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I finished Assassin's Price last night, the latest Imager book by L.E. Modesitt Jr. It was better than the last two books in the trilogy because it was far less derivative of the series as a whole. It may be the first time Modesitt has ever written a non-magic user as the main character in his fantasy novels. It's at least the first one that I've come across. It was a good change in any case, and definitely a breath of fresh air. This afternoon I read volumes 3-5 of Psyren. It's one of the best constructed and thought out manga I've read, although the paneling is weak and it's taken me a remarkably long time to get the characters straight. What's impressed me the most is how they've managed to take kind of stock shonen characters, plot, action, and setting, but make them feel far more grounded and unique than a run of the mill shonen series. When people get hurt, they really get hurt. Characters have a very human mix of logic and emotion. It's all very unusual for the genre, and while the paneling and art can make some things confusing( and a meh translation doesn't help) it's still a very impressive series. I'm definitely going to go to the effort of finishing the series.

I've been exploring Queens of the Stone Age's work. It's got some sounds that I really like, and some that I don't, and they've been around long enough that it'll take me a while to really get to know what songs/albums really stick out to me. I've also really been enjoying listening to Angels and Airwaves' I-Empire album. Out of all the music Leto has worked on, that album may be my favorite. I know 30 Seconds to Mars is more popular, but Angels and Airwaves appeals to me a lot more. I'm very impatiently waiting for The Killers and Hozier to release their respective albums....

I finished the main questline for Breath of the Wild this morning. I had completed all the Divine Beasts before going after Gannon, had the Master Sword, and a complete row of hearts. I had forty shrines, and two stamina upgrades. I didn't work at the Koroks at all. There's a TON of things I haven't done, but I'm going to just leave it alone until I come back home during Christmas break. I'm currently planning on getting back into my re-play of Kingdoms of Amalur, and enjoying the DLC I haven't explored yet. I'm also probably going to start getting back into Civ V. It's been several months and that itch to play has started to get strong again.

It is hard, but it's mostly that old school, keep trying till you don't die kind of hard that is a lot of fun. There aren't a lot of games that just give you that kind of challenge without having to adjust difficulty levels, and it's a great feeling. I love a game where you have to try a ton of different methods before you get one that works. If you aren't dying than the game developers weren't even trying.

So I'm about fifteen(?) ish hours into Breath of the Wild. It really is a fantastic game. I just hope I can rush through the main quest line and finish that before I leave for BYU next week...

I finished Arrested Development. Do I still have some Netflix episodes of AD to watch? Yes. I don't think they truly count as Arrested Development though. I havent picked out out a new show to watch yet.

I finished Deadhouse Gates. It was very hard to re-start the book halfway through, but I made it through and I think I understood everything. I'm going to take a quick break and read Assassin's Price, then if I have the time I'll start on Malazan 3. There's a good chance I simply won't have the time to finish it before I leave for school, so I may just wait to start until I'm settled in school and then grab a copy there.

Almost finished season two of Arrested Development. Excellent show.

I'm loving the two new songs by The Killers. The Man is seriously hypnotizing my thumb to punch the repeat button every time I listen to it....it's bad. Its honestly really weird how Paramore and the Killers are going similar directions musically, with sounds I never would've expected to enjoy, and yet I love After Laughter and the two songs The Killers have released for their new album so far.

So I have had the best 24 hours of my life I think. I've been at a thing in NYC at Columbia University debating the ethics of war and terrorism for the past two weeks. I've never been to New York before, so I want to soak up as much as I can while I'm here right? So yesterday Steven Spielberg's upcoming film The Papers was shooting On campus. So I camped outside the set to see what I could see and hopefully catch a glimpse of Tom Hanks or Spielberg. I didn't unfortunately, but it was still a ton of fun and I loved watching the extras. During the afternoon I spent aproximately an hour arguing the merits and reasoning for torture in war in order to finally make my point that I think that torture is both wrong and an unwise strategic resort. That evening I went to Wicked. I've grown up on the soundtrack and have SO much emotional investment in it, and I've never gotten to actually see the musical, so it was one of the biggest emotional pay offs I've ever experienced and it took me to tears at least three times. Than this morning I was able to attend a free Imagine Dragons concert in Central Park. They are BY FAR my favorite band, and both their music and their real lives have helped me and comforted me in the worst parts of my depression. I missed going to one of their concerts on their last tour, and I was worried I'd miss them on their upcoming tour as well, so I really can't describe how excited I was to be able to go. We did some more cool things while debating war and stuff today, but I won't go into detail right now.

I've got an inherited Iphone 6, with a very finicky charging port, and I use textnow's minimum plan. So I piggy back on Sprints network, get a tiny amount of 3G data and then it switches over to the slow stuff, and most importantly to me it's $14 a month. I'm an incredibly cheap person, and most of my life I've been happy just using wi-fi and living without cell service, but life changes and so I went with the absolute cheapest option I could find. I am pretty happy with it except that I have to use the textnow app instead of Imessages.

Awesome to see another Modesitt reader on here! There've been a few other members that read his works, but most have either lost interest in him or aren't very active on the forum. I'm about three fourths of the way into Deadhouse Gates now, I've been Very busy so I simply haven't been able to devote the time to reading. I'm putting Faust on hold until I get home for the same reason, I just don't have the time and energy in the day to give it what it deserves. I'll have about two weeks of downtime once I get home so hopefully I'll manage to plow through Faust and Memories of Ice before I leave for BYU.

Just finished the first season of Hell on Wheels. Definitely a very good show, but I'm not sure if I feel like continuing honestly. I can enjoy a season or two of a good grim show, but after that the tone usually gets really old.

Given that I haven't even gotten very far into part 1, it seems pre-mature to judge my apparently ignorant comparison. I'm sure you don't mean to, but you're coming off incredibly condescending. There's a lot to be said about withholding your assessment of other people's abilities until you've had extensive first hand experience of those skills. I am glad you care enough about literature to try to help people read it when they can get the most out of it, but at least in this case it's really rather annoying. I've made good headway into Deadhouse Gates, hopefully I'll be able to finish it by the end of the week. It's been hard jumping back in right in the middle, but I'm managing better than I feared haha.

I love War and Peace, it's one of my favorite books as well. I don't remember what translation I read unfortunately @Orlion On a Cob I'm not entirely sure what's given you the impression I'd be too young for Faust Even if I am, isn't there still a lot to be gained by the attempt? For instance, I'm quite certain there are many layers to Paradise Lost that I didn't completely appreciate on my first read through, but I still got a lot out of it and am more prepared for future re-reads and other challenging works.

Yeppers. I'm not very far in yet, but it's good so far.

I finished The Witchwood Crown! It was a good start to the new trilogy. Unsurprisingly, Tad started it off on a slow burn that won't really start becoming a raging fire until book 2. It was a good book, but not fantastic. It will probably feel more complete when the next book is done and some of the story arcs start to mature and or end. So next up I'm going to juggle reading Faust with trying to get back into Deadhouse Gates.

So I only finished the first two books in Shadowmarch and the first Otherland book. Shadowmarch is great if you want something that's kind of in-between Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and ASoIaF. It's grimmer than MSandT, but not so much that I couldn't read it. I did give up just because I found other shorter and easier books to read and couldn't bother to jump back in. Otherland is....incredibly hard to describe. There is the whole computer simulation thing going on, but it's nothing like Ready Player One, SAO, or other stories with a cyber world. It is a LONG burn. It's a sci-fi mystery with fantasy and social studies elements, and...yeah. That's the best I can describe it. So, if you want a more traditional fantasy, do Shadowmarch. If you want something that really defies genre and can deal with a long burn and uncertain pay off, go for Otherland. Or, if you're a Dresden fan, you could go for the Bobby Dollar books. I haven't read them because of the large amounts of cursing, but I've heard they're pretty good.

I actually stopped book 2 for the same reason as @Sunbird . There aren't tons of uses of F's, but there's still a lot if you're already the kind of person who is very uncomfortable with vulgarity. I usually stop reading a book if the author uses more than 2, or if it's obvious that it's going to continue through the series. The one exception I've made is Morning Star, the final book in the Red Rising trilogy. I went ahead and bought a copy so that I could black the words out so I can re-read it whenever I feel like it. I know curses are just a part of life because far more people use them than don't, but I do avoid it with the things that entertain me. The Witchwood Crown is pretty good so far. I'm about half way through. There are a Lot of PoV changes, which helps with the epic feel, but also means that there are a Lot of characters to remember. There's about 700 pages, but the word count per page feels very large. I wouldn't be surprised if by word count it's as long as tWoK. Tad is definitely setting a lot of foundation for the rest of the trilogy right now, hopefully he won't pull a Rothfuss/Martin and stray from his usually decent writing speed.

So after 7 weeks of binge watching I finished That 70's Show. I feel like crying. I can't believe it's over Aaaand I have a braize of a shift today. Lifeguarding for five hours, than I have to teach two over booked classes of swim lessons. The curiculum I HAVE to use is absolutely horrible, so I feel bad even teaching it. I try to ditch it as much as I can, but I still feel really bad for the kids cause the class is twice as large as it should be so I can't teach them as much as they could learn or give them enough time to perfect what they do learn..... But at least this is my last day!!!! After this they aren't Ever gonna see me walk in there again. They'd have to pay me three times what I'm making, and even then I doubt I'd take it. It's been over a year and a half, and I'm finally gonna be freeeeee!!!!

Benefits of being homeschooled

Storms, that's amazing! This year I passed basically everything, which I'm super hyped about. US Gov: 5 Psychology: 4 Stats: 3 (I'm still super psyched that I managed to pass in the first place) Calc BC: 2 (and happy that it wasn't a 1) AB subscore 3 (YAY!!!!) So that means that I've now passed 10 AP classes Now I'm moving on to college, should be great

Well I'm not going to claim that we Don't use napalm for our BBQ..... Also, Mestiv, your signature seems to have progressively decided to stop figuring out where I live. It got pretty close once, but then it got less and less accurate until now it just says the US. What's with that?

It's actually a re-read. I liked it better the first time. It feels like a slightly grown up Rangers Apprentice this time around, and mehh. It's fine, it's still a fairly generic fantasy book. I'm planning on reading book 2 sometime after Witchwood Crown.

I finished Sandman 6, basically finished Theft of Swords, and am almost a hundred pages into The Witchwood Crown, the latest Tad William's in Osten Ard. I'd forgotten how densely he writes I have to read a lot slower than I have during the last several...months of reading.