Shared Fantasy Series Candidates
My girl and I had so much fun discussing Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings that we want to recapture this feeling. This time, though, I had the idea of reading a series that neither of us have read. Risky, yes but potential for great reward. I looked at a list of fantasy books my girlfriend liked and they included a lot of what I call fairy tale style fantasy. I took what I like in books and came up with a list of books. Here are 3 series that I have not written about yet in previous book posts.
The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
A while back me and my girl went through the entire Disney catalogue, skipping only a few things we've seen before and did not bother with again. One of the interesting movies we both had never seen(and had a hard time getting a good version of) was The Black Cauldron. Well, turns out that's the 2nd book of the Chronicles of Prydain. This series follows a boy from a young age, into the rest of his life as the books go on. Should sound familiar. It takes place in a new fantasy world and not our own.
The Books of Swords by Fred Saberhagen
A huge cast of characters and a set of swords with moral questions of how to use them. If a series is going to recapture the talk about the "cast" of characters like me and my girl did with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, its this one. Plus, I've wanted to read this for a while. The gods forged 12 swords each with special powers. The cast of characters intertwine as they interact with the swords. Each sword usually has a catch 22. If you can defend a town without failing, even if against an army, the downside is the towns people will hate you forever after. It has always sounded awesome to me.
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
A youth finds out he is actually a magical person in our very real world. That's right! A Harry Potter analogue from the 1970's! While Harry Potter takes a HUGE inspiration from Roald Dahl, The Dark Rising is more on the epic fantasy side of things. Harry Potter pulls from Renaissance era legends and The Dark Rising pulls more from the Dark Ages and primeval European Mythologies. The "first" book of the series is more a mystery that built the foundation for the 4 novels to come later. That is why the series is named after the "2nd" book, as the first is a bit different than the rest. The story starts with a quest to follow a map relating to King Arthur's tales, but then opens up into grand tale involving Norse Mythology, Welsh Mythology and what's typically "accepted" as "celtic" mythology.
Thrimidge 28th, 2014
Bird Saga comes to an end. If you haven't been keeping up, last week I found that a bird had made a nest in my truck. The nest was so well made that eggs were able to keep safe and hatch while I was doing my driving and errands. The baby birds hatched and I found out they were still alive while I was at Walmart. I stopped driving the truck to give them the best chance they could get. In older photos I took to try and identify their health, I see that there were at least 3 at one time, but I think one had died before I had discovered them. It looks like those two little baby chicks made it through every thing and left the nest by today.
Now you do not need a Kinect to have an Xbox One, and now its $100 less to buy one! Now you can pay just as much as the PS4 for an inferior, underpowered, game console with Mount Dew and Dorito ads all over the place; what a bargain. When you build your brand on mindless bro-dudes caring about nothing but "being the best while playing the best" you should probably focus your development on making the highest powered console... not the niche market of motion gaming that died out around 2008. You know, I heard a lot of "the kinect will get better with time, just wait till they get it right" but none of those people thought that it meant it would take baby steps EVERY CONSOLE GENERATION. They aren't trying to make the original better, you never got your "good" kinect. Xbox One owners will never have the "good" Kinect, and chances are there will not be a Kinect with the next generation, so no, it will not get better. It is a failure.
One Third. One third of the cost of my initial "what I want" computer spec can be eliminated without effecting game performance. Yes, the case will be a bit warmer, and yes there storage will be a bit less, but when it comes to frames per second on the computer, it will not go down one twitch. The "fun" factor of making the computer went down 90% though, and when it will take me months of working to make the computer, "fun" counts for a hell of a lot. I am currently focusing on everything I need for the case, and its actually pretty complex taking in considerations fans, air flow, and what is compatible with what. I was actually planning on using a cooler with a too large radiator for the case... even though the case AND the cooler were made by the same company. I don't like the idea of mounting fans on the outside of a case, it looks tacky, not "hot rod". I think I've pretty much got it all planned out. I read a few posts by an engineer and a car exhaust designer on how to optimize my particular case, and I've looked at some mods, and I think I'm pretty set.
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