Book Review: Eragon by Christopher Paolini

I read this book when I was eleven, so my memory may not be entirely clear. I greatly enjoyed it at the time, and I still remember it fondly. That's what they call a guilty pleasure. I won't go into the plot because while it was good, it was not original - it strongly resembled the story-line of Star Wars with some names stolen from Lord of the Rings and Beowulf. If you know Star Wars, picture it as epic fantasy and you've got this.

The magic system was pretty nice, and I like how the villain has not been shown (I'm waiting to read Book IV, the finale) - adds a nice sense of shadow and mystery, I think. I like the creatures too, both dragons and otherwise. I really do like this, but I also like cupcakes. That doesn't prevent me from eating veggies as well.

And as a self-appointed critic, I'm afraid I'd only give this three stars of five.

Final grade: C

Plan D

OK, I don't really know which plan letter this is. But I am once again thinking of a new blogging pattern. I'm thinking I'll [try to] post on this one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. With my other blogs the current plan is "post whenever I have something to post," but I am trying to make this more regular. I have been making it regular to a degree, but not entirely.

I cannot tarry tonight, for I have a final exam tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Writing group went well tonight; I really enjoyed everything I heard. We even got to act out a play at one part. The bloke with the play, who goes to my school and had my Creative Writing class last year, had me play a dragon. Ironically, I also played a dragon in my own CW play. I love dragons, in case I never mentioned.

In fact, it was the love of dragons that inspired me to begin writing seriously long ago, back when I was ten. I always wanted to write an epic fantasy series, realizing years later that stand-alone novels are a better start. Maybe I'll write a series - someday. That could be fun. But I'd like to have a few things out there already. I still like epic fantasy, but prefer urban nowadays. I also like horror and science fiction. If I ever do write that epic thing, I'd like to combine genres. And make it really weird, as if I were on drugs. That sounds good.

My summer is semi-planned out, with a couple of camps (writing and acting) and hopefully guitar lessons. I shall continue piano as well. I'm wondering if there is a niche for epic rock? I made it up, but I hope it either exists or could potentially exist. Basically, as it sounds, it would be rock music combined with epic cinematic pieces. Guitars and choirs, maybe.

Just a thought.

Christmas 2010: A Summary

I got up pretty early yesterday--sixish, I'd say. Apparently my sisters were also awake, so we woke our mother up and waited for our dad to arrive. He brought Launa (the big dog) over, and she and Coco (my Chihuahua) played around on the floor for ages. As it got lighter out, we began to open gifts. The most notable of mine, I think, was an Amazon Kindle (which I think I wrote my thoughts about a while back, in the post "Conversion"). I  tend to buy more books than I have time to read, and this was no exception. Just today I finished Cecelia Holland's short story "Dragon's Deep" in The Dragon Book, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. I really liked it, and it even inspired a future project of mine. I love dragons - I always have - and they were among the first things I wrote about.

My sister Laura received a marshmallow shooter...do I really have to describe what went down after that? We pretty much stayed at my mom's house the whole time, although at the end my father took us children over to his house. I woke up this afternoon (I had chatted with Hannah until two in the morning) and saw that it had indeed finally snowed. I ran around in it with Launa for a while, and then walked to Laura's friend's house to see their new kitten. I must say, this snow was worth the wait: Even at the end of the day, after people have been running and driving in it, the white blanket is still a beautiful sight. It actually looks kind of like the background image at the time of this post, what with ice and snow clinging to the skeletal branches.

I've probably mentioned something before about expanding my media (reading/watching/listening to more genres), and I'm now reading a graphic novel, namely, Preludes and Nocturnes, the first of twelve volumes in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. I love Neil Gaiman; he's a very clever man who has done a variety of things in his time. My aunt met him a while back, and I plan to someday do the same. Hannah has been acting as my guide in helping me choose comics/graphic novels to read. Maybe I'll even try Manga sometime. I hope I don't lose reading focus; I am still reading Philosophy for Dummies, along with Olivia's NaNo book from last year. Perhaps I'll remove The Vampire Archives 1: Blood Suckers from my plate. It's not bad, but the others I've been planning to read for a while.

Another thing I have been planning on indulging in is also by Mr. Gaiman: The Graveyard Book. I bought it on the Kindle section of Amazon, and should get around to it sooner or later. We saw Tron: Legacy on Christmas Eve, and I loved it, even though I've not seen the first one. I plan to watch it soon. Coco and Launa both seemed intent on the Christmas ham, especially after we caved and gave them a few pieces. (Note: LAUNA is my sister LAURA's dog. It was her clever idea to give the animal such a clever name.) I talked to my mom on the phone today, and she said Coco wanted to go outside, however, when she opened the door, he felt the wind and ran the other way. Last night, at my dad's house, we watched David Cross (whom I was new to)--he is hilarious, but curses quite a bit. Wow, this was a long post. Seeing as I read faster when off of school, I shall go an do that now.

To all a good night,
LMW

Oh, and here is a link to the video in which I discuss winter holidays.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4SzkwngskU