Lost Princesses and Atheistic Gods

Warbreaker was my first foray into Brandon Sander's adult work, and even though I enjoyed his YA fiction, I approached his high fantasy novel with low expectations. In my very limited experience, when it comes to medieval style world-building, Tolkien did it first, best, and everything that's followed has been a poor imitation. Even the contemporary fantasy writers who do their research (i.e.: George R.R. Martin) lose me with their nihilism. The real world, which is bad enough, isn't as bad as Westeros. Sanderson himself sounds like something of a one-man book factory, so I alreayd had some trouble respecting him. But since he is so popular, I figured that I should give him a shot.

10 Books That Have Influenced My Life

When I saw that I had been tagged in some sort of Facebook challenge, at first I assumed that a bucket of ice water would be required. Then I was relieved to see that the challenge involved books, and not dumping them on my head. The challenge was to list ten books that have influenced my life. I knew that there was no way I could make such a list without explaining how they influenced me. So without further ado…

1. Shane by Jack Schaefer

This classic western about a boy’s hero worship of the gunfighter who saves his farming community from the local cattle baron has been adapted to film several times (including a sci-fi version starring Patrick Swayze!). But even the most straightforward interpretation (1953’s “Shane”) hasn't resonated with me like the novel. Shane is the archetypical western loner with no backstory, who rides in out of nowhere and goes back to wherever he came from a changed man. Yet it is his relationships with each of the three main characters that make up the heart of the novel. Reading this on the verge of adolescence, I learned about life, storytelling, and fistfights. To this day I sit with my back to the wall, facing the door, because that’s what Shane did.

The Wizards Harry

With Potter-mania still a force to be reckoned with and my own literary obsessions flitting around as they will, I’ve been thinking about fantasy stories and why I like some and just can’t lose myself in others.  For most of 2010 I read hardly anything that didn’t center around the adventures of a wizard named Harry… Dresden.  Yet whenever I’ve tried to go to Hogworts, whether in book or movie form, to visit with that other wizard named Harry, it’s felt like a chore.