Little is going to change.
The words sounded hazily through the void, reaching ears left unhearing for… how long?
This doesn’t mean a return to the dark ages of one blog post every four months or so.
They seemed to be telling him something. Urging him into something.
More perturbed bumblings coming your way soon.
Oh. Oh right. That didn’t go so well, did it?
So, April’s been pretty sparse. It’s probably something to do with the fact that I’m still getting my life together, though from what I can tell so far adulthood is 99% ‘getting your life together’ and 1% feeling actually organised and awake enough to go off chasing dreams and ideal activities. When I’m not working or sleeping I’m typically gaming, because it’s something that brings me joy in life. So, of course, is writing, but that’s not quite as easy or as instantly rewarding as settling down and playing a few matches of Overwatch. All I can really say on the blog post front is that I’ll try to do better, which is a very unfulfilling remark indeed. But not an empty one.
A quick summary of April, then. Other than the aforementioned working, sleeping and gaming, I’ve also been doing a lot of walking. To and from work. And the only reason that’s worth bringing up is because I’ve been listening to The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson as I commute. I’ve already reviewed his Mistborn trilogy, and spoken of this venture into Audiobook territory in the same post. I’m not going to review The Way of Kings here as I’ve not finished it (and doubt I’ll be able to stop myself from diving into book two before pausing to review the first). I do, however, have some words to say about Sanderson as an author of fantasy from what I’ve read of this book and his Mistborn trilogy.
The man’s a genius. (I promised myself I’d try and focus a bit more on criticisms than praise so as to give my reviews a little more weight, but as this isn’t a review, so I’ll continue.) He’s a damn genius. I find myself interested in his educational background seeing as he seems to be a master of conjuring up civilisations and the origins behind the landscapes of their societies. I typically don’t like my fantasy to be too convoluted with different races and places – it can get hard to keep track of over multiple series – but the way Sanderson develops them and ties them all together as the narrative goes on is astonishingly well done. As somebody who’s a fledgling at world building themselves, I envy his talent and aspire to be even close to his level at evoking worlds, normalising their unique attributes and making familiar the unfamiliar designs of the world. His worlds and powers are among some of the most unique I’ve ever seen, though thematically coherent all the time.
Rampant fanboying aside, I also have some more words to say on Audiobooks, having given them a longer try at this point. Personally, I’m loving the audiobook for The Way of Kings and will be very sad when it’s over and I have nothing to keep me entertained on the way to work anymore. I also don’t know how I’d feel about listening to an audiobook that wasn’t narrated by Michael Kramer or Kate Reading. Of course, this is purely ignorance and inexperience on my part – I’m sure there’s plenty of excellent narrators out there – but I’m hesitant to leave these two who have narrated so wonderfully to me for so many hours. I actually hear Kramer narrating this very blog post as I type it. And now that I read what I just wrote back, that was actually kind of creepy.
Speaking of which, there was an excellent moment the other night that could only come about from listening to the Audiobook. Not wanting to stop listening as I arrived home from work and went to bed, I continued, but began growing sleepy after a little while. As much as I tried to keep my focus on the book, my attention was waning as I drifted off. It probably wouldn’t be long before I paused it and collapsed into slumber. But then, an exceedingly creepy moment (which I won’t spoil) occurred right out of the blue, and I was instantly awake and listening in horror in the darkness as the nightmarish scene played out. Kate Reading did an absolutely spectacular job of scaring me out of my sleep, and if I was reading the book instead of listening to it I wouldn’t have had quite the same experience.
Well anyway, that’s enough rambling for now. I don’t have any news on the writing front to share with you as, if I did, I’d likely have been writing here as much as anywhere else. For the moment, as far as fiction goes, I’m kind of waiting until I finish Sanderson’s works before I try to write any more fantasy; not because I want to copy him, but definitely because he’s an inspiration that I feel like I can learn a lot from as far as world building goes. Heck, as far as anything goes.
Perpetually Perturbed 