Just a Lifetime

Well, there are already a fair few recommendation threads floating around this site, but this would be a good place to mention that I definitely recommend the book I read most recently: The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (finally). I read her Inheritance Trilogy over the past few years and came to The Fifth Season with high expectations that were easily surpassed. I was a little surprised that The Fifth Season was less self-contained than the individual books in The Inheritance Trilogy. This made me sorely tempted to keep going straight into The Obelisk Gate, but I managed to change gears and am now reading Ben Aaronovitch's latest novella, The October Man. (Aaronovitch writes fun urban fantasy that I enjoy but doesn't sound like the exact genre you're looking for.)

Jacqueline Carey's Banewreaker/Godslayer duology is in essence an 'alternative' Lord of the Rings where Sauron & his crew are the (anti-)heroes while Gandalf is the villain (along with the rest of the Valar and Maiar) and the hobbits are his clueless pawns. I read this on a recommendation from GRRM and ended up with mixed feelings about it: I liked the ending, but the setting and characters seemed infodumped and underdeveloped, perhaps as a consequence of leaning so heavily on The Lord of the Rings. While Abercrombie's First Law trilogy doesn't really have "designated good guy(s)", Bayaz is set up like that at least to some extent in the earlier parts of the series.

Yeah, that's one of the selling points for 750words.com. Although I pay for that site, I think it's over-priced---free alternatives include writehoney.com and 3pages.fr.

I am enjoying Derry Girls. I think this is the article that brought it to my attention, describing it as "hysterically funny and occasionally profoundly moving".

Wiggling buttocks enliven existential hell of Brexit debate: Semi-naked protest in [House of] Commons was no weirder than anything else that goes on there these days

Welcome! Are you already listening to Writing Excuses?

I have a vague recollection of people talking about "Disco Rand" in Sweet's provisional cover art for The Gathering Storm. (His final cover art was significantly improved.) Warning: The provisional cover art features a minor spoiler (another reason it was changed). I like the ebook "covers" they put out after Brandon started working on the series. These even helped me overcome my initial reluctance to use an ereader back in the day. (No spoilers here, just reducing the size of the post.)

According to the signs, the narrow street in front of my new apartment in Liverpool has been closed for almost a year due to still-ongoing construction. Despite this, whenever I'm at home I can spend my time watching one car after another venture down it and awkwardly reverse themselves back out until they find enough room for a three-point turn. There is probably some bleak philosophical metaphor that can be made out of this. I leave it as an exercise for the reader.

Immigration unlocked: I am back in the western hemisphere.

It's not just you.

@ZincAboutIt I don't know whether this might be useful, if you haven't read it already.

Hoo boy. Looks like I get to star in a new episode of Shouldn't Make Promises Ya Can't Keep, Jackass. I think the next few days are gonna be stressful.

Listening to this song (from 1987) I enjoyed how the march of time has added some new shades of meaning. Kick the door until it opens, what you have you cannot hold We are young, forever hungry, you are fat and growing old And every day you try to build a higher wall Every day you try to build a higher wall But your money cannot stop us And your fury cannot stop us No you will never stop us with your higher wall

Roses are red Violets are fine Should we help Asmodean Find some decent wine?

Well, I'm still... following along. Perhaps certain posters' ardor for a certain Diademed Battle Lord might have scared off some of the more bashful participants? I definitely agree that Jordan had a gift for description. On the other hand, I never got the sense that the Green Man and the Eye "suddenly found each other by accident." He says: +++ And also plenty of false Dragons who couldn't channel. Fain mentioned in Chapter 3 that Logain was the only one of the three false Dragons in the past 5 years who could channel. While I'm sure being ta'veren could help smooth a false Dragon's path, the only true 'requirement' seems to be a well-developed sense of self-confidence egomania. Y'all can post your answers here (but beware of series-spanning spoilers starting in the third post of that topic)! Really? ...oh, I see, you were saving Ents for the Green Man. I still think there's plenty of overlap between Ogier and Ents, even though the former are not physically tree-like. I'm pretty sure that at least in The Eye of the World Jordan deliberately made Loial to be like Treebeard with his long-windedness and complaints about hastiness. (Similar to how he deliberately made Moiraine to be like Gandalf, with her staff and mysteriousness.) There's also independent inspiration for the Green Man. Clearly he's not the Messiah! Sorry, I'll stop now. Yeah, this world has been in my head longer than I care to admit. I might not have the time and inclination for a full reread, but I do enjoy revisiting it.

I'm being transported by Public Service Broadcasting's 2017 album Every Valley, which I just mentioned over in the "Top Concept Albums" thread. In between plays of that album, The Noise Inside My Head has also been in my head.

I wish I had followed up on this last year... Over the weekend I finally got into Public Service Broadcasting, listening repeatedly to their 2017 album Every Valley after one of its tracks popped up in a Spotify playlist. This concept album traces industrial decline through the specific example of the Welsh coal mining industry. PSB's M.O. of putting news, interviews, advertisements, etc. to music seemed sort of gimmicky to me at first, but this album really works for me. I especially like the variety in the sound as the album passes through the different stages of the story history. (This is a nice track-by-track summary.) There are also bona fide lyrics for several of the tracks (some in Welsh), with guest vocalists including James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers. I have not yet checked out The Race for Space or the rest of their back catalog, but I expect to in the near future.

Thanks for the thorough thoughts whattheHoid; I enjoy reading them. Is it clear to the first-time readers that the Shadow of Shadar Logoth is distinct from the Shadow of the Dark One and his servants? I am glad there is darkness in Randland that is peoples' own stupid fault and not just due to the Evil Lord of Evil... Revisiting the Lord of the Rings vibe that has been mentioned before, I got a kind of a Wormtongue feeling from Mordeth, with Shadar Logoth as a whole seeming to address the "what if Boromir/Gondor had used the Ring to fight Sauron/Mordor?" idea.

Took another look today and noticed that they seem to be frequently updating the Peace Talks progress: it's now at 42 chapters compared to 39 a month ago.

Anything? Everything?

Speaking of 'understanding that reference', did y'all catch the mentions of Sally Ride, John Glenn, Moscow and America in mythical form? I enjoyed those references, some of which may have been more obvious back in 1990... A few others that I think should be clear by this point in the book (but which I completely missed my first time through) are Lews Therin ~ Lucifer and Merrilin ~ Merlin. Maybe y'all should keep an eye on Bela to try to figure out her true allegiances...

My suggestion regarding New Spring would be to read it in publication order---between Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams. This guarantees no spoilers, since Robert Jordan was not about to use a prequel to spoil the main-sequence volumes he had yet to write. On the other hand, he may well include things mentioned in the already-published books, so I would definitely advise against reading it first. (Also, his style and worldbuilding evolved a bit over time, as the original post mentioned before it was edited, so going from New Spring to The Eye of the World could be jarring.) Finally, to the extent the prequel adds anything to any character, it would seem useful to gain that before you reach the end. It's relatively short, so it shouldn't disrupt the flow too much between Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams. $0.02