Apologies folks, this one is, appropriately, a long one.

I began my quest with Rand Al Thor over 13 years ago now. Having finished Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance and the Thomas Covenant series I was serching for something to read and my read of choice was fantasy. In part because reading series meant I always knew what I was going to read next. And so I picked up the first of the Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan and was hooked. I devoured it and moved onto the next book. I quickly read everything in the series so far and it was only towards the end of the third book did I realise something was wrong. Jordan seemed determined to go against the fantasy convention of wrapping it up in a trilogy. Sure Nania and the Black Cauldron books were longer but Narnia stories were tiny compared to each hefty tome in the Wheel of Time and there seemed no end in sight.

And so it went for 13 years I continued with Jodan, frustrated as each book seemed to take forever to come out. At one point Jordan took a hiatus to write a Conan novel and I almost called it quits then. He was toying with us. Finally after the 11th book came out, Knife of Dreams, i heard the news Robert Jordan had passed away from a rare blood disease. I remember feeling both immensly sad at the loss of the man and incredibly irritated that i’d been robbed of closure. Shortly after it was announced that Brandon Sanderson had been tapped to complete the last three books in the series.

Which brings me to “the Gathering Storm”. Sanderson’s first book does a lot to shore up my wavering support to the series. Over the last few books the story had ben to strain under the weight of the multiple narratives it was weaving, in fact Knife of Dreams spent over 100 pages recapping what the various characters were up to. The Gathering Storm by contrast presses headlong into the story, hurtling towards the Last Battle and innevitable end. The war of the Aes Sedai kicks into high gear and Matt, Perrin and Rand, long separated, finally look as if they’re moving towards joining back up. While each had their own story to tell the series has suffered from having all the protagonists so spread out. All in all it was a great read, I recommend it to any and now I just have to wait for the NEXT book to arrive.

This dismays me. apparently Seth Grahame-Smith has written a follow up to his Pride & Prejudice & Zombies that paints honest Abe as a axe wielding vampire killer. For some reason this makes me cringe.

I think what excited me about P&P&Z was the idea a new narrative was weaved into the existing one creating a whole new storyline. It’s why I think Wicked is such a great story. While Dorothy is going about dropping houses on people and scalding a lion for roaring there was a whole other drama. It’s also why people were excited about the Star Wars prequels (although the execution of that was just woeful).

This latest volume though feels like the work of a 7 year old, or the guy who wrote “From Dusk to Dawn”. Random ideas thrown together. Zombie Hawks, Unicorn Transformers, Dawrf Spacemen. All amusing momentarily but damned if I’d want to sit through 90 minutes of it. What the film does promise is stunning visuals if Burton is involved but I’ll pass thanks.

-Trev

Hey folks, I recently did an article for Webcomics.com about how I do cell style shading. It’s just gone online. Now webcomics.com IS a subscriber based site bit it’s also a fantastic tool for people interested in webcomics and comics in general and at only $30 a year (what some sites charge per month) it’s well worth the expense. I don’t get anything for promoting it, it’s just something that I think is worth it. At some point I might put it on this site but for the moment it’s only available over there.

-Trev

Hey folks. Just wanted to let you know that it’s been confirmed we’ll be at Melbourne Supanova. We’ll be sharing a booth with Guardian Comics Paul Spencer who does the great Ticket To Ride webcomic about a group of guys who run a superhero themed adventure park.  We should have books 1 & 2 as well as issue one of the current arc which due to it’s mammoth size we’ll be breaking into shorter comic book style publications.

I also plan on heading up to both Brisbane and Sydney’s Supanova this year (for the very least to meet Joe Kubert!) but i’ll give you more details as we get closer.

Huzzah
-Trev