Lovin' the Games and ramblings on a book...

Don't you just love the Olympics? :) I do. Even though I'm less than productive during the 16 days. Oh, well. I'll just think of it as a two-week nightly vacation. Because after that, volleyball starts and life goes crazy in a good way.

So... Jeff got me into a book. lol. A Jeff book. One of those fantasy books I'd never pick up in a million years, because it has the look and feel of one of those dime-a-dozen fantasy books that overcrowd library shelves and only look slightly more appealing than the romance novels with the same appearance. And what's worse, it's an audio book. Two strikes against it. I bought it for Jeff for his birthday because he requested it. He likes most of the authors' other books and he really likes audio books for driving. Plus, I found it for almost 25 percent of the original price. (That's 25 percent, not 25 percent off!)

Anyways, Jeff listened to the book on our way to and from Priest Lake last month and I half listened between my dozings (because I never fall deeply asleep for very long in vehicles...rather annoying). I got snippets of the story line and wasn't too interested because it seemed like war, war, war, blood, fighting, men, men, men, war, war, war, fighting, swords, death, war, blah. Total man's book, not interested, no thank you.

On the way home from Priest Lake, I didn't doze quite so much because I got really annoyed with my dozing. After too many head bobs, I get ticked and force myself to be awake. (And yes, even when I lay the seat back my head still bobs, just to the side this time. Super frustrating, especially because I get that weird vertigo feeling before my head hits the head rest every time.) I started to catch some intriguing bits from the story, like the fact that there's a complex political system and the characters have very vibrant personalities and lives beyond the front and back covers.

That's always important to me. Characters with depth who don't seem like they were born on page one and die on the last page. It isn't quite as vital as my "stories written in a box" pet-peeve, but I think it's pretty important. The character has to be believable. And the characters from this book are. They have very real weaknesses and respond in realistic ways. I also like his commentary on human nature.  He's very observant and it comes out in his writing.

It's funny, because I started listening to it during the last half of the book and started liking one character. I didn't know everything that was going on, in some parts I was very lost, but I wanted to skip to the next part with this character instead of going through the other points of view. After we finished it, we started it over again so I could hear the first part. (Jeff listened to it on his way to work all summer, so I didn't miss the first part just from sleeping.) Going through it a second time, I started liking a different character more, now that I know his background.

It still feels like a man book. But The Lord of the Rings is pretty much a man book, and I've always liked that series. I've realized that it takes a very, very good writer to write from the perspective of the opposite gender and make it believable. Male characters written by female authors tend to be more emotional and female characters written by male authors tend to be shallow. The female characters in this book aren't my favorite, but that might be influenced by the fact that a man does some of their voices and makes them sound void of emotion and kind of ridiculous. (He switches off with a woman, who reads chapters for one story line.) Men attempting to do women's voices and women trying to do men's voices just sound funny, no matter how good a reader they are. Which is why I have problems with audio books. lol.

Oh, the book is The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Guess I should mention that. He's LDS and from Provo, which gives him extra points and I didn't even know that before I got into the book.

The only other problem I really have with it is that he's planning on making it a 10-book series. What?! In my opinion, anything beyond five is going a little too far unless there's a really good reason. Take The Work and the Glory, for example. He was trying to get through the first part of Church history. The only reasonable way to end the series was to get the characters to Utah. But with most series I think it starts feeling like The Land Before Time after the fifth book. And that goes for my writing and others' writing. I've tried to do that before, and by the time I reach the third story, I'm feeling like if I don't stop now all the original characters will be dead and buried by the time I finish. But that's just me. :) Obviously there's a market for run-on series in novels and movies.

Well... We're watching volleyball now. I'm kind of cheering for the veteran athletes, even though I usually like underdog victories. I just hope they win gold in their last Olympics. :)