John's recent posts

Recent public posts (showing 21-40 of 186).

I did think the book's ending was a satisfying end point. Well, pause point, anyway. :) We had our first, devastating, battle in the war between Light and Shadow, and we've seen a good bit of where these central characters are coming from. Perfect place to conclude this volume.

As for the characters Lysaer seemed, ultimately, static without actually being static. He ended in a very similar place to where he started, with a hatred for Arithon that is at once justified in his mind and unjustified by reality. But of course it's more complicated than that because we have the middle where he did come to understand and respect Arithon (more or less). I'm torn between feeling like the Mistwraith's curse is an obtrusive device and feeling like it's almost symbolic short-hand. It's a rather fine line being walked here, I think, because it's ultimately a force outside Lysaer himself who mucks with his mind and forces him in opposition to his brother. At the same time, it's not as though it's totally outside Lysaer either. As Asandir or one of the other Fellowship point out, the Mistwraith couldn't have gotten in if Lysaer's distrust wasn't already there. It just puts memories and feelings that Lysaer already had in a different light while bringing them to prominence over the better days they had together. Although it's hard for me to personally understand how it happens in the everyday course of things, the fact is that this kind of thing *does* happen. People do dredge up the past seemingly out of nowhere, their feelings do twist radically. The Lysaer we see, it seems to me, wouldn't have been this kind of person without the Mistwraith's influence, and that's the part that feels like a cheap trick, but at the same time it does get to real experience.

Arithon, on the other hand, is the character who seems to grow more. We saw in his backstory his embrace of the realm of politics and, for that matter, the taking up of the family feud. And from page 1 we see how that worked out for him, we understand his reluctance to take that up again. But he does, in his own way. And again, it all falls apart, but in the meantime we see the evolution of this conflict within him between self-actualization and duty, and clearly it isn't over yet. While he's taken up as Halliron's apprentice, we know from the Prologue that he has several hundred more years of conflict with his brother, we know that he'll have to take up the mantle of leadership again. But in any case, there seems to me to be a stronger sense of development in Arithon's character, and more obvious room for his growth.

The milieu into which they're thrust seems perfectly real. Janny mentioned the Welsh, but the Arab-Israeli conflict comes strongly to mind, the lingering effects of slavery in America don't seem irrelevent, and on and on....

No questions just now, but a big thank you for offering so much insight into the writing and publishing worlds, as well as into your own history of writing this series. Wow.

As I mentioned in another thread, I didn't like CotM as much as I wanted to, and I think a large part of my dissatisfaction comes from stylistic issues. Janny's beautiful prose notwithstanding--and it does reach great heights of beauty while at the same time being very functional--I was put off in the the first half or so of the book by prose that often felt too expository. Yes, it was an improvement over The Great Wizard Exposition taking time to fill us in or lengthy prologues or flashbacks to info dump all the background we need, but there was something about the way it *was* presented that sounded like a wrong note--perhaps even more so since the prose so often rose to such heights.

I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to articulate it as well as I'd like. And I should add that once the story really got going, this concern melted away like a defeated Mistwraith, but I still couldn't quite get past that early impression.

Still, between the way that this aspect seemed to me to improve as the novel went on and the things you've said about the trajectory of this series, I really am looking forward to picking up later volumes.

Also, Janny--and I suspect I'll be saying or at least thinking it as I read more threads--I'm very favorably impressed by the depth of craft and your ability to dissect it for us and articulate what it was you were doing.

Well, I'm late to the dance.

Thanks to the constraints of moving from PA to IN, I only just finished the book yesterday. Now that you're all done talking, I can read the threads and post my $.02 if I still have that much to say.

I think I must have bought Curse of the Mistwraith back in the '90s, probably late in high school, right when the first mass-market paperback came out (which is the edition I have). I thought I had started reading it and given up, but now I really think I just never read it. Can't say why.

Before I started this time around, I did read Janny's post on where the story came from, and I grew more and more excited about it. I've harbored vague ideas of writing epic fantasy for some years, and all the things Janny talked about seemed like exactly the kind of fantasy I would have wanted to write. And, therefore, exactly the kind I want to read.

Maybe my expectations were therefore too high, because I wasn't totally satisfied. I did like it--just not as much as I hoped I would. Don't get me wrong, this *is* exactly the kind of dense fantasy that I love--big fan of Bakker, Erikson, and Martin. I wasn't at all put off by the scope, the language, the shifting viewpoints. And, although I say I wasn't totally satisfied, I did enjoy the experience and will almost certainly pick up later books.

I'm going to have to brood on it a bit, read some of the topics here, and see if I can't in the process better hammer out my thoughts on this novel.

When I was a kid, we *really* used the library. When I was of an age to use the children's section, we started with the A shelf and checked out and read every single book until I grew out of children's books (which was well before we got to Z). I continued to use to the library right up to the point where I started getting an allowance, at which point the local Waldenbooks started getting an allowance from my parents, and I've been buying ever since.

Until now. My wife and I have gone down to one income, have our first child on the way, and should have learned our lesson long ago since we've moved every summer for the past four. I've tried really hard to pare down my book collection, but it just goes against every fiber of my being. I *want* to have more books, not fewer. I *want* to have a whole library of my own.

But I'm tired of moving them and I'll have other things that command my finances. So while I haven't completely kicked my book habit, I'm weaning myself off it. I've studiously ignored the coupons Borders sends me each week. I've neglected to get on a first-name basis with the owners of bookstores here where we've moved. I still have an Amazon.com Visa, but two of three isn't bad. I'm limiting myself, at any rate, to only buying the really essential books.

Instead, I'm getting to know the librarians at our local library. It seems to be a pretty decent library, and when they don't have things--and I've got a big list of books I want that they don't have--they'll get them for me. I'm not entirely sure, but I think they're actually *getting* them for me. We live in a vacation town now and I'm pretty sure the library funding for our little town comes largely from the taxes paid by those with multi-million-dollar vacation homes on the lake. Hence, they just buy books when people ask for them.

So in a sense, by not buying books, I'm doing the people of my community a favor by causing the library to buy some really good stuff.

On a side note: I'm a bit cautious about e-books because I don't trust the costs involved. I buy a reader and that's pretty expensive; I buy books and those are finally becoming reasonably priced. But how long is my reader going to last? Is it roughly like my iPod or my laptop, that it will be great for a few years and then become less reliable and then become junk? At which point I need to buy a new one because I've invested so much in my e-library? And, in fact, need to continue doing so for the rest of my life.

And--let's get to the real point against e-books--what happens when the zombie apocalypse is upon us and I can no longer read my e-books for lack of electricity? No, I'll stick with paper and ink, thank you very much.

I just "read" this (audio book) too and really enjoyed it.

I heard an author say once that a screenplay is roughly a 120-page novel. Any movie adaptation is going to leave a lot out. It's fairly amazing that any movie made from a book is ever any good--unless the author was overly verbose in the first place!

On balance, I was film was pretty well done--but I'll take the book any day.

And yes, two movies for book seven. I think I heard that the first one is due out in November 2010 and then July 2011 for the second, but who knows whether they'll be able to stick to that schedule.

Hey, just curious to hear a bit more about this book. I bought it in probably junior high or high school and for one reason or another never read it. Now that it's being discussed in the Fantasy Book Club (and now that we've basically gotten settled into our new place!) I thought I might give this a read. However, given the apparent overlap in our tastes and your one-star rating, I'm reconsidering (after all, I still have to re-read The Thousandfold Thought before starting The Judging Eye!). So what was it about this book that turned you off so thoroughly?

I've enjoyed reading about your re-readings of this. When the first movie came out I went back and read tLW&tW, but I felt like the Christian symbolism was too heavy handed and not my thing anymore, so I never got to the rest of the series. Reading your reviews, I feel almost like I've done the reading--and justified in not having done it!

My wife and I were in upstate New York (western Finger Lakes region) this weekend looking at property. Now we have to decide whether to make an offer on it.

The big thing this land has going for it is that the price is right--it's just over 31 acres with an asking price of $40k, which even for the area (where land is relatively cheap) is pretty cheap. Now, there are some reasons for the low price, which I’ll get to as I describe it. First, there’s no road frontage, which we don't have problem with, especially as the right-of-way is well maintained. Heck, we rather like the isolation. However, once you get back on the easement, it's not currently possible to drive onto the land, as there's a small drainage ditch and a triple row of pines right there. The pines are too close together and need to be thinned even outside of our desire to actually get to the property.

The property is basically a rectangle, with the easement running halfway up the long side (it continues up to a hunting cabin—and another cabin was off the easement before it gets to the property we looked at). The pines continue along that entire edge. The back edge of the rectangle is basically a woods, there’s another thick row of pines bisecting the rectangle and parallel to the other trees, and then the other side of the rectangle has a woods as well. As to the open parts, the first one is fairly open while the second is fairly clogged with brush—both have some. I'm not great with trees, but the open space seemed largely to be maples (not, sadly sugar maples) and something else. The land itself slopes from west to east, with a slight south-facing slope.

Another worry about the land is that there’s no surface water and no well dug, which is worrisome, though not insurmountable (the book Finding and Buying Your Place in the Country says never to buy property without knowing it has water available on it). We can drill a well and take our chances, we can harvest rainwater if it comes down to that—the area gets plenty of rainfall. There are no structures on the property. Considering how much vegetation is on the land, it seems like decent soil, and also well-drained (it had rained the day before and most of the ground had drained well). I gather that the owner inherited it about 30 years ago and basically hasn’t done anything with it.

Now, if we were to buy this place, I think it would influence how we built. Since we already need to cut down a bunch of trees, it would seem to make sense to build with wood, then infill with strawbale. We’d probably use cob inside to add thermal mass. It’s a little daunting to imagine taking this land from nothing to a productive homestead, but it’s exciting as well.

Any thoughts or questions you have about this land, please feel free. I’d also love to hear about your own journeys toward the green building dream.

David's welcome to elaborate, but I'll second Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. It's the first book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, a really excellent epic fantasy series going right now. It's a fairly self-contained story that fits into a larger tapestry. Good, intricate plotting, great characters (though we're really only getting introduced to the large cast here, but he still infuses a wide variety of characters with a sense of depth, which not only will pay off in future volumes, but pays off pretty well here too), rich world. It frequently garners comparison with George R.R. Martin's and R. Scott Bakker's work, to put it in some context. Even if it does't win the poll, I recommend it to all lovers of epic fantasy.

Stone isn't completely out of the diy crowd's consciousness. One of the famous homesteading couples, Helen and Scott Nearing, were big advocates of building with stone, especially where there's a lot of stone present on the land.

I think the issue with stone comes from its thermal properties. Strawbale construction offers great insulative benefits, which stone obviously doesn't. Cob offers thermal mass, which both helps to keep a stable temperature and is good in combination with passive solar designs for collecting solar energy and releasing it as the air cools. If I'm not mistaken, stone does not have that benefit either, or at least not to the same extent.

Probably the biggest issue is the relative difficulty of stone. While most anyone can learn rudimentary masonry skills, it's more involved than cob. The work of gathering the stone, though, makes it very labor-intensive from the start, and lifting the stones into place is either hard work or energy intensive. Cob isn't so bad in this respect--the gathering of materials can be done in one fell swoop with a backhoe and it can be glommed onto the walls in whatever size one chooses.

I suppose the mortar might make it a bit less environmentally friendly as well.

Great responses, guys. As Brian suggests, ultimately the proof is in the pudding... once you're living in a new way and it works, you won't have to justify yourself. And until you do, you won't be able to justify yourself to anyone who isn't willing to listen with an open mind. For those people, of course, all the things Mo brought up will do pretty well (and I do find that the many pictures available on the internet are very helpful, especially when you can point to buildings hundreds of years old.

My wife and I are headed to upstate New York tomorrow, where we'll be looking at a possible piece of land--it's 30 acres that we can afford, but we'll have to see it in person to make the judgment.

It looks like you're going through a lot of my favorite books... The Good Life, Better Off... I remember seeing some others recently too.

I've been daydreaming more and more about "that day"...

Just FYI, there is a WoT RPG out there already, though I haven't played it, just saw it in the game store. I didn't even look at it that closely, so I can't tell you whether it's a d20 system, I just know it exists.

Zen, your story reminded me of my time working at Borders (I chose my summer jobs in grad school based on where I wanted a discount). It was pretty much par for the course there for employees to spend our hour lunch break reading, but I didn't stop there. When I was out on the floor stocking the Lit section (my section), I would work quickly on stocking the books, then sit down and read a chapter at a time, right out there on the floor. Or when I had to go back to get more books from the back to put out, I'd do likewise.

The weird thing is that the managers were consistently telling me what a great job I was doing, how quickly and well I got my job done...imagine what I could have done if I'd been really dedicated!

As an aside, working at Border's really was a pretty sweet job. Beyond the discounts--which were pretty good and would have been even better if I'd been full-time--they encouraged us to use the store like a library, taking books home with us, because they wanted us to be knowledgeable about what we were selling. Plus, at least at our store, most everyone there were avid readers and interesting people.

Sean, I fell about a week behind on my Goodreads groups, so I'm a little late responding to your post, but I was struck by some of the similarities in our tastes that I felt like I should respond. Carey, Martin, and Hobb are among my favorites, as is Zelazny. Also, I had the same history with Anthony, Brooks, and Eddings. So, here are my recommendations....

Along the lines of epic fantasy, I have to recommend R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing trilogy (which I've just started re-reading). Talk about a deep world and characterization--at times dense prose, but well worth the effort. Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is also, IMO, one of the best epic fantasy series going right now.

Liking Zelazny, I would recommend Steven Brust's work--he's an author inspired by Zelazny in some ways and a very good writer. The Vlad Taltos series is a pretty good place to start, though the stand-alones To Reign in Hell (a re-telling of Paradise Lost--sort of--from Satan's perspective) and Agyar are also excellent entries into Brust.

Great insight, Sandi! I think in some ways that's one of the things I like about Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series as well--even though it's focused on a single character, his ensemble of friends is vital to the plot and to the character of Vlad himself, which is exactly what you noted about Dresden.

Does this mean you've been re-reading in preparation for the new book? If so, I'm jealous--I have yet to commit the time.

I bought this many years ago, probably when I was in junior high or high school and I couldn't get into it. I know that my tastes have changes since then, though, so I'm looking forward to the excuse to dust it off and give it another try.