A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
(728 pgs  A Song of Ice and Fire series #2)

In general, I'm not a very patient person. But with reading GRRM's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, I'm not going to have much of a choice. He's written five of the seven books so far, but the last couple have come at a rate of one every 5-6 years. So I'm trying to space them out as I read them. My goal is to stretch it out so that I finish the fifth book around the time the next one is published. We'll see. I read the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones eight months ago and have been waiting patiently to read book two, A Clash of Kings.

I hesitate to say too much about the story itself, since it's a series in progress and I can't say much without revealing plot points from the first book. So rather than provide a summary, I've decided to explain why I'm liking the books as much as I am.

First of all, for a fantasy story it has an overall sense of realism. There are elements of the fantastic throughout, but so far they haven't played a major role. Instead, it's the depth of the host of central characters that GRRM writes so well that drives the story. The characters are never either good or evil, they're always both. There is no quest to destroy a ring, nor is there the journey of an orphan prophesied to save the world. At the center of the series is a throne - made of iron spears. Surrounding that center are the machinations of both men and women who want the power that comes with it.

Next, GRRM doesn't follow the traditional formula for a character-driven saga. No character, no matter how central to the story thus far, is guaranteed to still be living by the end of the chapter. At first it was a little jarring when a major character was lost, but it gives the story a sense of uncertainty that compels the story along. And it emphasises the fact that the story is not about a central figure.

Next, GRRM's writing is head and shoulders above almost all others in his genre. I mentioned it when I reviewed AGOT, but I compare his writing to what I usually only find when I read classical literature.

Overall, a great book, a great series. I'll be patiently awaiting next spring when I'll allow myself to read A Storm of Swords.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Ray Bradbury

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." - Ray Bradbury

Normally when I hear about famous people dying, I hardly give it a second thought. But that hasn't been the case since I heard yesterday of the passing of Ray Bradbury. I've mentioned before that I owe my love for reading to Stephen King, but that's not entirely accurate. It would be more correct to say that King is responsible for my renewed love of reading. In elementary school I read a lot but then quit reading for a few years until my parents bought me King's Misery. My initial love for reading began when I was in third grade and as a class we read Bradbury's short story All Summer in a Day. At the time I simply enjoyed the story. But the fact that over thirty years later my mind goes back to it every time I hear in the news about kids being bullied, is a testament to the impact and power books can have.

Neil Gaiman Tribute

Interview with A.J. Jacobs

If I were to pick an author I think I would most enjoy having lunch with, A.J. Jacobs would definitely be in consideration. From his books he comes across as very funny, unassuming, and dare I say a little unbalanced? He is the editor at large of Esquire magazine who has written four books, all of which I highly recommend. Three of his books have chronicled his efforts of self-improvement and one of them, a series of month-long experiments in which he used himself as the guinea pig.

His books will make you laugh and sometimes make you squirm as he boldly subjects himself to situations that your average self aware individual would never consider. Here is a real quick interview with the author:

You set out initially to improve yourself mentally, spiritually, and physically. Now that you've addressed all three aspects of your life, how successful do you think you were? Do you think you're a significantly different person today having gone through those years of self-improvement, compared to the person you'd otherwise be?

Well, part of being a better person is being humble. So I don’t want to say I’m the Most Improved Person in the World. (Or that I’m the Humblest Person in the World). But I will say, my life has changed in hundreds of ways, and most of them for the better.

Numerous times for your books you knowingly placed yourself in situations that a normal man would never have subjected himself to, (i.e. attending a pole dancing aerobics class, your month of radical honesty, and your month of abiding by every command your wife could come up with). But when you write about those situations, you write about them as if you don't have any reservations. Was that really the way you felt going into them? If not, was there any one thing you were most anxious about subjecting yourself to?

I do get nervous. In fact, sometimes it can almost be an out of body experience. When I practiced Radical Honesty and said whatever was on my mind, part of me was observing myself with disbelief. But I put myself into these situations because they are usually fascinating, and usually end up improving my life. Even pole dancing is healthy.

Many of the experiments you've subjected yourself to also had a significant, and not necessarily enjoyable impact on your wife as well. Is it safe to assume she demands significant gifts for her birthday, anniversary, Valentine's Day, etc? Did she ever veto any of your plans?

Yes, my wife has the patience of Job. Or actually more patience. I learned from studying the Bible that Job actually gets kind of short-tempered and cranky. Though you can’t really blame the guy. Anyway, my wife is patient, and does receive significant gifts. In my book The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as An Experiment,  I let her get a little payback. I spent a month doing whatever she said. Essentially, I was her servant. She became drunk with power, it was kind of scary. As for vetoes, yes, she’s nixed quite a few. Several readers, for instance, suggested that we reenact all the positions in the kama sutra. She put the kibosh on that quite quickly.

In your latest book Drop Dead Healthy you took the approach of trying to achieve perfect health for one part of your body at a time. If there was only one piece of health advice that you think everyone needs to know about and implement into their life, what would it be?

If I had to choose one, I’d say: Stop sitting! The research on the effects of sedentary life scared the bejesus out of me. Sitting for more than four hours a day raises the risk of heart disease by up to 60 percent. If I’m sitting, I try to get up every half hour and walk around for a couple of minutes. I actually took it to the extreme: I bought a treadmill, balanced my laptop on top of it, and wrote my book while walking. It took me about 1,200 miles.

What's next? Are you working on a new book currently? If so, can you tell me anything about it?

My kids want me to write a book about Spending a Year Eating Nothing But Candy. They say they would join me in this quest. Not sure that would be a big seller. I do have a few half-baked or quarter-baked ideas, but I haven’t settled on which one yet. I think taking a month off is probably healthy.


Thanks very much and I look forward to whatever you come up with next.

They Eat Puppies, Don't They?

They Eat Puppies, Don't They? by Christopher Buckley

I don't know if it's very wise to risk offending a fifth of the world's population when you're trying to sell books, but Christopher Buckley went ahead and threw caution to the wind with They Eat Puppies, Don't They?

When Congress denies funding for a new commercial jet-sized unmanned military drone known as Dumbo, one of the executives of the company that was going to be making them enlists the help of Bird McIntire to try to ignite anti-Chinese sentimentalism throughout the world in order to ensure funding for their next military project. But that's harder than it sounds. During the Cold War, it was always easy to get Americans riled up about the Soviets, but Americans just don't care much about issues dealing with China, with one notable exception -- the Dalai Lama.

Americans love the Dalai Lama and when he's laid up with a stomach bug from eating a bad clam, Bird decides to start the rumor mill going with reports that it was an assassination attempt by the Chinese. In fact, the poison he says they used was created by extracting a deadly enzyme found in dead panda livers. When His Holiness passes away a short time later (from circumstances wholly unrelated to pandas) anti-Chinese sentimentalism, reaches a fever pitch, and Bird is right there to try to take full advantage.

I love satire, and Buckley is one of the best writers of it. Puppies is smart, topical, unapologetic, and will offend more than just the Chinese--members of the Ann Coulter Fan Club: beware.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Rook

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
(The Checquy series #1)

I love it when a book has a fantastic beginning. It immediately gets me excited for the ride I'm about to take. Daniel O'Malley's first book delivers with its opening line: "The body you are wearing used to be mine." Myfanwy Thomas has no memories of who she is or how she came to be standing in a London park, surrounded by bodies, holding a letter she apparently wrote to herself.

The book itself defies a simple description, but that's a good thing in this case. The letter Myfanwy is holding at the start of the book is the first in a series of many letters her predecessor wrote to herself knowing that she would soon need them to reintroduce herself to her own life. Myfanwy is a Rook, a high-ranking official in a Torchwood-style British agency called the Checquy that monitors supernatural and extra-terrestrial events in London. Members of the Checquy each have a set of extraordinary abilities that help them keep the United Kingdom safe from the continual threats that the general population is oblivious to. Myfanwy herself has the ability to tap into other peoples' minds and bodies and control them. While one of her counterparts, Gestalt, is a single person divided up into four different bodies (three male and one female) who controls all four bodies with one collective consciousness.

The letters reveal to her that someone within the Checquy is a traitor and is responsible for the erasure of her memories. She must somehow discover who that is, while simultaneously discovering who she is; all while dealing with an imminent invasion of Grafters.

The Rook is a lot of fun to read. It's part X-Men, part Men in Black, part Torchwood and Doctor Who. It got me with that opening sentence and I enjoyed every one of them that followed. O'Malley has been added to my list of authors to keep tabs on.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Brandon Sanderson Interview

Have I mentioned before how much I really enjoy Brandon Sanderson's books? Even if I have, I'm going to mention it again. I really enjoy Brandon Sanderson's books.

He writes fantasy novels, but they're wholly original fantasy books--no dwarfs, dragons, elves, or orcs. Not that those types of books are bad, I just think they're stereotypical. And with the exception of Tolkien, I've never been interested in reading them. Sanderson's books on the other hand are packed full of action, his characters are very well developed, his dialogue is witty and humorous, and there's always a system of magic present that blows me away with its originality.  

His books are New York Times bestsellers and what is probably the biggest testament to his writing abilities . . . he was selected to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series following the author's death. One day I need to read those.

Here's a brief interview with the author.

The first time I went to one of your book signings, it was for your second book Mistborn and I was able to walk right up to the table and get my book signed. I think it took about two minutes total. The last time I made it to one of your signings it was for The Way of Kings, and it was a zoo at the bookstore. How much of the increase in your popularity do you attribute to your opportunity to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and how much is because your own books have increased in popularity?

First of all, thank you for coming to one of my signings in the early days where I had to try to convince people to come over and let me tell them about my books! I really appreciate people like you who stopped by. As for your question, it's honestly hard to separate which sales come from my Wheel of Time involvement and which sales come from my other books.

However, I did get two huge boosts in sales. When the announcement was made that I would be finishing The Wheel of Time, all of my books jumped up to having 'first week' sales again. Most entertainment mediums follow the same slope. Huge first week sales, then a tapering off on a steady curve. (Sleeper hits and new books by first time authors don't follow this.)

When The Gathering Storm came out, I got another big boost, which was again a kind of 'First week' sales thing--though in that case, the bigger boost came around Christmas. It seemed that people bought Gathering Storm, read it, thought about it, then asked for one of my books for Christmas.

In the long run, it's going to be very hard--as I said--to separate how many readers tried me out because of the Wheel of Time. As books take on lives of their own (as Mistborn did) they gain a readership through word of mouth. However, how much of that 'taking on a life of its own' happened because of the initial WoT boosts?

I've read interviews with you where you've mentioned the numerous books that you have yet to write. By the sound of it, the next twenty years of your writing career sound mapped out already. Is that the way you see it?

I have more ideas than I could ever find the time to write about and I'll always have random side projects here and there that aren't necessarily planned, to keep me fresh, but for the most part, I have my future books planned out. I wrote a blog post about it awhile back that explains things in more detail (a few things have changed since I wrote it, but not too much.) Here is a link if you haven't seen it.

Do you devote all of your writing time to the current book you're working on? If not, how much time do spend on books that won't be coming out for years to come either outlining, world-building, or even writing them?

Because I'm trying hard to finish The wheel of Time right now, all of my writing time is spent on that. However, at other times I might be writing one book, revising another book and brainstorm a third. As a writer I'm essentially always writing or thinking about writing pretty much all of the time.

I first heard about Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles series from one of your blog posts and absolutely love it. Are there other writers or books that you think are flying under the radar that you'd recommend?

Some of my favorite authors are Anne Mcaffery (If you haven’t read her books I don’t know why you’re reading mine. You need to go and read her’s immediately!) I like Guy Gavriel Kay’s works quite a bit. Tigana is a wonderful work. Melanie Rawn is a great author, I especially like her epic fantasy, I haven’t read her urban fantasy but Dragon Prince is one of my favorite books of all time. And Terry Pratchett (start with the books in the middle of his career, not the beginning because his books get better and better as he goes along.)

On your website, the completion status for the next book in the Stormlight series has been stuck on 0% for too long in my opinion. When do plan to get it written? And is there any hopes that Michael Whelan will do the cover?

I plan to jump right into the next book in the Stormlight Archive series as soon as I finish up with The Wheel of Time. I feel extremely honored that Michael Whelan came out of semi-retirement to do the first cover so I can't rightly expect him to paint the next one but we'll just have to see what happens. It was a dream come true to have him do the cover of one of my books.

Thanks so much for your time.

Drop Dead Healthy - One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

by A. J. Jacobs

A. J. Jacobs is not the type of person who takes his goals lightly. Several years ago he made a goal to improve himself mentally, spiritually, and physically. He chronicled each of those self-improvements its own book. For his mental improvement he set out to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in a year; which he wrote about in The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. For his spiritual improvement he devoted a year of his life to living every commandment in the Bible; which he wrote about in The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. With this book, he completes his trifecta of self-improvement and focuses on his body. For a little over two years Jacobs spends every waking moment and conscious thought on how he can achieve perfect health.

To start out, this book is not the memoir of a 600lb man who shed the weight and now walks around in a saggy suit of skin nine times larger than his body. Jacobs was not obese. He was what he called "'skinny fat’ — a body that resembled a python after swallowing a goat." So the book is not about weight loss. Instead Jacobs chooses to spend a couple weeks at a time trying to obtain optimum health for one specific part of his body at a time: heart, lungs, stomach, immune system, feet, teeth, bladder, ears, etc.

The true joy of this book, along with his previous ones, is Jacobs's self-deprecating sense of humor as he describes the various health experiments he subjects himself (and by association, his saintly wife) to. Like buying a device to be placed over the toilet bowl, which allowed him to achieve the squatting position he learns is the most ideal for the healthiest removal of waste. Or jury-rigging a treadmill into a writing desk so that he could be walking while writing the book (he walked 1,200 miles at a 2 mile/hour pace).

Jacobs tries veganism, Atkins, juice cleanses, along with dozens of other diets. He tries Cross Fit, anti-gravity yoga, and there's a very entertaining account of him attending a pole dancing workout class where he was the only man among fifty women wearing high heels, and sporting an inordinate amount of cleavage.

The book is entertaining and it's informative. It made me laugh and it made me think about the way I treat my own body. It's not a life changing book, and I don't think Jacobs meant it to be. But I challenge anyone to read it and not come away with some ideas for at least a few changes they're going to make in order to take better care of their body.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆