The Man with No Time

I've just got back from a long weekend spent with some of my best friends. It's been almost a year since I left St Andrews, but I still miss the people that I met, and the friends that I made while I was there. I've been able to catch up with some of them sporadically via conferences (for the astronomers) and competitions (for the lifesavers), but time's always a bit short and it's not really the best way of spending time with your friends. (Credit: David Brown) As a rule the St Andrews Seacows are pretty bad at organising themselves to do anything, but we finally managed to arrange a weekend away for as many people as we could get. Options were limited for places with enough space to sleep all of us, but my friend Ella's parents were away for the weekend, so we all traipsed down to Sandwich, on the Kent coast, for four days. Well, some of us for four days, others for less than that owing to prior commitments. Even with the dates planned nearly three...

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the great forest called Braem Wood. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. " A Crown of Swords " marks the halfway point in my journey through the story of " The Wheel of Time ". But it doesn't feel that way at all, either in terms of the story itself, or my enjoyment of it. After brief slowdown with the previous volume (occasioned by my going on holiday for two weeks, without space to takes giant books), I'm back to rattling through roughly 50-75 pages a night. A measure of my enjoyment can be found in the fact that I've re-established a bad reading habit, namely jumping ahead...

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose among brown-thicketed hills in Cairhein. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a  beginning. Book six of the Wheel of Time saga is entitled " Lord of Chaos ". It's an apt title in many ways, as the sheer number of plots and counter-plots, secret machinations, and intrigues that are going in is mind-boggling. In fact by the end of the book the source of some of them is still not entirely clear, and I'm sure that for some of them it will remain that way by the end of the series. There's almost no point to some of the things that go on, other than to cause havoc, which they certainly do.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one age, called the Third Age by some, and Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose on the great plain called the Caralain Grass. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a  beginning. The Wheel of Time continues to turn, and it's starting to get serious. Book 4, ' The Shadow Rising ', is an extra 50% longer than longest of the volumes that precede it.  Not only that, but Robert Jordan once again ups the stakes with some astonishing revelations, whole new areas of the world explored, and some events that could (and probably will) have massive implications. 

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, and Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. It seems that my read-through of ' The Wheel of Time ' is accelerating as I get into it! This third volume in the series proper took me only a couple of weeks to finish, and marks a bit of a change for the series. The 'epicness' of the series seems to have ramped up, and the scope and scale, not to mention the stakes, and becoming bigger and bigger.

The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass leaving memories that become legend, then fade to myth, and are long forgot when that Age comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Dhoom. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a  beginning.  The Wheel turns, and the story of the Dragon Reborn continues.....in just three weeks I've made it through the 681 page second book of the Wheel of Time. As with the first book I really enjoyed it, and the comments that I made for that book still hold true.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, and Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a  beginning. And thus my journey through the Wheel of Time really begins.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. As I've already talked about, one of my personal goals for this year is to read my way through the entirety of the Wheel of Time series. The natural place to start seemed to be the prequel novel, 'New Spring' . Published in 2004 between the 10th and 11th books in the main series, it's one that I've never read. What better way to start.

If you talk to a lot of fans of fantasy literature, then many of Them will cite the Lord of the Rings as a Major Influence on Their interest in the genre. But I would suggest the many que almost would bring up the Wheel of Time. Written (mostly) by Robert Jordan, the first volume was published in 1990 I say mostly, because Jordan sadly died before the Completing the 12th and final volume, Which was subsequently completed from his notes by Brandon Sanderson Extensive (turning into three volumes in the process). The series is almost the archetypal epic fantasy, with a sprawling storyline, large cast of characters, inventive magic system, and a good-vs-evil storyline.

As may have become obvious from some of my previous posts on this blog, I quite like science fiction. Whether it be novels, television shows, films, or games, if it's sci-fi then I'll at least give it a try. Like most genres there are some 'classics', one of which is the novel  Ender's Game  by Orson Scott Card. Actually I hesitate to call it a novel, as it's actually pretty short. But it packs a lot into its slim page count, and manages to tackle some pretty weighty issues (more on that later). A few years ago a film version was announced, to cautious optimism from sci-fi fans. How well would the parallel storylines of the book fit into a cinematic format, and would the film pull its punches on the moral issues? I love the style and composition of this image - Ender in the dark, staring out at the world. (Credit: fanart.tv) Sadly Ender's Game  was another film that I didn't manage to get to see at the cinema on its release. Which means it wa...

For someone that reads an awful lot of books, and has actually increased the number this year, I've not talked about them very often on this blog. Partly that's because books are, to me, much more of a personal thing than films or television. I find it much easier to recommend those to people, as I find that they tend to appeal to a fairly broad audience. Whereas books, in my opinion, are often much more narrow in their appeal. Don't get me wrong, once I know you're interested in certain types of books I will happily share recommendations with you. But up to that point I try to fairly general in my suggestions. Every now and then though I find a set of books that I think a lot of people will enjoy. I want to talk about one such series today: the PC Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch.

Earlier this year the company behind my current favourite wargame made a rather interesting announcement. Privateer Press were going to start their own publishing imprint to release fiction set in their Iron Kingdoms universe, the setting for Warmachine, Hordes, and the IKRPG. Under the name Skull Island eXpeditions (SIX) , their plan was to offer both novels and novellas based on all three of those games, exclusively in e-book format (distinct to their deal with Pyre to publish IKRPG novels in paper form), at a release rate of roughly one per month. I was very excited by this announcement. The 'fluff' in the Warmachine and Hordes books, whilst not the greatest example of creative writing in the world, is very enjoyable. The setting has so much potential for a wide variety of stories that's just waiting to be tapped, and people have been clamouring for fiction in the setting for years. Games Workshop have had an analogous publishing arm, the Black Library, f...

Time for my first book review. I've actually read quite a lot of books since my  Time-sinks post  on books and other media, but this is one of only two that I've read that have grabbed me strongly enough to warrant a blog post. Well, that's not strictly true, but in most cases I've not managed to get around to it! The book up for review today is Brandon Sanderson's "The Alloy of Law", part of his Mistborn setting. This was the first book of Sanderson's that I've read, although I've heard of him and been meaning to read some of his output for some time. He was the other chosen to finish off the Wheel of Time upon the death of Robert Jordan, and my friend James is a big fan of his work and has been pestering me to try it out. Actually, this book was originally bought for James, but he already had a signed copy so gave it back to me! UK paperback cover for The Alloy of Law. (Credit: thebooksmugglers.com)

Myriad media are the subject of part 6 of my time-sinks series of posts. The main focus of this post will be on books, but I'll also touch on TV, films, magazines, music and podcasts as I ramble on.