Reading Time

Well, it seems that I’ve come to a different conclusion over the possible creation of an overall map for the world of Traea–of course including Angtholand, the Farthland, and the other two major countries and their prospective landmasses. I was looking around quite a bit online, mostly at other maps from series I’ve either read, heard about, or simply have yet to read, and concluded that while a map may come in handy for readers, it’s also a terrible issue for me as a writer. The story is not finished, so I don’t honestly know where all the landmasses are–only the ones I’ve written about or intend to write about–and to draw up a map of things that have yet been placed in the story itself–whether in my mind or in the plot–would put a terrible restriction on my ability to change things. I can’t draw up a map for all my readers to see, and then simply change it within the story or the map itself and expect readers to remain. So, what I have decided to do is wait. Whatever part of Traea James and his friends happen to wander will be noted and put into a map whenever I happen to finish this book–which may put a conclusion to the entirety of the story, or may just place me into a position to continue writing more on these characters. After I’ve finished the book I can at least draw up a map of the ‘known’ locations and landmasses according to what has been written. That way there is no concern over changing things, since they have already been sealed in stone within the writing.

And on to other things…

I just finished reading Eldest by Christopher Paolini and have to say that I very much enjoyed it. I’d already become a fan of the first book, Eragon, and this being the second in the trilogy I was pleasantly surprised by it. My biggest complaint is that much of the book could have been edited out for sake of space, or for the sake of adding more riveting elements to the other storylines. However, this is a great work, I must say, and must give the young lad a bit of credit for his excellent grasp of language and emotion.
The book is, as most fantasy stories are, very much ‘derivative’, but then, so is most everything you will ever read within this genre. This is something that many complain about in reference to his writing, and I find that to be rather deplorable. First off, there are few, if any, great works of fantasy that do not acquire their elements from things previously written or discussed, or that have previously happened in the past. That’s impossible. I’m sorry if you think that everything within the fantasy genre is capable of being purely original, because nothing is original anymore. You might have a few elements nobody has ever done before, but you are following a heroic archetype that has been used by thousands if not millions of people before you. So, right from the start you are already sitting in that derivative bin. Even my own work can be called derivative, something of which I don’t much like. If you look at it, I’ve drawn up elements from all sorts of stories already told, taken some things from English mythology and folklore, and of course fallen into some already used heroic archetypes, which cannot be helped mind you. Tolkien’s work is derivative, drawing many elements from heroic poems and mythologies that he had read throughout his school experience and after. So for anyone to say that something is derivative should probably take a step back and realize that everything is derivative. Even regular fiction…or literature.
Now, as for Eldest. There’s much to be said about this. First, Paolini has put Eragon into some terrible positions within this book and by the end of it you start to think about whether or not Eragon and those that follow him have much of a chance against the Empire. That is an incredible thing to do when you’ve gone throughout the book thinking he might stand a chance to realizing he hasn’t the ability as of yet to do much of anything against Galbatorix or his minions. I was drawn very closely into Roran’s story and found that to be one of the most riveting parts of this second installment since much of the work with Eragon is rather dull. You start to actually want to learn more about what Roran is doing–and Paolini does a great job doing that for you.
So I have to say that if you liked the first book, give this one a go. It is more than worth the time and effort!

Email
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Digg
Reddit
LinkedIn

Leave a Reply

Follow Me

Newsletter

Support Me

Recent Posts

A Reading List of Dystopian Fiction and Relevant Texts (Apropos of Nothing in Particular)

Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:

Read More »

Duke’s Best EDM Tracks of 2024

And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:

Read More »

2025: The Year of Something

We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩

Read More »