It has to be said I’ve been slightly disappointed in the books I’ve read recently. I was unable to get into them for some reason. The Blade Itself by Joe Ambercrombie I read this on recommendation by Rick Riordan, one of my favourite young adult writers. I listened to it partly in audiobook and then gave up and read it on Kindle. I don’t believe it was a fault of the narrator; he did a good job, but I just couldn’t get into it very easily. On the positive side, I see that Amazon has enabled Whispersync for Voice for purchases on the Canadian store. It worked perfectly on this book. However, they do not yet offer the price reduction for both items, but maybe that will come. The Blade Itself is very similar to George R.R, Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire in that character development is more important than plot progression. That is all very well, but Ambercrombie can’t compare to the depth of characterization that Martin has reached. None of the characters grabbed me in the manner of Tyrion, Jaime or Arya. In all fairness, Martin has had five books to develop his characters, while I…
I have been reminded lately that great quality drama – both writing and acting – is no longer limited to the silver screen, TV and stage. I am an avid follower of Bernie Su’s and Hank Green’s The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. The “LBD” is a transmedia modernisation/adaption of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and is another great example of quality writing and acting. It is well worth viewing if you have not yet seen it. The main content is based around twenty-something grad student Lizzie Bennet’s YouTube blog in which she discusses her daily life with her parents and sisters Jane and Lydia. The Mary Bennet of the original becomes a cousin, and Kitty is Mary’s cat. Lizzie’s vlogs are supplemented by in character tweets and also vlogs by younger sister Lydia. Her best friend and blog editor is Charlotte Lu, and she has a volatile relationship with one William Darcy. Speaking of Twitter, one of the real challenges the writers of the LBD had not faced by Jane Austen was to keep the in world characters ignorant of events in our world dominated by cell phones, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The main characters all have Twitter accounts. The writers…