For the Win, Cory Doctorow’s newest novel, is a thought-provoking story centered around players of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games. It blends gaming culture with economics and labor unions, the end result being believable and thought-provoking. The bane of the companies that run online games is gold farming. Denizens of underprivileged countries are often paid [...]
Warbreaker is one of those fantasy books that is more about a small group’s plans toward a great cause being pulled from its original path and used for a more sinister plan. Magic plays a very small role in this story, loathed by the main characters but surfacing to help them at useful moments. The [...]
The Well of Ascension is the second novel in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy. It continues shortly after the point where the first left off, The Lord Ruler vanquished and a fledgling parliament taking shape under the oversight of Elend Venture. The city of Luthadel, now ruled by King Elend, faces a multitude of problems in [...]
Knowing that every story has more than one side, Maguire has recreated Oz to show the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view, in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Is Elphie, as she is known by her friends (Yes, friends!), evil or just cranky in her misunderstood [...]
Elantris was once the capitol of Arelon. It was called the city of the gods, for its shining walls and workers of wonders. A magical force known as the Shaod would, seemingly at random, transform people into nearly-immortal Elantrians overnight, granting them extraordinary powers, while turning their hair white and their skin an almost-metallic silver. They could heal quickly, move with great strength and speed, and perform magic by simply sketching symbols in the air. The Elantrians healed the injured and created food from nothing, distributing it to the people of the surrounding country of Arelon. There were no kings, just the wise inhabitants of Elantris…
Soul Music is one of my favorite Discworld novels. Naturally, as soon as I discovered the 1997 animated TV adaptation, I wanted to watch it. I was surprised by the quality of the production. Especially the music…
After enjoying The Gathering Storm, I wanted to try a Brandon Sanderson original. So I picked up a copy of Mistborn…and had trouble putting it down for the days that followed. Dystopia, politics, an oppressive immortal tyrant, intrigue, magical battles on the city’s rooftops – Mistborn has it all.
I finally got around to watching The Brothers Grimm, and interesting movie that caught my attention when it was released in 2005. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out it was directed by Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame). The Brothers Grimm is set in France-occupied Germany during the Napoleonic era. [...]
The Gathering Storm is the much-awaited twelfth installment in the Wheel of Time series. As some of you may be aware of, this latest novel was penned by fantasy author Brandon Sanderson in surrogate for the late Robert Jordan, working off the extensive notes left behind by Jordan. The Gathering Storm is different, but not [...]
In Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld novel, football (not the American kind) comes to the disc. The wizards of Unseen University discover that a large percentage of their funding, in the form of a trust, will soon dry up should they fail to meet their benefactor’s stipulation that they compete in the game “foot-the-ball…”
