Timewaster's Guide Archive

I'm reading The Unremembered right now, and life is not very happy at all.

Glad you liked the Erikson portion of the Malazan series.  The Erikson novellas are fantastic--read them if you haven't already.  I really like the Esslemont novels for what they bring to the series as well.  Extremely well done.

Glad you enjoyed the ride.

I think I like everything that both Peter and Nessa like.  What does it meeeeeean?

That you're a cylon.

@bookstore: Your reading pace is incredible. I don't know how you keep track of all those books. They would all get jumbled together if  I read at that pace. Particularly if it was in the same genre. It seems like you read 100 books/year. Have you always read at that pace?

I write the review to the book pretty quickly after I finish reading (unless the book makes me feel 2 distinctly opposing feelings, then I think about it for a bit before reviewing).  Writing about the book helps with the retention of the material.

As for how many books a year I read...well, last year I averaged around a book and a half a week.  Didn't review everything I read.  Wrote nearly 60 thousand words worth of reviews.    I'm going to tone it down a tad this year since EBR has 3 extra awesome reviewers now.  Need to focus on writing, especially since I sold a short story over the weekend.

It really depends what you like.  There is a ton of stuff hitting the PS3 and PC this year.  Deus Ex (the one I'm waiting for), The Witcher: Assassins of Kings, Mass Effect 3 (hopefully).  It just depends.  The PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 is pretty awesome.  The Dragon Age games are sweet as well.  You could always download some of the classic Squaresoft games (before the company decided to suck) on the PS3 for super cheap.  By that same route you could grab the classic Wild Arms (some of the best music of all old RPGs in my opinion).  But all that is if you like story.  If you just want a straight forward loot grind like WoW but without the monthly fee, Dungeon Siege III comes out in a month or two.  Star Ocean The Last Hope can be found for pretty cheap--really fun battle system.  Resonance of Fate is hard to get into, but has some good reward for sticking with it.  Valkyria Chronicles is on of my personal favorites.

Though like Miyabi says, The Old Republic has some serious potential.  If they can inject some awesome story into the gameplay, it could fill the void left by 90% of the other MMORPGs. 

If you do tabletop or non-console RPGs, one of the best is the Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) RPG.  I'm in a group that gets together for this monthly (at least).  One of the best ones out there.

I talked with Simon Spanton (editor at Gollancz--Brandon's UK publisher) about this cover a few weeks ago when I was in England. 

What he said would essentially confirm your question.  He didn't want the cover to scream only steampunk like the McGrath cover does.  He told me steampunk is a bit more of a niche market there, so limiting it in the way the McGrath cover potentially does could hurt the sales.  This way, it's open to interpretation as the front of a train, or perhaps something else.  I personally like this cover (with the exception of the horrid tag-line) much better...though part of that may stem from my growing dislike of the identical feel of all the McGrath covers--to me the US cover is just like the Vampire Empire novel just on a different area of the color wheel.  All McGrath's stuff says "I'm Urban Fantasy.  Open here for emo vampires."

Again though, it's all subjective.  For example, I really dislike the US WoK cover.  It isn't even close to the awesomeness that Whelan can achieve, in my opinion.  As my favorite saying goes, different strokes for different folks.

Edit:  For Brandon's Elantris, The US cover is amazing.  The UK cover is SOOO different, but I absolutely freaking LOVE it.

Well, I do have two different copies of the ABM sitting on my desk at work. I want to read The Last Page first, though.

Isaac has been begging me to read that one.  Looks awesome.  Very Miéville.  Let me know what you think of it.  I have to finish off The Alchemist in the Shadows (which includes starting it heh) before reading The Unremembered.