The Snark Lord's Lair

The Wheel of Time Book 1: The Eye of the World

2011-04-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

Admitting this will probably damage my fantasy geek cred, but I had never really heard of the Wheel of Time series up until a few months ago. I think I had seen various volumes from the series on shelves in bookstores before, but had never actually picked the series up. But when a few friends started reading the series, I decided to give it a shot.

The essential storyline of The Eye of the World is fairly generic high fantasy. Dark Lord wants to take over the world, Chosen One has to stop him, magic, swords, blah blah. If you're familiar with the genre, you probably know the plot. If one were to be nitpicky, they could rant about the book ripping off The Lord of the Rings and truthfully there is a lot there that seems to be directly inspired by Tolkien's work. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it is even more derivative of Tolkien that Eragon, that other famous Tolkien ripoff. If I were dealing with a lesser work of fiction, this entire review would probably be one of those irritated rants, but surprisingly, this novel is good enough to surpass the fact that so much of it isn't original.

The first thing that really impressed me about the book is that it doesn't feel like Middle Earth with a few new names. The societies that inhabit the world are fairly archetypical, but we aren't forced to suffer through the author trying to put their unique spin on Tolkien's elves or any of that nonsense. The world-building is fairly solid. I like the magic system and I can't say that I've ever read a book that dealt seriously with the idea of time being cyclical.

The characters are also quite good. For such a large ensemble cast, I felt like each character received a nice amount of development; I've got a good idea of who they all are. Yes, they're very archetypical and I could easily list which character corresponds to which Fellowship member. However, Jordan does do some interesting things with his archetypes. Making the mysterious wise wizard types female is one of them. Apparently Jordan's female characters are something the fans go on about and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by them. Fantasy is oftentimes such a boys genre, with women only getting in on the action when we're talking about squicky fantasy romance type stories like Twilight. Here the women are just as integral to the plot as the males, which is a nice switch. Of course Tolkien did this too, but he doesn't get anywhere near enough credit for that.

Plotting is where I have to unleash my criticism. This novel is entirely too long. Unlike Tolkien, an author whose prose was beautiful enough to excuse plot filler, Jordan's prose is more standard and whole passages of the novel that simply don't advance the plot do get a bit tiresome. Hopefully this is something he grew out of as he proceeded through the series.

So I'm definitely intrigued. I can't say yet that I'm for reading the entire series, massive as it is, but I'm willing to give it a shot. I figure it can't all be Tolkien redux when each novel is about the length of two of LotR's volumes. If it does move beyond echoing Tolkien, then I think I might have a new series to add to my favorites list.

A Cashier's Guide to Growing Your Vocabulary Part I: Irony

2010-08-07T03:53:00.000-07:00

Irony is: buying a nice big tub of chocolately Blue Bell ice cream ... and buying a package of Kim Kardashian's diet pills to go with it.

Breaking News!

2010-07-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

Thousands of people died today. This is far, far more important than Jake and Vienna breaking up. Get over it, America!

Rooms: A Novel by James L. Rubart

2010-06-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

I was somewhat taken aback when I received this novel from Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. It was advertised as something of a Christian thriller, I assumed something similar to House by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker. The cover itself seems designed to evoke that feeling. Instead it was another entry in the tired old genre of salvation stories. Perhaps I'm a bad Christian, but unless a miraculous life change is involved, I'm not terribly interested in hearing how someone becomes a Christian.

The story follows the adventures of Micah, a very wealthy software executive who apparently has it all. A successful software company, a penthouse apartment, a beautiful business partner who is also his girlfriend. He's headed for the top and has no time for religion anymore. One day he is surprised to learn that his dead uncle Archie has left him a massive house in Cannon Beach, the town in which Micah grew up and fled from. He travels to the house, intending to sell it, but is intrigued by it. It seems designed to his every taste. As time passes, he grows to love the house and the people he meets in the little town. He also begins to encounter strange supernatural occurrences within the house, new rooms appearing, even phantom skydiving trips and mysterious disembodied voices. Micah realizes that apparently this entire experience has been set up by God to bring him back to the faith as his reality begins to transform to a simpler alternate universe version of his life.

The characterization in this novel is some of the worst that I've come across lately. The characters are bland and uninteresting. Two-dimensional is putting it mildly and while this might be somewhat acceptable in the secondary characters, the main character himself is bland and uninteresting. The author seems determined to build up Micah as some sort of Tony Stark wannabe, but he fails so badly. The entire plot of the novel is wrapped up in Micah's transformation from a nominal Christian to a devoted follower of Christ, yet he shows very little change in character during the course of the novel. Of course, this is because he has almost no character to speak of. Micah's great vice, the one that causes him to feel guilty and Jesus Himself appears to address, is not casual sex, drinking, smoking, drugs, pornography, or any of the other things one might expect a rich bachelor to indulge in. Instead of all of these, Micah watches raunchy R-rated comedies. I would love to ask the author why Jesus hasn't appeared to deal with my equally trivial vice of spending too many hours on web forums. We are also frequently told that Micah is very sarcastic and has a biting wit. Um, I've got a biting sarcastic wit and I can assure you Micah is a rank amateur in this field. He's only truly sarcastic in a handful of lines across a lengthy novel. And that's one of this novel's problems; we're constantly told things, but rarely shown them.

The secondary characters are as dull as Micah. Micah falls in love with a former Olympic athlete named Sarah who works in an ice cream shop in Cannon Beach, yet their romance is a romance in name only. We're constantly told how much Micah loves Sarah, yet I don't feel any chemistry between them. It's all very bland. Another character, Julie, is the original girlfriend, but is quickly phased out as reality begins to rewrite itself. She is consistently treated as if she's being unfair and mean to Micah, yet he's dated her for six years and they are partners together in a major company. Wanting a marriage proposal after six years in a relationship is not unreasonable. Expecting the head of a company to show up for work is not unreasonable either. The only other character who plays a significant part in the novel is Rick, a man who owns the local garage in Cannon Beach. To be very blunt, I can believe that Rick and Micah had romantic feelings for each easier than I can believe that Micah and Sarah love each other. There are only so many hearty embraces you can have two men share before the reader starts to wonder.

And then we come to the plot. This story in more skilled hands could have been quite good. Instead it reads like the sort of ham-fisted thing you would find in church bulletin or a not-very-good devotional book. It's entirely too long. There's no question about that. It's overly padded out and could have been a hundred pages shorter. Micah's conflicts are solved by deus ex machina, literally. Instead of Micah working through his issues with his father and other relationships with prayer and patience, God shows up and sprinkles magic fairy dust on him and he proceeds to trip out on the divine Ecstasy for a couple of pages. We are initially told that Micah basically fled Cannon Beach, yet his past there is barely dealt with. There's no real conflict or driving force or intensity to novel. Things just happen, people have tepid responses to them, and then some more things just happen. Bland, bland, bland.

I am so very grateful I didn't spend my hard-earned money on this novel. I happened to be reading Mere Christianity as I read Rooms and learned so much from C. S. Lewis and felt that he helped me in my spiritual life. Rooms offered nothing of the sort. It offered a foreign version of Christianity to me in which God will deliberately abandon a Christian for the crime of attempting to be wealthy. It showed me a version of Christianity in which working hard, long hours is apparently as serious a sin as blasphemy. In Rubart's version of the world, God is capricious and Christianity leads to a rosy, non-conflicted life as long as you don't step a single toe out of line. You do that and God will apparently take away your romantic relationships and sabotage every aspect of your life. Books like this are the reason why Christians have their own bookstores and their own publishing companies; apparently Christians have lost the ability to write decent fiction.

New The Old Republic Trailer!

2010-06-15T16:45:00.000-07:00

I am in awe of this thing. Gorgeous animation, cool fight scenes, even nice voice work. Obviously, the finished product won't look exactly like this, kinda like those trailers WoW does versus the actual game, but it's still pretty amazing. I was debating whether or not I would be playing this game when it comes out, but there's no question in my mind now. I must play it.

http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/hope-cinematic-trailer?sourceid=eag2350

The Chronicles of Nick: Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon

2010-06-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

Infinity is the story of a 14 year-old New Orleans kid by the name of Nick Gautier. I don't think I've ever come across a book with a Cajun protagonist before, so being from Louisiana, I thought this was cool. Nick lives with his mom in a tiny run-down condo and is a scholarship kid at an exclusive private school. The Gautiers don't exactly have a lot of money, since Nick's dad is a psycho murderer currently locked away in Angola and Nick's mom was disowned by her parents when they found out she was pregnant. And so Nick's mom works as a stripper. I'll just interrupt this little summary to say that I find it very, very hard to believe that in New Orleans, the best job a beautiful fierce Cajun woman can find is dancing in a cheap strip joint. Also, yes this really is YA. Anyway, Nick is kind of a smart-mouth and he doesn't get along with the wealthy kids at his school. When will someone write a story in which the rich kids aren't all the personification of teenage evil? Nick ends up helping some loser hoodlum friends with a job, only for it to turn out to be mugging elderly tourists. He intervenes to help the tourists and his "friends" proceed to nearly beat him to death and then shoot him in the shoulder just for kicks. A mysterious guy named Kyrian rescues him and takes him to the hospital and ends up offering him a job because he feels sorry for them. And honestly, no matter how many times Kyrian assures Nick he's not a pervert, I still think it's weird that some fabulously wealthy guy would just randomly start paying a hoodlum a thousand dollars a week to be an errand boy. Eventually Nick gets embroiled in a total zombie invasion of New Orleans. Only some of the zombies were created by flashy lights and sounds in a video game. The rest of them were summoned by evil vampire thingies who want to turn Nick evil because apparently he's the descendant of the Generic Evil Dude From a Long Time Ago Who Almost Wiped Out the World.

So that's probably not a very flattering summary, but the book isn't really that bad. The characterization was fairly decent, if you're using Twilight as a comparison. The humor is actually very good, pretty much every character has their moments of snarkiness. The mythology of the series is intriguing. There's a sense that there's a massive amount of backstory lurking in the wings, just waiting to be discovered. For a series beginning by someone who has apparently never written YA before, it's actually fairly decent. Also, unless I'm very much mistaken, there's a pretty humorous Buffy reference in the early days of the zombie apocalypse. That always wins points with me.

Now for the nit-picky complaining part. Apparently this series is the backstory for a character within Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunters series. I guess she assumed that everyone reading Infinity would have read her other books because she mentions characters and races and events with absolutely no explanation of who they are or what their importance is. To the enlightened fan who has read all of her other books, I assume this would all make perfect sense. For a reader who has never even read a single one of the author's previous novels, it's very confusing. Also, the plot is just plain jumbled. Characters come and go randomly, with no one seeming to notice their presence or absence being the slightest bit odd. Were I Nick, I would be just the slightest bit confused at the One True Love character jumping out of a van and beginning to hack zombies up with a sword when she's never shown any signs of martial training before and just might actually ask her when she turned into Miss Teen Ninja.

In conclusion (using this because I couldn't think of another way to start this paragraph. In my defense, I am sleep-deprived), Infinity is a fairly fun ride. It's like those brainless summer popcorn flicks that you have fun watching, but never mention enjoying around your snobby film connoisseur friends. It's not earth-shatteringly good, but you'll probably enjoy reading it and most likely won't get to the end and hate yourself for even taking it off the shelf. I'll probably even read the rest of the series as it comes out.

Book Reviews Are Here!

2010-06-13T20:46:00.000-07:00

I said awhile back that I would start posting book reviews here and then I never actually bothered to do so. Well, there's one in the works now. Stay tuned!

Humblest Apologies

2010-06-02T22:07:00.000-07:00

I pretty much completely forgot this blog existed, just like what happened with the last blog I started. Bad me. That and I started Twittering and that allowed me to relieve some of my blogging urges. But I'm back now and I'll endeavor to start posting more often.

The Torment of the Eardrum

2010-01-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go in the Ranch, the guitar players STRUCK BACK!!1!!1!! :P Except now they're packing amps and nobody is safe.

First Day of School

2010-01-19T10:02:00.000-08:00

No sign of guitar players in the student union. Yay!

Wisdom from the Zune Marketplace

2010-01-18T01:28:00.000-08:00

I logged into the Zune Marketplace to browse around the store for some new music. Imagine my surprise when I see that today's like-minder listener goes by the name Twilight Sucks. To think there's someone else out there listening to the same music I do and hating Twilight too. It's kinda eerie. :P

Anyone Else Creeped Out By This?

2009-11-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

As we draw closer to the release of New Moon *cue wolves howling and ominous music*, there's been a huge increase in shirtless pictures of whats-his-name playing Jacob on all the tabloids at work. Creepily, instead of little preteens girls drooling over him, I've seen more of the Twi-Moms showing interest. But then Twi-Moms kind of freak me out anyway. :P *realizes this is two Twilight-bashing posts in a row and decides he need a life*

OMG!!1!!! Edward Dolls!!11!!

2009-11-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

I had the misfortune to spot a large Twilight display tonight at work. It included Edward dolls. Were I not a tightfisted pennypincher, I do believe I would have bought one just to burn it. *sighs happily at the thought* I wonder why there were no Bella dolls? I don't think I could have resisted the urge to destroy those. :P

My College Gets a Big Donation

2009-11-11T00:07:00.000-08:00

The local Coke bottling plant made an absolutely fantastic decision this week. In the midst of a recession in which the state has been forced to slash the university's budget, Coke is giving the school $70,000! Isn't that awesome? Yes, yes it is. I'm sure you all want to know what noble and deserving department received this generous gift. Was it the science department, that languishes in a building not updated in living memory? Maybe they chose to fund renovations to Kaufman Hall, the original school building dating back to the 30s which is currently crumbling into a creepy building straight out of a horror movie? Maybe it's being directed to finally doing something about the drainage on campus or to give us more parking so people won't have to park at freakin' K-Mart? No. The people at the bottling plant are far too wise to do any of those things. Instead they've chosen to donate $70,00 to the most useless aspect of the uni, the athletics department where it'll probably be spent on some shiny new helmets. Yay!!

Thought for the Day

2009-10-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

When commenting on how you don't know just how many times you've nearly been run over on campus by cyclists prompts your brain to spit out "And let x stand for cyclists ..." you may be taking too many math classes.

Most Awesome Class of the Semester

2009-10-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

We've been reading Twelfth Night in British Lit and today the professor split us up into groups to act out different scenes. There are a lot more girls in the class than guys, so most of the male parts were read by girls, which is amusingly ironic, considering we were reading Shakespeare. We quickly realized that some lines that were completely innocent in Shakespeare's day have acquired somewhat naughty meanings today, which was awkward for the person who had to read the line and funny for the rest of us.

The scene my group read involved an aborted attempt at a duel. Fortunately we all had umbrellas which we used for swords. It was funny watching a very pink umbrella being waved around like a sword. I read Antonio's lines, which meant I got to be arrested. First time I've ever run afoul of the law, I promise. I think we read King Lear next, so I'm hoping we'll get to act out passages from it too.

A Use for Remixes

2009-09-28T12:38:00.001-07:00

I discovered a use for those weird electronica remixes on the EE of the Dark Knight soundtrack. They're the perfect music to get me to actually hurry to classes instead of leisurely making my way across campus and ending up being late. It's like the aural equivalent of pure caffeine.

Nathanael's Inspirational Message of the Day II

2009-09-24T21:21:00.000-07:00

"You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor."

Coming Features!

2009-09-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Since my LibraryThing is nearly filled up and I'm stretched for cash at the moment and can't upgrade yet, I shall be posting book reviews on here. I've got a backlog of books to review, so I'll try to start posting them soon.

Nathanael's Inspirational Message of the Day

2009-09-20T21:50:00.001-07:00

"Always remember that you are unique. Just like everybody else."

New NarniaWeb: Day One

2009-09-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

Deleted my cookies. Still can't access the new site. New NarniaWeb hates me.

A Fresh Beginning

2009-09-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

I had a blog before. I haven't written in it in over a year. So I'm starting over on a brand new blog, basically because Ryan did it and I'm a copycat. So, welcome to my new blog. I'll probably update it rarely and never post anything interesting, but isn't that what blogs are for?