Elantris (2005)

Brandon Sanderson is pretty famous now. He took over the Wheel of Time series when Robert Jordan died, and made some waves with his own Mistborn trilogy (with a standalone sequel coming out next month). Now he's working on the second novel of The Stormlight Archive and he should hurry that up because I made the mistake of reading the first one (The Way of Kings) just after it came out and I have been waiting forever.


*ahem*


But it all started with Elantris. Or, at least, this was Sanderson's first widely released novel. It's good, too. Sanderson says he plans to write a sequel to it, but so far there's been no official announcement or anything. 


Here's the prologue that appears on the back cover of Elantris, pulled from Sanderson's website:

"Elantris was beautiful, once. It was called the city of the gods: a place of power, radiance, and magic. Visitors say that the very stones glowed with an inner light, and that the city contained wondrous arcane marvels. At night, Elantris shone like a great silvery fire, visible even from a great distance.

Yet, as magnificent as Elantris was, its inhabitants were more so. Their hair a brilliant white, their skin an almost metallic silver, the Elantrians seemed to shine like the city itself. Legends claim that they were immortal, or at least nearly so. Their bodies healed quickly, and they were blessed with great strength, insight, and speed. They could perform magics with a bare wave of the hand; men visited Elantris from all across Opelon to receive Elantrian healings, food, or wisdom. They were divinities.

And anyone could become one.

The Shaod, it was called. The Transformation. It struck randomly—usually at night, during the mysterious hours when life slowed to rest. The Shaod could take beggar, crafts­man, nobleman, or warrior. When it came, the fortunate person's life ended and began anew; he would discard his old, mundane existence, and move to Elantris. Elantris, where he could live in bliss, rule in wisdom, and be worshipped for eternity.

Eternity ended ten years ago."

Intriguing, right? Go read it, if you haven't already.




Music


E.S. Posthumus - Unstoppable

   genre: bad-a** orchestral rock
   ideal for: galloping across the wasteland in search of vengeance
  Youtube


Clint Mansell - The Last Man (from The Fountain)

   genre: slow, sad orchestral
   ideal for: plodding home from the aforementioned vengeance-quest, mourning those you've lost
  Youtube

Game of Thrones (1996)

Who hasn't heard of Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin's first novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series? Not many, but I still need to talk about this series because I am reading it right now and I have to talk about it somewhere. Now let's see whether you should read it, if you haven't already.

I can't recommend these books to everyone. You shouldn't read them if (1) You do not watch rated R movies as these books contain enough violence, language, and sex to firmly plant it in R territory, or (2) You cannot abide to see your favorite characters suffer, because everyone suffers in these books, and some of them die, often in horrible ways.


The series so far are five epic fantasy novels focusing on the struggle for power. There are three main storylines: war for the kingdom in the west, an exiled princess trying to regain her throne in the east, and zombies. The zombies are my favorite part.


I'm not going to insert portions of the books in here because nothing can really work as a teaser trailer for a series of epic novels. HBO made a television series based on the novels, however, so here's the teaser trailer for that. WARNING: if you aren't a fan of naked strangers, do not watch this show. I haven't even seen it and I can tell you that. The trailer's fine, though, unless you're offended by whispering.

You can read the first pages of Game of Thrones here.

Terry Pratchett

Website

     "In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded."

If you aren't already a fan of Terry Pratchett, there is still time to fix this. Also, you're probably not English. If you see that as a problem, I suppose there's still time to fix that too.

Pratchett's work is great for people who like comedy. There's plenty of fantasy too, but if fantasy isn't normally your thing, don't worry about it. In fact, Pratchett spoofs the archetypes of fantasy often enough, maybe his books are perfect for you.

     “You can't map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and forked tongues, but they Be Here all right, grinning and jostling and trying to sell you souvenirs.”

Most of Pratchett's books take place in the Discworld universe. If you like to see familiar characters popping up here and there, then I'd recommend reading several of those. I think it was Brandon Sanderson on the podcast Writing Excuses who said something like (no, I'm not going through the back catalog to find the exact quote), "Douglas Adams makes me laugh, but Terry Pratchett makes me care."

In other words, a lot of the appeal for these books comes from Pratchett's ability to write likable characters who you become invested in. You might not like every character, but there's a lot of them, so I'm sure you'll find somebody.

My favorite Pratchett novel so far is Going Postal. I'm not necessarily suggesting you start reading from there, because what if you think that's the best one too? Everything would be downhill from there. Read at your own risk, I guess.

And please remember:

    “If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”