Saul the Heir of Isauldur > Recent Status Updates

With the release of the sequel/spinoff book Murtaugh hitting shelves this week, I thought, "You know what I haven't done in 5 years? Read the Inheritance Cycle."

Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in!

Got a hankering for some edgy YA and I remember liking these when I was 15, so giving them another go. Holding up somewhat so far, but...Did you know that the Shadowhunters were invented by a guy named John Shadowhunter?

Consistently steady pacing. Even if the locations or events aren't groundbreaking, we still have characters going places and doing things. The world keeps expanding with Elyas, the Tuatha'an, glimpses of the Aiel and more locations and places.

I last read this book in high school. I think I may not have been in the right mind for it then, because I recall struggling through it. This time around, though I don't remember much, I'm plowing through it. Jordan's writing style is a lot smoothet than I remember.

Only one chapter in, and I'm already captivated. Robin Hobb, where have you been all my life?

"Ballard, how old are you?"

"Twenty-seven if it's any of your business."

I'm 26. It sent a noticeable shiver down the spine knowing I'm just about Lester Ballard's age. Ugh.

"The past is all patterns, and those patterns remain beneath our feet, even as the stars above reveal their own patterns--for the stars we gaze upon each night are naught but an illusion from the past."

Mr. Erikson, your archeologist is showing. But really, I love this line. The first human to ever look up saw the same stars we see every night.

"So if there are flaws in a system that assumes all its members are upright people...could it be...it's not the people who need to change...it's the system?"

Just finished Volume 1. I don't know why, but the manga medium works much better for me than the anime medium. I'm plowing through this one, even though I already watched most of what's happening here. I think the pacing is a big difference. I'm excited to finally read all of Attack on Titan.

This is what I'd been craving: a Star Wars story with a great villain. Thrawn is intimidating, calculating and incredibly intelligent and capable. Unlike Shadows of the Empire (where there was no real plot and Xizor was a weak antagonist), here we have also a meandrring plot, but it's driven by the actual threat of the Grand Admiral.

Okay, wow. Keeps getting better and better.

How is it that this world feels so big already? Lee does a great job of implying more than showing (which is a great worldbuilding technique).

There are some bits of pure exposition and explaining so far, but nothing that takes away from the story or characters.

"We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned.. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance."

"...but no-one else gives a damn, because sometimea a smile is precisely what we all need."

So far, the world of the Malazan Empire has been harsh, cruel, bloody, dirty, foul, terrible and miserable. But it's lines like the quote above that prove that, at heart of it all, there's some hope.

I need the comfort of the familiar, so I decided to come back to an old favorite. One chapter in, it feels like coming home after a long day.

I'd avoided this series because of the fame around it. I expected something really edgy, with the tone of "this isn't your grandad's fantasy. This is dark and gritty!" But...it's not. It's not edgy at all. It is dark, but not for the sole sake of being dark. It puts imperfect people is less than imperfect situations and they react. In short: great character work.

"Strange how she never stopped hoping."

And just like that, I like Ferro now.

"Ferro did not like it..." Big freaking surprise. She wouldn't like food if she were starving to death.