Hello, Internet!
First off, I’ve got to say – I love my family. They know quite well that I’m a recluse by nature. This past weekend was a family reunion, and for me it’s wonderful that they’re willing to let me skulk in the corner with a book for large portions of the day.
Reading
I’ve gotten an enormous amount of reading done this week – although admittedly some of it wasn’t as challenging as a lot of what I read. I finished Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros (more in a moment), the first two novels of Percy Jackson & the Olympians, and Dangerous, by Milo Yiannopolis.
Worm continued to be a delight up til the very end. That being said, I’m actually not sure I can recommend it for general reading. It was one of the best fantasies I’ve read of late (maybe ever?), but that’s as much due to Eddison’s unending archaic style as because of the actual characters & plot itself. I loved this book, but anyone who wants to pick it up basically ought to be prepared to read Shakespeare for 400 pages.
I suspect that Worm is going to linger in my mind for a long, long time. It begs comparison to Tolkien’s work, but with such different depths of meaning.
I shall leave off for this week on Percy Jackson & the Olympians, since I intend to finish reading the (first) series in the next few days. The books are short, fun, easy reads.
Dangerous is a book I was aware of, but only just realized that it had been released a few days ago. My thoughts on it (and on Yiannopolis’ ‘work’ and political opinions) deserve more space than I want to give them now. In short, the book is an intentionally crude statement seeking to strike down sacred cows. I think it ought to be read & discussed (but that you’re better off borrowing a copy, or finding one through a library).
Writing
Not much writing done this week (as I had suspected would be the case). I’ve got a decent portion of notes sketched out for a review of The Dragon’s Legacy, but I really ought to go back through the novel and mark out good examples of Wolf’s florid prose. I’d like to bang out a 1st draft of that review this week.
I’d also like to get basic notes & comments written up for a review of Yiannopolis’ Dangerous. Odds are, I ought to do this before I do any work on my other review-in-progress (after all, Dangerous is newer & more controversial), but we’ll see what actually happens. While I was not terribly impressed by Yiannopolis’ argument & writing, I believe it to be a book worth answering.
Didn’t get a lot of work done on Rule this week (again, as I had expected). I’ve got some notes half-organized on how to move the battle scene, and I’m realizing more and more how that will change the tone of the book. It will become increasingly a war story, rather than a coming-of-age story, and I think that’s (probably) a good thing.
Started sketching up some maps of Terras (my current place-name for the land Rule is set in) and trying to flesh out the setting. One of the big things I noticed with The Worm Ouroboros is that while there was no map, many locations were mentioned which were never visited. It reminded me of how various lands and relations are attributed in Homer to minor characters (who are usually about to be slaughtered). In both cases, I recall that device increased the ‘real-ness’ of the world I was reading within.
Even if I barely use any of the setting I devise, that background will still help to enrich the story of Rule, or other stories within that setting.
At least, I hope.
In Review
Last Week: Work on editing logistics for Rule, finish The Worm Ouroboros, and start writing a review. Mostly accomplished those goals! (Although of course it’s my own writing which was most lacking in effort.)
This Week: Finish reading Percy Jackson & the Olympians, finish my map-making for the Shining Knights stories (preferably with one big one at the end), and finish the first draft of a review of either Dangerous or The Dragon’s Legacy.
Akhelas 