Books Galore

A couple weeks ago Sarah and I went to the local Barnes and Noble to pick up some book, because we like books. We weren't planning on getting much while there, just one thing. We left with much more.

Sarah's Picks:


The Night Circus
She had initially dismissed this book because of all the hype that it was receiving. She had since read a sample portion online and decided that she had to get it. She devoured the book in the week after we got it and she loved it. I really don't know much about it's plot, because I intend to read it and I HATE spoilers. I like to go into a book knowing as little as possible.

The Lightning Thief
This novel is easily summarized as Harry Potter but with Greek mythology and stuff. I don't really know much about it. Sarah's started reading it. She doesn't have much to say about it yet. It certainly hasn't grabbed her as well as The Night Circus and Harry Potter have.

Fray
This is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book set in the future, with a new Slayer. I don't know anything about this one, because she hasn't started reading it.

Henry's Picks:


REAMDE
This novel was my first pack and has been really interesting so far. I'm 120ish pages in already and I can't wait to get trough the other 900 or so. I central feature of the book is the fictional MMO of T'Rain, which wasn't just designed to be a compelling game, it has certain, other special features that make it incredibly interesting. There's also a plot separate from the game. Weird, I know.

Starcraft: Ghost -- Spectres
Do you enjoy psychic, sci-fi space assassins? Now, would you enjoy them more if there were even more dark? That's my understanding going into Starcraft: Ghost -- Spectres (Which I had originally thought I should write as Starcraft: Ghost: Spectres. I chose the way Amazon and Blizzard's site has it. The Starcraft wiki has it the double colon way.). I haven't started this book yet, but I will once I finish REAMDE in a couple months. I have a secret love for Starcraft novels. I've read far more than I'd like to admit. This leads me to...


Starcraft Frontline: Volume 3
A collection of short stories in graphic novel format. Again, I love Starcraft, so why not buy a short story collection set in that universe? Exactly.

Gnomes
A coffee table book about the fictional gnomes upon which garden gnomes are based. It also details the garden gnome's many relatives, such as dune gnomes. It's a pretty strange book, but I like much of the artwork, and I have strange affinity for gnomes. One page features gnome boobs, so that was pretty traumatizing.

Random Stuff 2: With Frontalot!

My last post on tattoos left me wondering, "What books should I definitely NOT get tattoos of?" After some quiet deliberation, I decided that Choke would be a bad choice. I can only think of anal beads for that one. I think I could break down all the Tolkien books down. The One Ring for The Hobbit. The Gates of Moria for the Fellowship of the Ring. Helm's Deep for The Two Towers. Sauron's eye for The Return of the King, or the White Tree of Gondor. The Magicians and The Magician King could also be separate, with the button for the first and the seven-pointed star for the second.

I'm definitely open to adding iconic video game symbols too. The Aperture Science aperture is a good one in my mind right now. Other things include, a metroid, an E-Tank, the master sword, an Arwing, a Moogle, a bandana, and many others. Granted, I may not actually get all of this stuff, or any of it, but it's fun to think about.

Blizzard announced an in-game pet for World of Warcraft that is bought with real money, but can be traded in-game. This has been labelled as Blizzard experimenting with real-money transaction. However, unlike the previously released pets, this one doesn't apply to all of your characters. So if you want to have it on all your characters, you'll have to buy it multiple times. This has people upset.

I really don't like it when people to mad about shit like this. You can disagree with it and wish it were another way, but don't get mad. You have to realize that you're getting mad about something that doesn't affect yours or anybody else's gameplay and is completely optional. Blizzard never had to ever even make this stupid pet, and if they hadn't, you would have never known the difference. You lose absolutely nothing by this pet existing. Stop it, stop being mad about it, it's not worth it.

Then again, is me getting mad about other people getting mad about shit that doesn't matter any better? Probably not. Probably not at all. On an unrelated not, I miss Umaro and Gogo. They were the best. I need to beat that game with a party of Umaro, Gogo, Mog and Gau. And Gogo can't use any 'added abilities', just Mimic.

The Magician King thoughts.

I just finished reading Lev Grossman's The Magician King, and it was absolutely wonderful. I can't praise how good this book was. Magic, quests, pop-culture humor, mythology, paganism, snarky humor, and two grand tales.

The book is divided into two complementary parts. One of which is the main conflict and story, the other provides the amazing backstory to one of the characters, Julia, and all the struggles she went through that brought her to how we found her at the end of The Magicians. The stories switch off, chapter by chapter, reaching their conclusions as simultaneously as possible.

What I found most interesting about this structure is that that both stories play out differently to a reader. The mains story plays out like your typical story. It has it's beginning and leads to some unknown end. Julia's story, however, has a foreknown ending. We already know the consequences of what happened to Julia, we just don't know what actually happened to her.

Just as having Julia's story enhances what happens in the main quest, having the main quest enhances Julia's story. I always found myself trying to read between the lines, taking what I knew from one story and applying it to the other. I used what I knew from the main quest to guess at what would happen with Julia, and using what happens to Julia to enhance my understanding of the main quest. The two stories are inseparable, and each would be weaker without the other.

As always, I heartily encourage anyone who is my friend or enjoys fantasy to read these books.