Snorkel

Those cardboard cutout security guards that stores used to used in the 90s to discourage theft, those used to scare me sometimes when I'd think it was a real person and then it wasn't.

Googly eyes

I agree! That IS an unpopular opinion!

No, it doesn't include shipping. You'll need to go to the backerkit page to find out how much, as it's different for various regions. https://thewayofkings.backerkit.com/backer/review This link should take you straight to the review-your-order page, then "Edit Add-ons".

You take that back! X(

I need to re-read those now. So many people have been put off by the naughty scene, and I just remember it as being quite short, bland and non-gratuitious.

They seem to have been toned down a lot since they first came out.

I twice tried to read The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. It didn't grab me. And it did seem awfully derivative. I also couldn't get into Anne McCaffrey's Dragon-thingy series. I feel bad about it, because Brandon keeps recommending her books. I recall getting to a point where the main lady gets slapped across the face for something really minor, and then it's treated as though that's a totally acceptable way for people to behave. Nope, I was done with THAT!

^plus, we'd know the pubic hair colour of half of the main cast :facepalm:

School computer lab games - Granny's Garden, Dino Discovery and Bush Rescue. Apparently they were a decade old by the time I played them O_O They were not flash games. Pretty sure my first flash game was Waterballoon Drop 3?

Stormlight by Enid Blyton Shallan would be expected to stay at home and do the dusting. She has a male alter ego, so she can pretend to be a boy and do the fun things. There are a lot more tea parties and no wine. There are kindly darkeyed matrons all over the continent, whose sole purpose in life is to put some meat on the bones of the protagonists. Many sandwiches, macaroons and high teas will be consumed. Lift takes particular advantage of these. Syl is fluffy and says "woof". The Parshendi are described as "swarthy" and having an unpleasant smell. :/ It turns out all the funny things that have happening are actually just distractions by a group of smugglers, who have been using the shattered plains for their gemheart shifting operation. At the end, Kaladin, Shallan, Adolin, and his misunderstood cousin Elhokar all get on their bicycles and ride home for sandwiches and ginger beer.

Hmm. . . It's one of those series that mostly just has the same major end goal the whole way through, and it takes all nine books to get there. It is split into three trilogies, after book 3 would probably be an OK place to stop.

Check for rotspren

Oh, here's a weird one. I sometimes have nightmares where I look into the sky and see a planet. Like, bigger than the moon, hanging in the sky. I'm apparently afraid of planets. To be fair, if Earth were that close to another planet, that would be quite bad. But in the dreams, I was not afraid of the physics. I was just afraid of the planets.

Hot showers. Having water heated and delivered from overhead, at will, is the best thing about living in this era. There is nothing as great as stepping into a hot shower, and feeling that wonderful heat envelop you, and the gentle massage of little water drops. NOTHING!!! (medicine is also the best thing)

So, what are books / book series that you slogged through, finally got to the end and went "Why on EARTH did I make myself do that?" The first ones that come to my mind are: Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series. Don't get me wrong, the first book was amazing. But then I had to know how it ended, and each book got progressively worse. Land of Painted Caves, in my opinion, only had enough actual content for a short novella. The rest of the novel should have been harshly pruned! Kylie Chan's 9 book Xuan Wu series. I think I really picked them up because I'd never seen this genre before: modern Hong Kong, but Chinese gods are real. Martial arts, mythology, and the modern day! To be fair, I found the book Dark Serpent to be REALLY exciting, but then the next book just felt like a slog, without any real progress, and then finally nine books worth of horrible un-attained goals are finally reached in the final book. Both series suffer from huge Mary-Sue-ness (in my opinion). Weirdly, Jean M. Auel's books seem to get MORE Mary-Sue-ful as they progress, she puts a full extra author-insertion-character in as well as the main protagonist :-O. While Kylie Chan seems to make a concerted effort to handicap her protagonist, and make her less of a Mary-Sue . . . but she still gets away with being rude to everyone around her, they just find it cute and funny for some reason. >_> Tad Williams' Otherland series. I can't actually remember what bothered me about the series. I really desperately wanted to enjoy it, and instead I found myself shouting at the book for how annoying it was in places. But for some reason, I kept reading. Sunken cost fallacy? I did spend actual money on the series. I've kept it on my shelf for years. I should really say goodbye to it, I'm never going to read it again. :<

I expect the plot most likely had a bit about learning to play nice with a girl they came across. But I couldn't push past the first chapter. Did you know - the Hardy Boys series was ghost written by a bunch of different authors! The name the printed on the books was not a real person! Same with a bunch of series that were coming out around that era.

A couple of books from when I was a young kid that I really wanted to read, but couldn't. I tried about 3 times each. Black Beauty - I was terrified of fires (thanks horrific fire safety video I watched in school), so couldn't read past the chapter with the fire. A Hardy Boys book that I can't remember the name of. It started off with the boys going to their clubhouse and making a big deal of the "NO GIRLS" sign on the door. I was getting a lot of "you can't play with us/on this cool thing because you're a girl" in real life, so I got very sad and angry every time I tried to read it. But it was the only boys' adventure book I could find in my school library. And I wanted to read a boys' adventure book because, in the old girl adventure stories, the girls didn't get to do any of the really adventurous stuff.

Dawnshard Novella - 100%

Based on the stupid dreams I have, apparently my subconscious is still afraid of being back in primary school. Are you, Condensation, afraid of unnecessary commas?

I used to be afraid of snakes being in the toilet. I you google it (I suggest not), it might seem slightly rational. Except . . . I live on an island with no snakes.

Whenever someone licks an envelope, that they will get a huge paper cut across their tongue.

That was my question. I can't believe he didn't get asked any of my sensible questions, but they pick the stupid question that I posted entirely for the amusement of the chat. It was a pretty great answer though, with a great story tacked on the end!

I made these more betterer. - made transparent backgrounds, so they'll look better on other websites. - added the coins, pins and badges from the kickstarter as smaller images, also transparent backgrounds. https://imgur.com/a/ytatKMG

The link for the pre-order store, for those who missed the kickstarter is https://thewayofkings.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders (For those who DID back the kickstarter - you'll get an email saying when backerkit is ready to link your pledges into the store on the 24th)