Timewaster's Guide Archive

Wow I think that's the only time I've seen anyone interpret the phrase "I loved [X]" as a negative criticism...

Boggle!

Hey since we have Jack and Michelle There seems to be a Story glitch.  What happened to Ish-bosheth.

Ookla,
Any idea when that toon was drawn?  The title mentions someone named Anathem...  I curois how old it is.

Of course Myrelle's brand of healing is maybe more mind rape than intervention... These Aes Sedai... Almost makes one want to grab a copy of The Way of the Light and head for Amadicia...

It is a good question though, why Myrelle and not someone closer to hand.  Moiraine's accepted "trick" was crystal scrying she'd have been able to locate someone close enough to limit the risk that Lan "accidentally" get himself killed traveling cross country.

My name is Renoard or Fred, I'll likely answer to either.  Like I said on "email list", dunno if this constitutes crashing the party.  If not, then let me say that I am a Student of Divinity, ironically, in real life.  I have loved speculative fiction for more years than there has been an MTV and I dabble a bit at writing and criticism.

Mostly I'm a professional time-waster, though I haven't done the RPG thing since before D&D had Drow...

The Writing Excuses threads are fun and really helpful, so they lead me here.

Okay, I admit I've never tried to sell one, so of course I'll defer to your wisdom on that.  I'll say instead that there are books that are written with a juvenile tone and a high-school reading level that I had assumed (giving publishers the benefit of the doubt) were intended as YA.  These tend to run about 200k.

I think that Books may have misinterpreted my expression of concern as an attack on EUOL, who he seems to have an emotional investment in defending.  That was certainly not my intention.  As a consumer and student I was genuinely concerned about constantly evolving format. 

It does seem the Writing Excuses Thread seems to be a lot more flame retardant.

What I missed in Warbreaker was a foundation showing something of the relationships in the family and community in Idris.  It's hard to take Vivenna seriously at first, because Siri is the focus for so much of the book.  It's really hard to sympathize with her desire to prove her self and to save her sister because we don't really get the chance to see her as the responsible sib.

It would be nice to have more foundation for that, to see a bit more development of the plot in the city.  Maybe a few failed attempts to infiltrate the staff of the gods.

If we could spend  as much time working with Warbreaker to earn her his respect and for Vivenna to become a fully fledged Awakener (pea-cock), as we did on the mercenaries. This would round the novel out to about 300K words and let us understand Vivenna rather than Siri as the Heroin.

I read the Warbreaker spoiler on his website (ver 6.2) but of course it's not done.  I'd never read his work before and as one of many WoT types that are actively conspiring to hi-jack the channel, I felt it necessary to get to know his work.  Anyway I enjoyed what I saw of Warbreaker, however I'm a bit of a word junky.  I seldom buy a novel that is less than 350K words and generally avoid books that are magic system or new discovery driven instead of character driven. 

That's made it hard for me to get interested in Mistborne, because my perception is that it is more about the magic than the characters.  Maybe I'm wrong. I'd be happy to hear other perspectives as long as they are a bit more than, "no you're wrong" or "of course it's got characters, books have those."