The Book of Swords – Best Bits

A lot of fantasy books are large tomes that are read and savored like fine wines on a long summer holiday. So when you open a book of fantasy short stories it feels like you are doing the fantasy-reader’s equivalent of taking vodka shots at a party. You’re having a night of fun and meeting lots of new people. Some of those people aren’t that interesting, but some of them are brilliant. And that’s perfectly okay because you only have to talk to each person for a wee bit, and then you can move on until you find someone you connect with and can form a long-term friendship with.

The Problem with Brandon Sanderson

Hello,

So our blog has been a bit quiet this year. In case you are wondering what happened, I (mostly) blame Brandon Sanderson.

Seventh Decimate – Stephen R. Donaldson

I was duly warned. Donaldson loves to write unlikable characters. He most certainly continues this trend in his latest book Seventh Decimate. The main character, Prince Bifalt, is completely and utterly infuriating at times. Funnily enough he reminded be rather too much of someone I know in the real world (I ain’t gonna name names) which isn’t really want you want to see in your fantasy heroes. Yet, when I closed the book after finishing the last page, I found that I actually liked the book. In fact I liked it quite a bit.

The cover art is awesome

Birthday Book Haul

Such a great time of year for me book-wise. With Christmas and my birthday being so close together you have the makings of an excellent holiday book haul! Mrs NW took a sneaky photo of my bedside table and posted it here on the blog which gave some of these away already *grumpy face*.

A photo of all the pretty books

Assigned Reading (#4): The Final Empire – Mistborn Book One by Brandon Sanderson

In an attempt to educate Mrs. NW, who is not exactly an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy, Mr. NW each month assigns a novel to read.

After my epic fail at finishing Childhood’s End by Arthur C.Clarke (way, way too dry for my tastes), I’m ecstatic to have finished a book for once. Clearly, I’m leaning heavily towards the fantasy genre at this point, except grimdark. I’m hoping Mr NW will up his game with picking sci-fi books (maybe you guys can help him out with some suggestions).

So I present my review of  The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson.

In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with colour once more?
In Brandon Sanderson’s intriguing tale of love, loss, despair and hope, a new kind of magic enters the stage— Allomancy, a magic of the metals. – Blurb from Goodreads

Aliens and FTL/interstellar travel

Two major themes or ideas that have permeated science fiction for decades are aliens and developing the mysterious technology that will allow humanity to travel between star systems with ease. Funnily enough, as a small kid I always imagined it was simply a matter of time before these things would become a reality. Aliens would of course one day visit us and we would shake their hands and have parties. Obviously FTL drives would then be invented and we could go on interstellar holidays.

Light holiday reading

I just had to laugh when I looked over and saw Mr NW’s bedside table. I think he’s being a bit optimistic for a two week holiday!

Mr NW has promised me he will do a proper book haul post soon.

What are you reading over the holiday break?

Calling all book geeks/nerds

For Fiction’s Sake has made available for download this neat little spreadsheet for tracking the books you are reading. Great for those of us who can’t get enough of crunching numbers.

Spreadsheets. I like them so much that I create menial, inconsequential lists for pleasure outside of work hours. One of the things I track are the books I read and the number of words I read in a year. Why do I do this, you might ask? There’s something satisfying about seeing the word count […]

via Free Tracking Spreadsheet! — For Fiction’s Sake

New (to me) technologies: Virtual Reality

Until a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t really know much about Virtual Reality (VR) at all, beyond the idea that there are headsets out there. However, the last couple of weeks, virtual reality seems to have featured pretty heavily.

My current excuses for not finishing books I’ve started reading

I’m supposed to be doing my assigned reading post for the month, but alas, I did not finish Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke so instead here are my current excuses for not finishing books.