Daniel Shellenbarger > Recent Status Updates

Yup, still avoiding reading Night of the Swarm...

I have no idea why the cover isn't showing here. If you go to the book page, the cover's there, and it's the right edition, just weird

I admit it, I'm avoiding reading The Night of the Swarm... a part of me thinks I should just DNF it, but after a decade of trying to get through that series, I just can't bring myself to do it.

I mean, say you take Voldemort's name, put it in the goblet and enter him into a competition to solemnly swear to always do good and be nice to muggles. The book demonstrates that you don't need the participant's actual consent or involvement to bind them to the contract, so frankly it's rather embarrassing that this nuclear deterrent level artifact is just being used to bind kids to sports competitions.

Just got to the Goblet of Fire and frankly, the time-turner has to take a back seat, the GoF is easily the most powerful artifact in the Harry Potter Universe. Consider this: Harry is bound by a magical contract to take part in a potentially lethal event because his name was written on a paper and entered into the Goblet. Consider the ramifications... (see next note)

I keep forgetting to check my page number, but I just got to the end of the Quidditch World Cup

This book is just drama, Drama, DRAMA. There's looming apocalypse drama, there's political drama, there's racial drama, there's interpersonal conflict drama, there's relationship drama; just drama for days. Between the DRAMA, the lack of a stable drama-resistant main character, and the hanging doom of the editorial comments, it's a bit too much for me, which is why my progress on this book has been glacial.