One Thing That I Really Liked

I've read quite a few books over the last couple of months and I've often thought about writing some reviews. That's not what I'm going to be doing here though. I feel like reviews should be written shortly after reading so that everything is still fresh in your mind. Also, these are a lot of books and writing a review for each of them would be a very long post. Instead I thought I'd try something a bit different to show what I like as a reader and to focus on one thing that really stuck with me even months after reading.

(Missing on the shelf: The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett and The Bands of Morning by Brandon Sanderson)

Spoiler Warning! Some things that I mention will have spoilers, especially since most of these books are sequels.

The Blood Mirror by Brent Weeks

Spoiler! The reveal that several scenes from earlier books are delusions from one of the characters. It really made me want to reread the earlier books and it shed a completely new light on the character.

The Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell

Spoiler! The revenge. Uhtred has many scores to settle and he does so in this book with a very fitting end for one that has done him and his Danish family much harm.

Dexter is Dead by Jeff Lindsay

The last book ended on quite the cliffhanger, begging me to purchase this final installment in the series. I enjoyed how things started out on a pretty bad note and just got worse and worse without you, the reader, or Dexter being able to see the what would go wrong next.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

This book has too many great things to choose from, but since I have to choose only one, I'll take a broad term that covers many things and I'll name one specific example. What I really enjoyed was Rothfuss's use of foreshadowing. Especially, when it comes to Kvothe having learned to play the lute with only six strings.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I just love the thought of the gateway between the two worlds. I think I'm strongly influenced by the movie version, because in my head I see this tiny wall that is easy to jump over, but it is the hole in the wall that is the gateway.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I believe Sanderson called the giant swords and heavy plate they wear in this a gee whiz factor and I agree. The magic is great, but fight scenes with the shards definitely left an image in my memory.

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

The POV from a Parshendi is one of the greatest things in this book, because their culture and their entire being is so different from ours and Sanderson does a great job of showing it.

Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson

Spoiler! The twist at the end. Finding out who the Kandra Wax is after actually is and what role she played in his past.

The Bands of Morning by Brandon Sanderson

The books have always centered around one geographic area and since the world has gone through such drastic climate changes life in other regions was never thought of. But life did exist and Sanderson's other sentient beings on this world are so original and their use of the magic is so different it really stuck with me.

The Gate Thief by Orson Scott Card

Spoiler! The consequences of having several gods go through great gates will be catastrophic in my eyes. I'm excited to see how things continue in the next installment.

Lowball edited by George R.R. Martinand Melinda M. Snodgrass

A fight club with jokers! I'm in. Granted, the story is about stopping what is going on and saving the poor jokers who are forced to fight each other, but the idea is great. If I hadn't already been influenced by an old Angel episode this would have ignited food for thought for a story idea.

You Before Me by Jojo Moyes

There were a few things that I didn't like in this book, but since I'm only naming one thing that I did like, I'd have to go with the main character's quirkiness. To me at least, the character was quite original and amusing.

The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett

The ending. Without spoilers, I just have to say that so many threads of the story line take such an abrupt and horrible turn that I didn't see coming. I felt loss at the death of some and satisfaction at the demise of others, all of it masterfully done.

New Beginnings

(Art by Alexandra V. Bach)

By the Seven, what have I done? May R'hllor's light shine upon me and save me from this crazy idea. Or may the Great Other take me and draw me into the Long Night.

No Gods have heeded my call, so I better get started. This here blog is a new project of mine that will hopefully catch a spark and spread like wildfire. I read a lot, and I write a lot less than I should. Books, blogs, short stories... Mainly, fantasy, but also science fiction, historical fiction, the occasional comedy-romance, anything really. Sometimes I find myself skipping through Google+, looking at bloggers and their sites, reading what's interesting, saving stuff to look at later. That kind of thing. Today when I did this I found myself wondering how many of these bloggers find themselves searching for more readers and how great it would be if they could share their readership with each other.

So that's what I'm going to be doing with this new project. With every post I'm going to give other writers a shout-out. Let everyone know about the cool things others are writing about out there in the web. As mentioned before and as you can tell by the title of this blog, I'll be focusing on fantasy writers. I'll also be adding some great art to every post. Always giving credit to whom it is due.

And of course, as the title of the blog also implies I will ramble on a bit about the occasional book or movie that I have just read/seen. So lets get started with that right away. For Christmas I got the second book of Brandon Sanderson's 'The Reckoners' series, "Firefght". I devoured that book in no less than 5 days and I'd love to talk about it, but I won't. I'm a stickler for chronological order. So if I'm going to talk about The Reckoners series, then I'm going to start with the first book, "Steelheart".

When I started reading "Steelheart" I thought this idea is great. Superheroes have emerged with the simultaneous ascension of a red star called Calamity. However, it turns out that even though the powers they have are pretty super, their personalities could really use a makeover, because none of the gifted are heroes, they're all villains and they've taken over. It's up to a band of rebels, called the Reckoners, to try and make life better by studying and assassinating these Epics. David is the main character who has a personal grudge against the Epic reigning over Newcago, Steelheart, and wants nothing more that to join the Reckoners and kill this tyrant.

Cool abilities, fast paced action, a true page-turner. I was expecting something in the lines of the TV show "Heroes", but I got so much more. And now that I've read the sequel I can't wait to read the final book of the series coming out mid-February.

And now, as the finishing touch, I'll give a shout-out to The Prediction a fun blog with a weekly contest. You are prompted 3 words and have to write a short flash fiction of 100 words. Many regulars to the site tend to write serials, so it's fun to get to know the characters as the weeks progress. The genres of choice are horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. It's a friendly group of talented people and I'm glad I found them. I have my own serial that I post every week so why don't you fantasy lovers go and check it out.