Kings and Stormlight, A New Epic Has Landed!

“The Way Of Kings” is the first book by Brandon Sanderson in his epic series, “The Stormlight Archive”.

By his own admission, this is the series that has been moving around his brain for many, many years now. Brings hope to any nerd who spent their saturdays writing out characters and places and scenes where Drizzt, errr, “Blogdan” fought off twenty evil creatures at once.

Sanderson fits somewhere in between GRRM, JVJones and RJ. Those are the three Epic Fantasy authors that are closest to my heart.

He doesn’t always split his chapters per character. There are a couple of chapters with a number of points-of-view in them. And there are a couple of povs that you only hear from once, some of them for obvious reasons.

There are scenes in this book MADE for Visual Story-Telling.

Spoilers

Kaladin running up the Bridge (4), leaping from the top, drawing magic from little stones entwined in the dreadlocked hair of those he faced.

Suits of armor that grant superhuman strength and agility. Massive swords which are linked to the wielder, and take ten seconds to summon.

A warrior in white, an Assassin really, who is a weapon with or without his Shardblade. Moreso without, casting magic that causes gravity to be upturned and great stones to be flung through the air.

End Spoilers

This is a fantastic book. The start to a truly great series. And with Sanderson’s obvious skill in time-management, which so few Epic Fantasy authors seem to have, it would seem that we might be able to get ten books in ten years, or close enough.

Brandon Sanderson, hats off to you! Champion effort.

Gregor Always Was A Mountain

I should have done this when I started my latest re-read of A Song Of Ice And Fire. But anyway ..

A Game Of Thrones, Sansa 2 (Chapter 30)

A Game of Thrones

Image via Wikipedia

Gregor Clegane is such a massive character. From the moment he was introduced, I was intrigued. It’s the way GRRM paints him. So .. BIG.

It gets better as the story goes on. There’s a passage where GRRM talks about the tall men in the Seven Kingdoms, I think perhaps Catelyn’s pov. From my recollection, which may be wrong, it’s the Mountain who towers over all.

You know, it might be in ASOS, where Tyrion is watching the Red Viper and The Mountain go at it. Hmmm.

But in this chapter, the first time we are introduced to Clegane, it’s Sandor that gives us the best insight into his brother. I mean, the chapter’s got so much in it, this isn’t a major point, but it’s a point.

Gregor works a little off-center. Kiltered. He pushed his brother’s face into a brazier because he stole a toy. And throughout the series there isn’t any "redemption" of him. He’s not misunderstood. He’s not even like Jaime or Sandor, who have unapologetically done henious acts, but are on the road to some kind of change.

Ha ha, I guess that’s wrong though. Gregor has been changed. Anyway.

Stu Talk #4 – My Kudos for Gary’s "Good People Day" (GPD08)

 

I say "Props" way too many times. Zero would be better. Apologies for that.

Gary really is bringing a lot of energy and inspiration and joy and life to the community. Gary .. Thankyou for all your hard and crazy work!

I’ve been hearing a lot of "good people" kudos to folk within the twitter-web-dev-tech community. I’d like to add another segment to that .. our favourite book authors.

So here are two of mine, George R. R. Martin and J.V.Jones (my sig on the forums is "theUnguru").