Club409
BOOKS DO YOU READ THEM
I'm pretty jealous of what he did with the existing material. We seem to be on the same wavelength. I felt that in George's prequels Obi-wan should have been the main character. We also agree on the Padme and Obi-wan romance. But mine slightly varies.
My idea is to have a love triangle between Obi-wan Padme and Anakin. Padme is naturally attracted to Obi-wan because he is older than her and since he is Anakin's master he holds a higher social status than him. He is also traditionally devoted to the Jedi so he isn't interested in a relationship which only makes Padme more attracted to him.
She is aware that Anakin has a crush on her and doesn't reveal her feelings to neither Obi-wan nor Anakin because she knows it would be detrimental to their Master-Student relationship and Anakin's training is important to the mission. She eventually settles for Anakin and they have their babies but she still has strong feelings for "Old Ben". Eventually all of this comes to light (still have to write out the details) and this will be the main reason for Anakin turning to the dark side.
So I'm starting with that and basically writing backwards from episode 3. I did read a cool fan re-write of episode 1 that sort of mirrors Seven Samurai (http://youtu.be/4KT8gk-1tyg). I have contacted him and may use of lot of elements from his version of episode 1.
I already wrote character back stories to help understand each character's motivations to sort of establish rules for how they will act in my "books". I am by no means a writer so I will lay out all the major plot lines and try to etch out as many details as possible. At this point I will try to find a good writer who would be interested in taking the project to completion with dialogue flowery descriptions and making it actually read like a book.
but wait i was told the prequels were already better than the original trilogy
i could also just write about this
http://alligator-sunglasses.com/post/10404347974/the-death-star-was-an-inside-job/
barbie and i have been making our way through the ender's game series definitely worth reading if you haven't already so far i've read enders game speaker for the dead and xenocide barbie has covered those and ender's shadow and is reading ender in exile right now children of the mind is up next for her we're both looking forward to the movies and she met a stand-in for one of the actors getting coffee one day here in atl pretty cool
The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton: So GK Chesterton is from back in the day TMWWT was written in 1908. It's about an anarchist organization and the police investigating them. It's got some gold timeless British wit. The first few chapters are really fun and there's a development early on involving people being who they're not supposed to be and it's pretty hilarious. I don't know if I've ever used the word "wacky" before but this book early on is wacky. I enjoyed the way events seemed to be inevitably going out of control. After that it kind of plods along for a while and there's a Big Realization later on that's OK but the best parts are in the beginning. The last couple chapters of the book become sort of like something they made you read in high school literature class so it's kind of dull. Anyways anarchy is silly to begin with and the book really captures that. 3.5 out of 5 old Christian lanterns if you just read the first few chapters it's 4.5 out of 5 what the hell is going ons.
Finished the last Wheel of Time book a couple days ago. I'm real tentative now when getting to endings because people seem to enjoy really cocking them up. In my opinion it's not hard: protaganist wins or loses and wrap up some loose ends. No need to get all meaning of everything right at the end. Since the Big Showdown was going to be metaphysical in nature it would be prone to being silly. But it was fine. OK but how was the whole book? I would say it was really good. We get some payoff and the thing is probably like 75% action. Stuff is happening throughout. One thing that I think Brandon Sanderson didn't do quite as well as Robert Jordan is writing combat sequences. Sanderson remarks on this somewhere in a blog or something saying that RJ was a Vietnam vet and had that experience to draw from and he is a BYU English major. So there's a difference there. One thing about being all action all the time is that it can get fatiguing. You can't raise the stakes if you're already up to 11. Book 2 which I think is the best in the series has a great increase of tempo that all leads to a crazy and fun ending. All kind of stuff was happening. But all in all the recent book I think was very satisfying ending to a very large piece of work. I'd like to own a whole set of hardcovers if they ever release one. Would love to see some TV movies or video games but as far as I know the rights and options are just languishing away. I know Game of Thrones is doing well and they're wringing as much money out of The Hobbit that seems possible. I think people beyond just fantasy readers would enjoy the world and characters. We'll see.
I too finished the 14th and final chapter to the Wheel of Time: A Memory of Light. I completely agree with the "reading fatigue" that occurs with the 200 page chapter that is relentless. I felt that the book was well written the story well told and happy to have been able to read this series. As much satisfaction I got from have an ending to the series I'm left with wanting more! So many options for so many more stories but I'm happy with the ending. I'm not sure when it will happen but I will definitely re-read this series.
However unlike you Drew I have fallen in love with my Kindle and don't think I can ever go back to reading physical books full-time ever again. I purchased the hardcover of A Memory of Light because of my poor planning. I re-read the 13th book timing it so I finished a week before the final book release. Never did it occur to me that the final book would not be released in e-book format until April! Robert Jordan's wife is opposed to e-books so they delayed the e-book release (versus the publisher not wanting to release it at the same time). So I ended up with the physical book.
I have found that I enjoy Brandon Sanderson's writing. I've read his Mistborn Trilogy as well as Elantris and I'm reading Warbreaker now. He is very creative with his magical systems but sets definitive rules for that system. It's well thought out and makes for a good read. However I will say that Elantris and Warbreaker are very very similar with their plot lines so far. However the magical systems are different as well as the setting so it's not too redundant.
I read Sanderson's blog entry about the ebook issue and it seems the main reason she wanted to delay the ebook was to ensure AMoL got on the bestseller list which they still apparently aren't counting ebook sales. Like I said before I intend to buy a full set if they ever release one just to have it and share it. And I would have bought a paperback had they released it at the same time. As it turned out I resorted to less savory methods to get an ebook copy on the Kindle and read that. I'll rationalize that I'll be paying a premium if they ever do come out with a whole set. But yeah I was skeptical that I would prefer reading on the Kindle thinking backlighting would cause eye strain. I change the background to black and the text white and bam easy reading in the light or dark.
I agree that there's plenty of room for more stories. Maybe they'll address some of that in other forms if they ever do a video game or something. I was thinking about checking out the Mistborn stuff since you and just about everyone else seems to say it's pretty good. I think though I'll look into that Gateway series that Pip mentioned above just to break up the fantasy reading with some sci-fi. I don't know I feel like I need to throw in a non-fiction every once in a while though. I don't have any direction on that front right now though.
I decided to go ahead with the Mistborn reading while I'm at home sick. I'm like at chapter 12 of book 1 and not much has happened. I've read about a contract negotiation a burglary a ball and some committee meetings. Hardly a page-turner. So I guess right now I'm reading to see what happens. Not as in what happens next but as in if anything happens. I mean I suppose it has to. Brian how long should I expect before plot stuff actually gets going? Close to giving up...