The simple joys of fantasy

(Reposted from... elsewhere. Can I just say, I suck at experiments...)

I was finally able to complete Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy a few weeks ago, with the help of great Fully Booked Powerplant staffer Elly, and my journey through the tumultuous land of the Final Empire ended the other night.

The plot was in no way simplistic, and inasmuch as the lightning-fast action scenes of the books were exciting reads, its the easy division of good versus bad that strikes me best, and how the good overcomes the bad with trust, faith, hope and love. Not necessarily something one would expect from a fantasy novel but I guess that's what makes the series and its author special. The religious undertones that started in Book 1 were painted in full-color by the final page of Book 3, and besides giving a powerful insight in the development of structured religion, the books also stressed on the importance of belief. The lead characters, despite being powerful Allomancers, political geniuses and creative thieves, were all humanized by personal weaknesses and dilemmas, which only made belief and having faith all the more relevant.

I loved the surprising depth the series got into, despite its fantastical setting, and I'm truly looking forward to the next Mistborn Trilogy Sanderson will cough up. Mistborn: The Alloy Of Law, although currently promised as just a stand-alone novel to be released in November, will hopefully turn into a series, too.

But November's too far off for me to just sit and wait, so I went and started reading a new book right after. Jonathan Stroud is another favorite author of mine, penning the witty and oftentimes downright offensive words of Bartimaeus. Like Sanderson's Mistborn, the first three Bartimaeus books started out as a trilogy, but was recently extended with the stand-alone novel you see on the left.

That and the fact that both books belong in the fantasy genre end the similarities, though. The insights of faith and hope in Mistborn are countered by the oppressingly hilarious mouth of the mid-level djinn named Bartimaeus. The Ring Of Solomon's first page already left me in peels of laughter today and I'm sure so will each time the story returns to the djinn's perspective.

While both Sanderson and Stroud take on the essentially basic good versus evil theme, the way they communicate it in print is as different as black and white. One takes the serious melody, matching its end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it plotline. The other the overt opposite, practically millimeters away from curse and swear words that I almost hear the lead character cussing in my mind.

Fantasy isn't the only kind of book I read but it's definitely my favorite genre. If this little "review" piqued your interest in fantasy in the teensiest bit, I recommend you start your journey with Mistborn or Bartimaeus. For now, I've got a book to finish. Real world will have to wait as I escape into a world of magic. See you on the other side. :)

Cheers To The Silver Lining

Yesterday was a nightmare... and a miracle... in one fell swoop. It was my very first hands-on, no-one-but-myself-to-blame-should-anything-fuck-up event for the brands I'm handling and although it was far from perfect from the backroom perspective, it's face-value execution was a major improvement from the event we participated in last January.

Okay, fine, so I was also in-charge of January event but I felt no connection to the work then. It didn't feel like mine. But yesterday's hell was all on me, and I'm relieved that on the outside, it seemed like a calm and well-collected project. Let me tell you now, the backstage view was crap!

Or maybe I'm just being too hard on myself. My booth was better. My stocks were spot-on. My sellers were amazing. And tiny heaven-sent gifts made managing the booth so much lighter. I guess the ultra late nights and crazy early mornings were worth the effort, just to have this thing push thru, and push thru well. I also realized that I'm good at what I do and I do even a notch higher above average when under pressure. No such thing as grace anywhere, though, you won't find a drop of that in me, but I suppose that's mea culpa for not knowing how to delegate. (I'd scream, "But who do you delegate to?" at this point but my boss is probably reading this entry, so I won't go there. Haha!)

However, yesterday's twenty hour "endeavor" had one real silver lining. It was the only time in the day I truly felt happy, giddy and screechy like a schoolgirl: the (approx.) 15 minutes I spent in Fully Booked Powerplant.

Yes, you should've known this would be another book entry. I just love long and unconnected intros. :))

You see, my copy of Mistborn: The Final Empire has been lonely in my library for too long. This Sam Green-illustrated copy was gifted to me two Christmases ago, ergo the mission to complete the trilogy has been going on for a while. Only Fully Booked had record of ever carrying them on shelf but they were always out of stock. Until last week!

When I bought my Temeraire series from FB Rockwell, I inquired about The Mistborn Series as well. Elly, the BEST customer service person EVER, said that their branch only had the boxed set. When he brought it out, I realized they carried only the Tor publishing versions of the books. Not ideal since I like my book collections to match, but beggars can't be picky! I was too desperate read what happens next to Vin, Elend and the rest of Luthadel after the death of Kelsier and the fall of the Lord Ruler to be picky. Thankfully I was also in the right mind to say no to a boxed set worth PHP999.00 with a book I already had. So Elly offered to bring in solo copies of books 2 and 3 for me from their other branches. I readily said yes to the reservation, knowing well that I'd be back seven days after anyway for the danged event.

So yesterday happens, and I was too busy during the event proper to check back with Elly. I was thankfully able to steal away for a few minutes for myself after the event, so I ran to Fully Booked and headed straight for customer service. Elly recognized me and said, with an earnest frown, that he was only able to get copies of my Mistborn books by a different publisher. Then he brings them out...Sam Green-illustrated, Gollancz published crisp copies. THEY MATCHED MY FIRST BOOK! I was over the moon. I am now the proud owner of Brandon Sanderson's complete Mistborn Trilogy, UK version. I swear to you, all the nightmares of the day melted away. My focal point was the fact that I finally have my books and they're the right kind. Happiness is!!!

Don't you just love happy endings? I do. Cheers to silver-lined miracles that bless my hell days.

Fine line between girly-girl and nerd alert

I had a realization yesterday. I'm a bit of a geek.

While casually conversing with a friend about a potential boy I want to set-up with her, this strange mix of a line came tumbling out of my mouth:

"He's such a low-key personality, though. If you ever did hook up, he'd be so far under your saya, he'll be living with the balrog."

Saya is a formal wear of Filipinas. Its a popular Pinoy saying, "under the saya," to describe how a man is so subordinate to his mate (i.e. he's practically under her dress).

The balrog, on the other hand, is a fictional character from the Lord Of The Rings, representing the evil and fiery depthness of hell. It is the creature that brought down Gandalf the Grey as the fellowship was crossing the mines of Moria.

Hahaha! Yeah, my friend just gave me this quizical "Huwat the?!" look that brought me to peels of laughter. It amazes me how analogies like that can hold so much meaning to me. For something as fanstastical as a Tolkien creature to be connected to the very lame thing of trying to set up a friend with a guy. It's like mixing fanstasy novels with Gossip Girl!

And I'm kind of comfortable with that thought. My friends sometimes don't get my humor or my strange connections, but I don't mind taking a bit of time to explain.

Actually that brings me to this book a cousin gave me for Christmas, "The Mistborn: Final Empire" by Brandon Sanderson. What really reeled me in with that novel, and with the series for a matter of fact, is the intrigue and scandal that happens as you uncover this whole new world between its pages. I loved the chemistry build-up between Vin, the lowly skaa, and Elend, the most eligible nobleman; Loved the tension going on with Vin, as pseudo royalty, and Shan, the Blair Waldorf of their fantastical setting; Loved how expected, yet unexpected, the death of Kelsier came, and how I easily related it to the formation of structured religion, specifically Catholicism.

Yeah, so it's things like these that get me off. And it's the very same stuff I can talk to very few people about. Though I am not, apparently, an Eat Pray Love kind of person, I still get the same tidbits on life from the genre I read. I admit, proudly I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to my reading choices, but I am still a girly-girl at heart.