Dragon, Shadows, & Fragments

Reading: The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time, Book 2)

Robert Jordan passed away last September of a rare blood disease, with eleven of a planned twelve books written in his acclaimed The Wheel of Time series. I had never read them, and I might never have, had his wife not read Mistborn, and chosen Brandon Sanderson to finish what Mr. Jordan started.

Ever since I finished Elantris and Mistborn, I vowed to read everything that Sanderson ever penned, unless some future book disappoints me so completely as to sour me towards his writing forever. As The Well of Ascension proved that that day is far, far away (if it ever comes, God forbid), I realized that I'd never be able to read A Memory of Light without reading the other 11 books first. So, even as I picked up the books from Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series from Border's, I bought The Eye of the World (a rare $6.99 paperback in this brave new world filled with $7.99s) and figured it would be as good a read as any to bide my time until June 24th, when the fourth Nightrunner book would be released.

Well, simply put, it was.

It took Jordan the better part of the 800+ page book to get into his own, but by the end his was a terribly well-rendered world with distinct, memorable characters, and that wonderful sense of bigger things to come that lies at the core of every sprawling epic. I have heard opinions that Jordan's writing floundered a bit in the latter books, but the man's passion for his creation never waned; it is said he dictated the rough outline of what he foresaw for the last book from what would prove to be his deathbed. And knowing that Brandon Sanderson is the one who has been tasked with breathing life into that outline gives me great hope for what the ending of Jordan's epic might bring. He isn't the best at the craft, but he is a worthy mentor all the same, and the world is just a bit dimmer for his passing so early (for what are the mid-fifties in the 21st century but the prime years of one's adult life?), when he could have brought forth so much more wonderment and magic.

Though I could not have known the man or his works in life, I am glad that his The Wheel of Time series remains to light the path that he left behind.

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Today is the 24th, so very shortly I'll be delving back into Flewelling's world of Aurenfaie, warrior queens, and beautiful gods of death. Expect an update (or another post) once I'm through.

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Finally, I thought it might be of interest to some that I've written this post on the ultra-tiny keyboard of my Asus EEE laptop. Why? Because my Vaio's going through a defragmentation at the moment, and doing nothing while the computer cleans itself--especially when there's another perfectly good computer waiting in the wings--is just plain silly.

Nightrunner & Knives (Now With Pictures!) ^__^

Read: Lynn Flewelling, Luck in the Shadows, Stalking Darkness, & Traitor's Moon
Reading: Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, Book One)
Redraft: Chapter 4 of 32

16081 / 139570

After the poignant Tamir trilogy, I was only too happy to look into Lynn Flewelling's previous work, set in the same world as the trilogy, but several centuries in the future. The first two books in the "Nightrunner" series resolves a plot thread alluded to in the trilogy but never completely resolved--it couldn't have been, it turns out, as it had already been resolved in a story written several years before, but taking place roughly four hundred years later. The plot along the series descends into dark waters similar to those in the trilogy, but overall there is more an an adventure feel to the series. It feels--and is, by design--more open ended. The overarching plot arc of the trilogy centered on the coming of age of the central character, and her fulfilling her prophecized destiny; once she did so, the story was clearly at an end (though like every good entertainer, Flewelling leaves her reader wanting more).

In the Nightrunner series, the adventures of the Aurenfaie spy Serengil and his protege (and eventual lover) Alec are far less rigid. I was surprised at first to find that the series had been appropriated by many Amazon.com user lists involving "gay fantasy"--my first impression from that affiliation cast dark romance-novel aspersions on the series. However, upon reading the books, I discovered that, as in the Tamir trilogy, the main characters travail a good amount before friendships blossom into something more. On top of that, the relationship between the two mains develops behind the scenes between the second and third novels, and while it features in the third novel, it is done in a low-key manner that suborinates the relationship to the story rather than the other way around. I'm no slash fan (not on principle; simply not my cup of tea), but the relationship is well-rendered and easy to empathize with. As luck would have it, the fourth book in the series is due for publication on the 24th of this month, so I won't have to wait too long for the next installment in this worthwhile series.

Until then, the first book in Robert Jordan's ponderous The Wheel of Time series should be more than enough to carry me through.

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From keyboards to desks to pens . . . my acquisitive nature has turned toward the kitchen in its latest escapades. I've been biding my time to select my own chef's knife, and after a prolonged consultation with various knife forums, I chose a Japanese brand that's known for giving people the most bang for the buck: the Tojiro DP series. It's a 8 1/4" chef's knife with a core of high-carbon steel encased on top and on the sides with a layer of chromium-laced stainless steel, to add both durability and the reactivity of the cutting edge, which is rated at an approximate hardness of 60 on the C. Rockwell scale, a good deal harder than most european-style knives. It's the same technique that's used on the well-known Shun series of knives (endorsed by none other than my cooking shishou, Alton Brown), sans the damascus patterning. Also, rather than a price tag between $150 and $200, I got the Tojiro DP from Korin.com for a measly $49.95.




I also found a 4 1/4" folding cook's knife (santoku-style blade) from A. G. Russell's:



Both are razor sharp, and I picked up a honing steel from Korin.com to keep them that way as long as possible. Might have to look into investing in a couple of whetting stones before the end of the year.