January 4, 2005

I am continuing to read Into the Forge, although I read about a third of Salvatore's The Thousand Orcs. Seems like I was reading something else before, but I forgot what it was. Anyway, most of Forge gets read before classes like last term. The story seems a bit slow-going with long stretches of very little of importance happening, but I still really like Beau. He might be the reason I keep reading it, so I can follow his story to the end. The way McKiernan's women are equal in battle to men kind ot steals the feeling of realism that I feel in other stories. I kind of prefer it when a girl goes against the rules when she is in battle and surprises everyone. It just seems more real. I'm not creating my ideal world for my stories, not at all. An ideal world would be peaceful, people would be smart, tolerant, and would get along. People would be courageous and noble and virtuous, and adventurous but sensitive to others' lives. But my world is not an ideal utopic world, it is a world that could easily be as real as ours, even a world that ours used to be in a time long past. A history rather than a fantasy; like Tolkien.