all of us have to be careful of when filling our minds with thoughts. We have to make sure that our free-thinking isn't going to really cause a lot of detriment or harm to those who are around us.

The wife in Fahrenheit 451 was a slave to her visual stimulus and didn't want to think for herself, she just wanted to go along with the craze or fad of the time and be happy with that. Guy Montag on the other hand started to question what he was about, who he was, and what else there could be to make him happy. That was the biggest idea in the book to me. You have to make sure that you are happy because otherwise you have no point in being alive.

So, as the 77th book on the list, I was pleased with the outcome. Now, I just have to find another book that is actually available from the library to read next. It seems most of them are always checked out. However, it will need to wait until I finish a fantasy novel I'm reading, Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.