Plurals of Names

As it’s Christmastime, this is a good time to cover the plural of names. Most names you just add s to:
Hammers
Bishops
Butchers
Jacksons
Carpenters

What if your name already ends in an s? Add es:
Williamses
Evanses
Lewises

Then there’s a few other forms:
Valdezes
Rileys

Wrong:
Hammer’s
Bishop’s
Williams’

For practical purposes, it’s probably easier to write “from the Williams family” rather than “from the Williamses.”

Trick to Remember
Plurals are formed by adding s or es. If you don’t sign your name with an apostrophe normally, then it will not ever obtain one. Apostrophes never ever ever make a plural.

Review: The Warrior Heir

The Warrior Heir (The Heir Chronicles #1) by Cinda Williams Chima

Young Adult — Urban Fantasy
☆☆☆

In this version of the world, magic is kept secret, but the various factions of magic users don’t work well together, with wizards generally bullying the rest. Sixteen-year-old Jack was supposed to be a Wizard but ended up a Warrior, which is pretty rare and starts causing problems for him.

There are a lot of tropes and cliches here, but I still liked it, if that makes sense. I loved the action scenes and was pulled in by the sense of danger. But sometimes the in-between, character-building scenes were dry and bland. It’s like Chima put them in because they were necessary and spent as little time polishing them as possible.

The ending was rather deus ex machina; I was hoping for something sneakier. But overall I really enjoyed it.

Now, a word about the audiobook. It’s BAD. It’s not the narrator’s fault; he was fine. I blame the sound engineer.



You can hear the narrator’s breathing. It’s constant. Sometimes I thought I heard pages turning. There’s a two-second pause every other sentence for the narrator to breathe. On top of that, there’s a deliberate three-second break in between each track (WTH?) that is also preceded by a loud deep breath. (It sounds like he’s holding his breath!) So every 3-4 minutes, you hear deep breath-silence—and more silence in between. If the sequels are like this, I’m bailing on the audio version.

Book Lovers’ Memes (Part 2)

*all right

Commas: Introductory Phrases

This is a very common use of the comma. It’s easier to learn by examples than technical academic terms:

Having forgotten to buy ingredients, I went out to dinner.
Because it was easier, we stayed in the for night.
At the conclusion of the meeting, we had donuts.

There’s a natural pause where the commas occur, so you’re pretty safe following your gut. If the introduction is followed by a verb (usually some form of is), however, there is no comma.

Walking next to the wagons were children.
Coming straight at him was the baseball.
At the conclusion of the meeting were donuts.

Trick to Remember
Look for the natural pause and you’ll be right most of the time.

Review: American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent by Tamer Elnoury

☆☆☆☆
Nonfiction — spies, terrorism

This is a fascinating account of life as an undercover FBI agent. Tamer Elnoury is an identity created by the FBI to expose terrorists. The identity has since been burned, so the agent, who is still active, uses it for his pseudonym.

Tamer was born in Egypt and immigrated to the US as a small child, so he is natively fluent in both Arabic and English. He found his calling in law enforcement, where he worked undercover to bring down drug lords. Eventually he was recruited for counter-terrorism.

The book tells of a particular case that started out as a favor to Canada but grew as more evidence was found. Tamer is a very self-confident, almost cocky guy, which is essential to working under cover.

Befriending jihadists was especially tiring for him—he had to watch people twist something personal and sacred to him and pretend to agree with their rationalizations for evil. That takes a special kind of mental endurance, and I’m in awe of that.

Recommended for anyone interested in police work, spies, and life as an American Muslim. Editing was good except for the “alright” spellings.

Book Lovers’ Memes (Set 1)

Usage: Hone or Home In?

It’s quite easy to confuse these two words, especially since they sound so alike in casual speech.

You home in when you’re getting close to home.
You hone your skills with practice, so you never actually hone in for or at anything.

Trick to Remember
Do you feel like a homing pigeon? Then you’re homing in.
Have you sharpened your skills? Then you’ve carved away part of that m in home and are left with hone.

Review: Followed by Frost

Followed by Frost by Charlie Holmberg
☆☆☆☆
Fantasy — Young Adult — Fairy Tale Retellings

Sadly, this is my first book by Charlie, one of many talented local authors. The writing is excellent—it hardly matters what the book is about because just the writing made it good.

It’s about Smitha, a vain and selfish 17-year-old, who ends up cursed to be always freezing cold. As she brings snow and cold wherever she goes, she spends a lot of time in exile. The core of the book is seeing Smitha transform as she learns to use her curse for good and to become completely selfless.

The pacing is right on, the characters and world-building are well done, and it’s easy to become swept up in the story. I mean, I felt extra cold while reading it, and I was emotionally invested in the characters.

Usage: Comprise Vs. Compose

I see comprise used in place of compose all the time now. Writers use it to sound distinguished and educated. The actual effect is the opposite.

Compose means to form something by putting things together. It’s often used in passive voice (... is composed of ...).

Comprise means includes, is made up of. It is NEVER used in passive voice (... is comprised of ...) because that would be illogical.

Fifty states comprise the United States.
The United States is composed of fifty states.
Bacon, eggs, and juice comprise my breakfast.
My breakfast is composed of bacon, eggs, and juice.

The non-passive use of compose is not as common now:
We will compose a committee. The committee will be composed of five members. Five members will comprise the committee.

Trick to Remember
Compose is rarely used wrong, but comprise is misused all the time. So, if you’re writing comprise, replace it with is made up of and see if it still makes sense. You can also just avoid comprise altogether; you can live without it easily enough.

Grammar: None

None is a contraction of no one. This means it’s singular and follows the same grammar pattern as he, she, it.

Wrong: None are perfect. None of us are perfect. (It’s ironic how often you hear this.)
Right: None is perfect. None of us is perfect.

Trick to Remember
Replace none with no one, and that should make it clear.

Commas: Addressing

This is a very simple comma rule that gets missed a lot. It’s just this:

When you talk to someone, as is common in novels, their name gets a pair of commas surrounding it. It doesn’t have to be a proper (capitalized) name.

Yes, sir, right away.
Dad, can I have some money?
Stop it, Jim.
Hey, bro, help me out here.

This rule is only for direct addresses, as shown above, not for the following examples.

I asked Dad for some money.
I told Jim to stop it.

These are a different type of sentence.

Trick to Remember
If you’re talking to someone, their name gets two commas around it.
Is that helpful? That’s all I got.

Lilli De Jong by Janet Benton

Lillie De Jong by Janet Benton

Historical Fiction
☆☆☆☆

Even though this is outside my normal genre, this book sucked me in and refused to let go. While reading, I was living Lilli’s life and agonizing over how things would turn out for her.

It was impossible to be an independent woman back then (1883). So many people get hurt over trivial injustices they don’t see the real ones or remember how good they have it. Reading this book will make you very indignant over the injustice and double standards of the time and very grateful for the time you live in.

The depictions of caring for a newborn are spot on. Reading about cracked nipples, I thought, praise to God for lanolin, and then I read that they had lanolin and was like, Use it, Sister! And that stupid advice about forcing a baby to wait four hours between feedings is still going on today! I had a baby or two who were fine eating every three to four hours. But I had two (boys) who needed it at least every hour, and to deny them that would not only have increased both of our discomfort, it would have been a betrayal to the baby who was just learning to trust. The author also captures that sense of touching the divine you get from feeling a baby kick and when nursing to seeing your child create something of her own.

“Live up the light thou hast; and more will be granted thee.”

“I was stunned at being the basis of a newborn’s survival and awed by how my body and heart changed in service of her. Becoming a mother was no small shift in identity. I would never see any aspect of living in the same way again.”

“Do not be surprised, when thee has children, to find what I have found: of all the kinds of love that bind, a mother’s love for her offspring is the strongest imperative on earth. It is as common as sunlight, as all-penetrating, as necessary to life.”

“If our principles are right, why should we be cowards?”

It is beautifully written, hands down. It ended kind of abruptly. I would have liked to have seen what happened to all the secondary characters or a glimpse into the future.

Spelling: Stationery Vs Stationary

I’ve been seeing this in published material, so it’s still a common mixup. Note that the spellings are identical except for one letter.

Trick to Remember
Stationery is what you write on, and it goes in an envelope.

Stationary is staying in one place. If you’re stationary, you’re stuck at point a and will never get to b or c or z.

Quills Conference

The Quills writing conference, sponsored by the League of Utah Writers (of which Glenn and I are members), was August 24 and 25. Glenn and I volunteered but were only able to go on Friday as we had a wedding on Saturday.

Friday we got up really, really early to go to the U of U Marriott, where it was freezing in the building! As it was in the upper 90s outside, it didn’t occur to me to bring a jacket. I spent the morning in one of the conference rooms on the fourth floor. I had two mugs of hot chocolate. First was a “kaffeeklatsch” with an agent, where people came and asked her questions. I kept time for that.

Next was a session of manuscript evaluations, where people have their first page read by a volunteer (to remain anonymous) and then receive feedback from an agent, an editor, and an author. This session only had one submission, so it wasn’t exactly anonymous. My volunteer partner, who did the reading (I kept time), agreed to cover one of my volunteer shifts so I could go to Maria Snyder’s kaffeeklatsch because that was going to be EPIC. 

At lunch I saw Maria for the first time entering the lunch tent. I brought my own lunch; Glenn went ahead and paid for his. It was nice to experience some heat for a little while. After eating I sat in a chair near the elevators and read a little but ended up talking. Then Maria came by and said hello, and I said I was going to her kaffeeklatsch that was starting in a few minutes, so she invited me to ride the elevator with her. I RODE AN ELEVATOR WITH MARIA V. SNYDER, and we were talking like normal friends. 

The kaffeeklatsch was really fun. About seven of us fans were there and just talked about books and Harry Potter and writing and stuff. For the rest of the afternoon, I was assigned to timekeep for agent pitches. That left a lot of open time to chat with people around the registration desk (and Maria again!).

Glenn and I originally weren’t going to the dinner, but Maria was giving her keynote address there, and I didn’t want to miss that. We figured it could count as our anniversary dinner. 

The presenters were assigned seats throughout the banquet hall so the conference-goers could all mingle with them. Food was good. Glenn and I sat with LUW friends John and Kelly Olsen and writers James A. Hunter, Aaron Michael Ritchey, and Spanky Ward. Maria’s keynote was great fun.

The Brand Demand

The Brand Demand by Johnny Worthen
☆☆☆
Thriller — Mystery — Political

Overall, it’s an interesting story: A blackmailer starts a blackmail job that doesn’t go quite as planned and ends up running from dangerous dudes while also trying to solve the mystery of what just went wrong.

My big issue is that the MC, Galen, is such an insufferable prat. He is close-minded, intolerant, and judgmental—everything he claims he hates about everyone else. If I didn’t personally know Johnny, I’d have been very offended by Galen. I kept hoping there would be a twist at the end where he ends up in prison forever or something, but he just keeps on being the hero of the story.

CW: moderate strong language and sexual content.
It also needs some serious copy editing!!

Usage: Persuade vs Convince

Here’s a pair of words that are not synonyms despite being similar in meaning.

Persuade has to do with actions. You persuade someone to do something.

Convince has to do with beliefs. You convince someone that something is true or untrue.

Trick to Remember
You persuade someone to pursue a course of action.
You convince someone to share your convictions.

Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames

I think any fan of Kings of the Wyld will find this satisfying. It’s a bit more serious, but it still has the snide dialogue and band references and alliteration that we’ve come to love.

I am really, really horrible when it comes to band names and even song titles (let alone individual band members). I can tell you that my favorite band is Depeche Mode, but I couldn’t tell you any of the members’ names. So I know I missed tons of references in this book, but it didn’t detract from the actual plot, and I still got Men Without Helmets, Quarterflash, WHAM, and Rich the Lion.

The book just felt kind of long to me. There’s tons of battles and fighting, and nothing felt extraneous, but it was just long.

The characters are great. They are all deeply flawed, which allows for a lot of plot and character development. So if you’re tired of Miss Special who’s so perfect and full of specialness, this book will be extremely refreshing. Almost every character has to deal with or confront his or her father in the book, which was an interesting theme to think about. I didn’t quite feel like Tam belonged with Cura. I felt like Cura was way older (which may be not correct) and too damaged to be able to contribute to a healthy relationship.

Evil thrives on division. It stokes the embers of pride and prejudice until they become an inferno that might one day devour us all.

Usage: Entitled vs Titled

This poor word (entitled) has been abused so often, I think the dictionaries are caving and allowing it to be synonymous with titled.

Entitled means to have permission; entitle is to give permission.
Titled means to have a title; title (as a verb) is to give a title.

Right: The book is titled Nevernight.
Wrong: The book is entitled Nevernight.
Right: You are entitled to a heated work environment.
Wrong: You are titled to a heated work environment. (Nobody makes this error.)

Trick to Remember
Title is only for titles, names of things.
The book has a title, and it has been titled Nevernight.

Entitle is to give permission, similar to enable and words like endow, ensure, enshroud, enslave. The government often talks about entitlement programs.

The Last Town (Black Crouch)

The Last Town (Wayward Pines #3) by Blake Crouch
☆☆☆
Thriller, Post-Apocalyptic

This conclusion to the Wayward Pines trilogy is a straight-up monster movie:






That’s about it. The writing is fine, despite the Dramatic Sentence Fragments and sentences with subjects left out. The ending is kind of weak, as if Crouch couldn’t think of an ending while writing the series and then ran out of time to think of one and had to just end it.

Punctuation: Items in a Series and and Oxford Comma

Comma rules tend to overlap or intersect each other. Keep the rules separate and it’s easier to tell where you need a comma. A good rule to start with is the Items-In-A-Series Comma.

Commas are used to separate “items in a series,” which means a list. The lists can be simple or complex. It’s best to look at examples.

I need eggs, butter, cheese, and flour.
This is a simple list of nouns, easy to separate with commas. The first item of the series is eggs.

I need to buy gas, pick up the kids from soccer, make dinner, and pay bills.
Each item in this series is a verb phrase (a phrase that starts with a phrase). The first item is buy gas.

I’m going to print the reports, Dave is running for office, and Jill went home early.
Each item in this series is a complete sentence, but put together like this, it’s not a run-on sentence. The first item in the series is I’m going to print the reports.

The Oxford comma is a matter of debate. This is the comma before the and in a series. The Associated Press style is to not use it. Pretty much everyone else does.

My personal preference is to not use it when the items in a series are one-word items and then use it all other times. So in the above examples, I would omit the Oxford comma in the first sentence and keep it in the rest. But this may be too eccentric for practical use.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle #1) by Christopher Paolini
☆☆
Fantasy — High

Well, this is really good if the writer is 16. (Oh, he is?) Give him another fifteen years of writing experience, and he should be really good. (Oh, it’s been fifteen years? How is he now?)

The beginning is pretty decent, but after that I grew increasingly bored. There is little to none character development. Eragon has very few flaws, if any, and just goes along reacting to stuff and trying to be a hero. The descriptions are pretty boring, and the action scenes are pretty boring. The writing itself was pretty good on the surface, but I think it needed to be more succinct.

I’m going to summarize the plot in gifs, so spoilers ahead. But if you have read any fantasy book before, you already know what happens. (Seriously, this story is Star Wars with a Lord of the Rings paint job on it.)

Eragon is an orphan living with his aunt and uncle. He has no idea who his father is. He picks up a mysterious object



that leads him to seek advice from a Strange Old Hermit:



and gets his family killed:



He wanders around for a while and quickly becomes a master at magic and sword fighting.





While our hero enjoys what I like to call Die Hard syndrome,



the mentor of course has to go.



He has to decide whether to join the Rebel Alliance



and rescues a princess archetype along the way.



Naturally, all the female characters (all two or three of them) are amazingly beautiful.



Okay, about the dragon. The dragon doesn’t have much personality, either. She and Eragon are perfect for each other in this way. For some reason, whenever the book talked about Eragon riding the dragon, I kept imagining this:



The audio narration was pretty good, but the dragon’s voice (and the were-cat’s) for some reason sounded like an impersonation of Frank Oz. I thought of these guys every time the dragon talked:







TL;DR
This book is a great introduction to fantasy for young readers. Everyone else will just see one cliche and trope after another.

Usage: Amused vs. Bemused

Note the meanings of these two different words (Merriam-Webster):
amused: pleasantly entertained or diverted
bemused: marked by confusion or bewilderment, lost in thought or reverie

Too many writers are using bemused to mean amused. They are not interchangeable, at least for now.

To muse means to be absorbed in thought. If you are comfortable with your Latin prefixes, a- means not, so amused means not absorbed in thought. You are being entertained instead. The be- prefix has a lot of meanings, mostly to do with making things more complicated. So you may be over-thinking something if you’re bemused.

Trick to Remember
Bemused is similar to bewildered and befuddled.
Amused makes you say ah! ooh!

Marijuana: The Unbiased Truth About the World’s Most Popular Weed by Kevin P. Hill

Marijuana: The Unbiased Truth About the World’s Most Popular Weed by Kevin P. Hill

☆☆☆☆
Nonfiction – Science, Medicine, Drugs

This is a very informative book by a marijuana addiction doctor. The first part is the science and facts about marijuana, the second part is about the debate about legalization in America, and the third part is overcoming addiction for yourself or loved ones. This third part didn’t apply to me, so I skimmed that part more. I’m not a fan of biology, but I am interested in physiology and pharmacology. I also wanted to get more information about legalization policies. Here are some key points I found interesting:

● Marijuana is addictive, though less addictive than other substances. (I didn’t know it was considered a nonaddictive drug.)

● Far more people are addicted to marijuana than opioids. In fact, the vast majority of prescription opioid users (like myself) are using them responsibly. To say we have an “opioid epidemic” is an exaggeration.

Considering the substantial number of people who use marijuana and become addicted, it is puzzling that we hear more about the potential dangers of opioid use than the risk of addiction to marijuana. This is especially true when we consider that the number of Americans affected by marijuana is so much greater than the number affected by opioids, including heroin. The same holds true for methamphetamine and other illicit drug use.

● Marijuana use in teens causes a permanent drop in IQ. (I have a friend who saw this firsthand with her students. She teaches high-risk, criminal teens.)

● Marijuana today is far more potent than that used in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Baby boomers and middle-aged adults who used in then may think it’s not a big deal and not realize that it’s different now.

In those decades, the average THC content was about 1-2 percent. The latest average THC content established in the United States is 13 percent. … Also, keep in mind that marijuana with a THC content in the range of 27 percent can be purchased.

● “Medical marijuana” is not the same as cannabinoid drugs. There are already FDA-approved cannabinoid drugs available in every state. Medical marijuana means using a medical excuse to use ordinary THC-rich marijuana, which has not showed promising uses for medical conditions. It’s also usually smoked, which is never healthy for you.

According to a 2011 story in the Huffington Post, by 2011 Denver had more medical marijuana dispensaries than it had Starbucks coffee shops. It seems very unlikely that there is a greater medical need for marijuana in Denver than the recreational consumption of coffee products.

As a fan of  personal liberty, I lean in favor of decriminalization and legalization. However, implementing sound policies that prevent abuse and misuse by children is still a tricky process. There’s still a lot to learn, and it seems like a good idea to observe Colorado and Washington for a while and learn from them before doing the same in other states.

Overall, a good, informative book if you are interested in the subject.

Spelling: Recreate vs Re-create

This is an interesting one. In general, hyphenated prefixes are frowned upon (nonprofit but non-native). In this case, the hyphen is used to distinguish between two words that are pronounced differently but otherwise spelled the same.

Recreate is the verb form of recreation. It isn’t used very much, so nobody really thinks about it.

Re-create is to create again. This is a much handier word than recreate.

Trick to Remember
Without a hyphen, the word is pronounced REC-ree-ate (as in recreation). With a hyphen, the re is separated from the c and so is pronounced ree-cree-ATE.

Warbreaker

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
☆☆☆☆ Fantasy – High, Epic

So, what do an atheist god, a pacifist warrior with a sentient sword, an all-powerful being with no real power, a charismatic mercenary, and two princess sisters have to do with each other? Not much, at first. A long time ago, one nation broke into two. Now, war seems inevitable. Can it be stopped?

When the book opens, the seemingly unconnected characters are introduced and set up like chess pieces. You don’t really relate to any of them and don’t know who to root for. Gradually, the big picture becomes clear. This is typical of Sanderson.

Here, the magic system, culture, and theology are based around color. The world building is deep and thorough. Watch the characters closely — no one is whom they appear to be. It’s a creative, humorous, and epic tale, brilliantly crafted, about what it really takes to be a hero.

Usage: Farther vs Further

Guess what? These two words are not interchangeable.

Farther is for distance: The store is farther than the school. You have to run farther than that.

Further is for degree: We need more money to further the cause. I will look into the matter further.

Trick to Remember
Farther is for things that are far.
Further is related to furthermore and metaphorical distances.

Usage: Uninterested vs. Disinterested

This is an issue I’m seeing a lot in published books, which have presumably passed by editors. Disinterested has become a trendy word in books the last few years. However, it does not mean the same as uninterested.

Uninterested means one is not interested in something; indifferent.

Disinterested means one is impartial and unbiased; lacking a conflict of interest.

You want a judge to be disinterested but not necessarily uninterested. You will rarely, if ever, see disinterested outside of legal contexts.

Trick to Remember
If something is uninteresting, you are uninterested in it. If you are disinterested, you are distancing yourself from the interested parties in a conflict.

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

Sourcery (Discworld #5; Rincewind #3) by Terry Pratchett

Fantasy, Satire

Here we have the third book featuring Rincewind (and the Luggage). The plot of this story is secondary to the quirkiness of the characters and the settings. There’s Sourcery vs. Magic and some spoofing off the Arabian Nights. I was getting a little tired of it by the end. But it was still funny, and I found some favorite bits to quote:

“I meant,” said Ipslore bitterly, “what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?”
Death thought about it.
CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.

“It’s vital to remember who you really are. It’s very important. It isn’t a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.”

“If failure had no penalty, success would not be a prize.”

“I’m not going to ride on a magic carpet!” he hissed. “I’m afraid of grounds!”
“You mean heights,” said Conina. “And stop being silly.”
“I know what I mean! It’s the grounds that kill you!”

The Aeronaut’s Windlass

The Aeronaut’s Windlass (The Cinder Spires #1) by Jim Butcher
This is very different from the Dresden Files; it’s steampunk with very different characters. You may like one and not the other.

The world-building here is excellent and makes a great foundation for the story. The characters are easy to remember and distinguish. All the heroes are endearing, and the villain is chilling. I also love the cats in the story. Butcher has obviously been owned by cats, and this is a must for cat lovers. There are lots of battles and action sequences involving invaders and icky monsters. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I tend to zone out on those after a while. There’s not much plot otherwise, but at this point it’s more of a character story. (I was also kind of confused by the title since it was stated that the main airship in the story is not a windlass.)

Overall very enjoyable. Excellent audio narration by Euan Morton.

Arcanum Unbounded

Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson
This is a collection of novellas and short stories from Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe. Each world has an illustration of its solar system and a description by one of the mysterious beings who travel the Cosmere. This gives us a better look at all the worlds. All of it is great writing and amazing storytelling and even pretty good editing. 

There is also a spoilers warning with each story if necessary. The book (at least the mass market paperback) also comes with the beginning of The Final Empire. But if you haven’t read The Final Empire yet, you shouldn’t be reading Arcanum Unbounded.

The Emperor’s Soul ☆☆☆☆☆
The magic system for this novella is amazing! The story is smart and overall just fascinating.

The Hope of Elantris ☆☆☆☆
This short story shows the climax of Elantris from a different POV. Man, I’ve forgotten a lot of details from that book. It’s a very sweet story.

The Eleventh Metal ☆☆☆☆
This short story is a prequel to Mistborn and contains no spoilers. It’s a quick look at allomancy in action.

Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28-30 ☆☆☆☆☆
This is the Mistborn (Wax and Wayne) equivalent of an overly dramatic, pulp of the Lone Ranger and Tonto. In this case, the idiotic Allomancer Jak is out having swashbuckling adventures with narrow escapes. His Terris sidekick annotates the narrative with footnotes, which are ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS. Fun story, creative execution.

Mistborn: Secret History ☆☆☆☆☆
Wow. This was amazing. I don’t want to say much because it has tons of spoilers, but we learn a lot about the Cosmere in general here. I need to go back and read all of Mistborn again with this new perspective.

White Sand ☆☆☆☆
I guess this is the beginning of the White Sand story, portrayed as a graphic novel. The book contains the first segment of the graphic novel followed by the novel version. I liked the novel version much better. Not only do you get Sanderson’s great ideas but also his great storytelling. 

I don’t really get graphic novels. I don’t know why random words are bolded and italicized, and I never tell what’s going on. While reading the graphic novel, I had tons of questions: Did those kids pass the test or not? Did he fall of the cliff, or did he jump? Are the spheres natural, or were they placed there? Is that a rock or sand or a monster? With the novelization, I had none of these questions.

Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell ☆☆☆☆1/2
This takes place in a world that’s plagued by dangerous ghosts. I’d like to see more in this world. The main character here is a middle-aged mom (like me!), and it was awesome to see the strength that kind of character can have.

Sixth of the Dusk ☆☆☆☆
This is basically a journey through a dangerous jungle island. It’s full of nasty things. It had some very interesting ideas.

Edgedancer ☆☆☆☆
This is a story of Lift, a character introduced in one of the Interludes of Words of Radiance. (She reminds me of Dido in Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles.) I believe it bridges WofR and Oathbringer. With this story, we see other parts of Roshar but the same fascinating magic and storms. It starts off light but gradually gets serious.

Average rating = 4.4

* * *

Recommended for Brandon Sanderson fans, fantasy fans, and fans of good writing.