Group Activities - 11

I hate our blog. Twice now it has eaten posts > 2k words on this topic. I'm not doing it again - not tonight. I like book one; I wish Harriet hadn't edited the series; I wish James Rigney and Peter Jackson had known each other. Fin.

Good chapters; with 75% of the book behind us, I can definitely feel that "end of the novel" approach starting to loom. The 3-way rift in the party is healed as Moriaine, Lan, and Nynaeve find first Perrin and Egwene, then Rand and Mat. Long-held secrets are revealed, including the boys' dreams and Mat's Mashadarian dagger, and some subplots are tied up while deeper roots are laid for the later novels. We are introduced to more forms of prophecy, some information about Rand's heritage (he appears to have Aiel blood), and we hear of the Green Man, the Eye of the World, and meet the ruling family of Camelyn - including the Daughter-Heir Elayne, who finds Rand handsome.

More below the jump... Continue reading "Eye of the World Chapters 37-42"

These are some great chapters, and I'm glad I get to cover them. I don't know how anyone else is feeling about the series at this point, but I really enjoy the way Jordan is so carefully weaving each character's fate deeper and deeper into the very history of the land they travel across; almost without exception, every event that happens in these chapters has much a much deeper repurcussion later in the series (some of them, over and over again). While a lot of annoying recurring themes get introduced here, I did love Perrin's struggles with the "Way of the Leaf"; this struggle between a loving and pacifist acceptance of fate and the desire to affect one's own destiny is something that resonates VERY strongly for me. Chapter recaps, and some more of my thoughts, below the fold. Continue reading "The Eye of the World (Chapters 29-30)"

Here is my first summary. As you publish your own, please make sure to categorize them under "Wheel of Time Read-Through".

Note that I wrote considerably greater detail than I would expect anyone else to write, because I like to write, and I *really* like to write about WoT. I included a few *tiny* pieces of information that are not directly evident from the novels themselves, but come instead from the many external resources I have collected over the years to help my own understanding and appreciation of this series.

I'll start with the tl;dr, which is somewhat closer to what I imagine most of you will be writing, and put the full write-up behind the jump. So, without further ado, I give you The Eye of the World - Prologue through Chapter 6.

tl;dr
3000 years ago: A powerful magic user named “Lews Therin Telamon” (or the Dragon) nearly destroyed the world in a fit of madness, and then DID destroy himself, creating a new mountain in the process.

Now: The boy Rand al’Thor and his friends Mat and Perrin have been seeing a disturbing image of a rider dressed in black, but it cannot spoil the Bel Tine Festival with a gleeman, regal-looking visitors from beyond the Two Rivers, fireworks, and a peddler bringing news of War, and a man claiming to be the Dragon.

However, all these excitements do lose their appeal when Tam and Rand are attacked by Trollocs - monsters directly out of the stories used to scare children. As he tows his wounded and fevered father back to town on a litter, Rand is shocked and dismayed to hear Tam mumble about how he found the freshly-born Rand near the corpse an unknown woman on a field of battle, and brought him home to be raised by Tam and his wife as if it were their own child. Continue reading "WOTR: Getting the Ball Rolling"

All right, let's do this thing.

First of all, I need to mention that this Saturday is our annual Homestarmy Christmas Party; it will be held at my house, and starts at 7pm. If you're late, that's cool - no pressure from my end. The address is on Facebook - if you think you should have been invited, but were not, let me know and we'll get the address to you.


Secondly, with a New Year approaching, it's time to get serious about this "Wheel of Time (Re-)?read" idea. I can't remember who all said they were interested, but I've shared a document with Sideshow, MG, Johnny Elbows, Radar, and my wife. It's a spreadsheet that breaks the books into pieces - if you want to participate, here are my proposed rules (open to friendly amendments):

1) Select the chunk you'd like to read by putting your name in column E; if I have already signed up for one you want, feel free to remove my name and insert your own - I've simply gone through and inserted my own name at a regular interval for now, and I imagine I will be picking up some of the unassigned chunks.

2) By putting your name in column E, you are committing to write a post of at least one paragraph in length summarizing the chunk. Feel free to write more than one paragraph, and feel free to write something more than a summary of the chunk (see below for some ideas); however, you need to at *least* write a one paragraph summary of the chunk.

3) Your summary should be posted here, to this blog, before the date in the corresponding column A;

4) Column D is labelled "Additional Posts"; initially, I have filled these with entries indicating that I will be trying to write a summary of each book sometime during the same week as the post due for that chunk. If there are other correlated posts you'd like to sign up for, feel free to add them where you feel they best fit; if you would like to sign up for one of the volume summaries, please feel free to remove my name from that one and insert your own. Correlated posts are not due on the Tuesday, but it would be nice if you could time any book summaries you sign up for to be published at the very least before Saturday of the week in which we finished that book.

If you need some ideas on other things to write about in your post, here are some off the top of my head (I can come up with more if you don't like these, just contact me directly): other books that have a similar feel as the chunk; possible inspirations for the events/content of the chunk; associations to the Campbellian mono-myth (if you don't know what I mean by that, see Joseph Campbell's "The Hero With a Thousand Faces"); things I liked/hated about the chunk; what I wish the author had done *instead*; top ten lists of "Events Thus Far"; predictions on what prophecies/visions/et al. mean.

If there's someone who wants to participate in this read-through that I didn't include in the document sharing, please let me know, and I'll share the document to you as well. If I included you, but you don't plan on participating in the posts, please let me know that as well. If there's something in the structure that I've laid out here that you'd like to change/amend, let's discuss it!

I don't know about the rest of you, but *I* am excited about this.

Shall we gather together once again to partake of group-oriented holiday festivities?

Union Ship Valiant
First Officer's Log

We arrived at the New Earth border just in time to detect, at the very edge of sensor range, the destruction of the Seaward. A New Earth ship (designated 60103682) commanded by the New Earth Interior Minister had attacked and captured its crew and the briefcase containing the documentation against Chancellor Alexander. Continue reading "First Officer's Log: Disaster; but a glimmer of hope"