It's News To Me #2

Here's a couple interesting items below and if you want my recent book haul, that can be viewed here.


Interview: Anthony Huso, author of The Last Page, a book I keep hearing great things about.

Top 10 Movies List: BSC has the Top 10 SFF movies of the decade. Not a bad job - it's easy to take apart someone else's list - but I'd definitely put Lord of the Rings a bit higher. I agree that Lady in the Water got a bad rap, I loved that movie.

Jim Butcher: Ghost Story is being delayed. As all good GRRM advocates know, it's better to have a better book than a worse one. :D

And that's the news...at least to me.

It's News To Me #1

I'm going to make a few changes to this year's It's News To Me series of posts. I've been going back and forth, back and forth on this and I think I finally have a solution. I enjoy posting about the news, but, and you may be amazed... very amazed, it takes quite a bit of work to put together a decent weekly news update.

In lieu of a weekly update, I will begin to post much more condensed updates as the news comes up, so this could happen on any day of the week. This may in fact mean more It's News To Me, but some weeks it could mean less or none.

I guess we'll find out at the end of the year if it does in fact mean more posts. :)

I wish I had more time to keep this up, but I think this new schedule will work a bit better with my hectic schedule.

New Cover: Game of Thrones [US - old cover] [UK - old cover] by George R. R. Martin (and new title too I guess).

This cover update coincides with the very little known fact that an HBO series will be based on this book - while independently significant, A Game of Thrones made it on the NYT bestseller list recently. :)

New Trailer: HBO's Game of Thrones - Premiere Date: April 17th (Whoot!)



Can't say I'm much of a fan of this trailer. It almost looks cheap to me. Maybe I'm not artistic enough to get it. Still extremely excited for the series.

And that's the news...at least to me.

Review - The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearney

It's been far too long since we've seen a review around here and I'm fixin' to change that. Okay, also fixin' to change my use of the word 'fixin''.

The Ten Thousand [US] [UK]

The Macht are a people out of legend in the land of the Kufr. A hardened mercenary-centered people that live for war and make a living through it. Where would be a better place to go when you're looking to overthrow a kingdom?

And to be honest, the plot has a couple twists and turns, but this is basically it. The Ten Thousand reminded me a lot of Steve Erikson's Deadhouse Gates [US] [UK]. There's an epic force that has to make it's way through an entire continent,which is the only way to safety, but which encounters one obstacle after the next.

Throughout the book, we follow Rictus, from the legendary Isca, which is no more. Early in the book, he finds himself in a mercenary company and heading to the land of Kuf to fight among what becomes known as The Ten Thousand. Being from Isca, Rictus has developed a fighting prowess that is matched by few. Rictus is young and cocky, but a really fun protagonist to follow. He makes mistakes, but he's easy to root for and has reasonably explained talents.

Paul Kearney has a knack for plotting and although I alluded to it being simple, that's not entirely the case. It's definitely straight forward, but Kearney does a great job setting up a great climax, but leaving you with enough loose ends that the ending is just as rewarding and extremely surprising in this case.

In addition, Kearney doesn't bog down the narrative with info-dumps. He keeps the world flowing around the characters, so we're let into his highly imaginative story one step at a time. I mean, there's even a glossary and a number of interesting races that he explores, but Kearney does it with such ease, the pace is kept nicely.

Why Should You Read The Ten Thousand?

If you like low magic, and really there's none, but high military action with multiple imaginative races, you'll really enjoy The Ten Thousand. It's fast-paced, it can be gory at times, but the world is all it's own and the story is epic while keeping the epicness of the page count low.

4 out of 5 Stars

Great Quotes

...or even marginally decent ones.

Been reading Kraken by China Mieville lately and found this little ditty that had me chuckling:

"I wouldn't say danger," said Baron. "I'd say at the very worst it's dangish..."

Good reading so far and I can tell it's only going to get better.