Monday, December 13, 2010

Erikson, Starcraft, fight workshop!

This is just gonna be a quicky post coz just not finding the time to write much but wanted to mention these things! :) Just finished Steven Erikson's Memories of Ice book!! Super fantastic awesome!!! Book 3 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I've read the 1st book, but skipped the 2nd coz the story line didn't follow most of the characters from the 1st so I knew I wanted to read about these guys first. :) And the book was definitely amazing. He is almost Guy Gavriel Kay level of greatness!! Intricate storylines, every event crucial to the unfolding of the plot, unforeseen directions... simply superb storytelling!! Only thing he doesn't do as well as Kay is characterization I'd say. Or I can name many other books with better characterization. And I think part of the problem is simply too many characters. So they're not very deep, or we're told what they're like rather than seeing it as we spend time with the character. But it is a fucking captivating book, so much so that despite my disgust at multi-volume series of a 1000 page volumes, I am loving this series and it sounds like it won't disappoint! :) Oh, also gotta mention another aspect that makes Erikson's books amazing, like Kay, he really creates these absolute dramatic moments! So much so that we had a whole discussion of the saddest moments in the book on this Malazan forum! (total spoilers though!)

In other news I have been avidly playing Starcraft II!!! Finally bought it in October but have only played it in spurts so finally just finished the game yesterday!! Can't wait to start playing multiplayer! Memories of 1st year in university playing all night in the engineering science PC lab!! And crawling out of the windowless room to find it was daylight again and the subway running so we could get home. Ahhhh... those were the days!!! Haha! I think best part about playing with friends or people in one room is the trash talking!! Hahaha!! :P Warcraft 3 didn't get to me like Starcraft has. Maybe it was too different to be able to just jump in even though I hadn't been gaming in years. Maybe the hero concept sucked. Maybe I simply didn't have time since I was working full time when it came out. Oh well. Yay to Starcraft instead!!! Even though I am more of a fantasy fan than sci-fi! :)

And finally just gonna mention I'm attending a fight workshop over New Year's!! People from all over the world converge to this event where stage combat, martial arts, and stunts are all practiced and studied!!! Loads and loads of fun!!! The only NYE party that I'm willing to skip my annual NYE boycott for! Haha! :) Check it out it's the Paddy Crean Workshop!!!

1 comments:

Lady Knight said...

ps. There was a mercenary company in the book that was just sooo cool!! Competent and honourable. (A lot like Mercedes Lackey's mercenary companies in the Vows and Honor series :) And their name was the Grey Swords which I found to be a cool name, plus I can't get over their leaders titles!! Their captain was called the Mortal Sword (the mortal incarnation of the god they were sworn to), their healer was called the Destriant, and the battle commander was called the Shield Anvil!!! I don't know why but I find those names super fantastic cool!!! As well another couple words I remembered loving were Moon's Spawn (the floating home of the Tiste Andii) and Elingarth (where the Grey Swords came from).