Daniel Shellenbarger > Recent Status Updates

'Well, Sam!' he said. 'What about it? I am leaving the Shire as soon as ever I can - in fact I have made up my mind now not even to wait a day at Crickhollow, if it can be helped.'
'Very good, sir!'
Jeeves would've been proud of Sam for that, though Jeeves would probably have already arranged passage to Mordor... and now I'm imagining a crossover between LotR and Jeeves and Wooster, Sauron played by Aunt Agatha...

Me: "I'm reading two big (well, one big, one MASSIVE) fantasy books right now and I've got looming deadlines to finish both of them... PERFECT TIME TO START REREADING LORD OF THE RINGS!"

Seems the Radiants left a Ganymede rock lobster in the fridge...

"NO MATING!" Oh, Pattern, don't ever change

Apparently, this was Mark Lawrence's first book with multiple POV's. Mostly pretty good, but it's kind of silly how you can be sure the next chapter will switch characters if it ends in any sort of cliffhanger.

Ok, I'm coming around, not EVERY character other than the protagonists is a heartless casually violent jerk.

ish...

trying to think of a good voice for Wyndle: fussy, self-important, definitely British... a part of me wants to say Alan Rickman, but Wyndle doesn't have that gravitas... maybe Martin Freeman or Tom Baker... hmmm...

So... I'm not giving up yet, but... wow, Mark Lawrence certainly seems to love mean-spirited pointlessly/casually cruel characters. Both of the protagonists are likeable enough, but everyone else... yeesh...

Just realized I forgot to reread Edgedancer... have to put it on hold again...

Every journey begins with a single step... but it would've been a different story entirely if Gavilar could read the room and KEEP HIS STUPID MOUTH SHUT. Gah, what an idiot! Ah well, he'd probably have made things even worse if he'd lived...

Giving Mark Lawrence another chance, I started Prince of Thorns... ~12 years ago, read the first couple chapters and didn't like the vibe at all: bitterness, moral ambiguity, and brutality, so I dropped it, but this is supposed to be rather different, so I'm giving him another chance.

Quite proud of how fast I went through Words of Radiance, only 8 days to go 1000+ pages. Of course, I expect Oathbringer to take me much longer. Not because it's bad, it's just a HARD book with very little payoff for the pain. Kind of the Empire Strikes Back of the franchise (though ESB is my fav Star Wars, so go figure). Fortunately, I can take the whole month to read it and have November for RoW.