Timewaster's Guide Archive

  To be more precise, Brandon said, when asked who is his least favorite character to write, "Cadsuane."  He said it quite a few times on tour, actually.  There may have been others he mentioned, but this is the one that kind of jolted me because I have always liked her and wanted more of her sometimes, not less.  Especially with Verin and Moiraine out of the picture for now.  That is probably why RJ had lots of Cadsuane in his notes interacting in most/all of the pivotal scenes with Rand.  He liked her as much as we do and I think Harriet does, too, though I chickened out when I had the chance to ask her directly, sitting right next to Brandon as she was.

 I think Brandon is just being candid and honest, not unprofessional.  It's not like he would have brought it up outside the context of tour questioning and I imagine her spanking episode has much to do with Brandon's dislike.  It was a scene that would never have come out of his head, I think, and disturbed him, so she disturbed him.  My guess.

I totally agree with you, Cyn.  What is not to like?

Notice the grammar and spelling.  I think Happy got/gets A's more often than not.

last week's episode of The Middle had me laughing pretty hard.  It still feels a tad too similar to Malcolm in the Middle though.

As for Chuck.  Thank.  Heavens.   19 glorious episodes.  I cannot wait.  Adam Baldwin kills me as John Casey.

   What about the scenes with the awkward daughter's boyfriend last week?  Those were well-written and the comedic timing was amazing.  I never saw M in the M, so it is all fresh for me.  And I like to support the few conservative Hollywood actors, which Patricia Heaton is. 

   Adam Baldwin is a comic genius.  Just watching Firefly episodes with the hubby for my second time and really appreciating him.  He did get lots of the best lines, though.

You guys turned me on to Chuck and the whole fam loves it.  Oh, and The Middle was on tonight, not Sunday.  It really is funny!  It might be funnier than Chuck.  Truly LOL.

Quote from: mtbikemom on November 28, 2009, 07:33:34 PM

If I need a website to recall who in the world I am reading about and what he/she has done in book 3-6, the character list has gotten way out of control.

It really has not.

Has so!  Bookstore Guy agrees, so case closed.  Am I not correct?  (BSG wisely avoids further controversy.)

O.K., I guess I'll try to grow up a bit.  Someone who can catalog that many continuity-related details off the top of his head is not the same kind of human as most of us.  Hats off to you, Cynewulf!  Vtaltos is correct, we are gentlefolk.  Except for Kaz, of course.   

Does not "epic" refer more to scope than length these days?  There are plenty of book series that are long, but so limited in scope that no one would classify them as epic, like C.S. Lewis's books.  There are better examples, I'm sure.  LotR is considered epic because of the wonderfully detailed (though emotionally restrained) world Mr. Tolkien created.  RJ took the genre of high fantasy, as he liked to call it, to sometimes ridiculous proportions.  If I need a website to recall who in the world I am reading about and what he/she has done in book 3-6, the character list has gotten way out of control.  But I'm still reading.

A novella-length poem is epic, to my way of thinking, just because it's amazing to sustain story and poetic structure for more than a few pages.  Prose is different.

I agree with Whitefire: Brandon is striking a good balance between stopping to smell roses and getting on with the story.  I think even better than Knife of Dreams, which felt rushed to me.  There was just that one Psych. 101 moment of "role-playing" in TGS that made me cringe a bit (like when I read the words "deal with it" or "relationship" in fantasy: modernisms, I think), but other than that, the story flowed nicely for me.

O.K., I was wondering about that, Douglas.  Seems like Miles is the character to look forward to and I'll keep reading.

Thanks, Kazman, for the heads-up.  I posted a reply to you, I thought, but it's not here!   Hate when that happens.  I said something like: one person's tolerable content is another's intolerable.  No one should be recommending anything racy on this here thread, but it's so very subjective.  The discussion is always valuable, I think.

Purple Ajah...lol.  Well whatever.  Like I said, to me it felt cheap and rushed.  I think it would have been much more powerful had we seen her journey in the Black rather than a conveniently timed "twist."  But that's just me.  I certainly don't expect fans of the series to agree with me.

You make me feel so unsophisticated!  So undiscerning!  I liked the Verin reveal as I read it, but would have liked to have replaced most of the Perrin-hunts-Faile nonsense (and Elayne-sifts-through-Caemlyn-political-intrigue yawn fest) with more about Verin, Hurin, Thom, etc . . . as well as scenes featuring commoners like in TGS prologue.  Liked that.  Of course, best would have been turning books 7-11 into two good, concise novels. 

But oh, the cover art.  Oh. 
What's up with false eyelashes and push-up bras in Randland? (See also KoD) And Rand is a strawberry blonde Charles Bronson?  I guess that's better than the middle-aged whatsisname (y'know, the sunglasses guy on CSI Miami) on the KoD cover. Is that even supposed to be Rand? And Perrin is a dwarfish hairy blondish Sean Connery, and not a young version.

Anyway, I rant.  Thanks for another good review on Elitist, BSG.  I thought The Gathering Storm dragged through the middle, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.  Brandon told us "Storm Leaders" the other night that he is not exactly pleased with how some of the story lines will end according to RJ's notes.  But he'll have to write them that way.  Interesting, huh?  I'll read and enjoy whatever comes out.