Before I begin this blog in earnest, I want to talk about my most favorite subject of all, myself :) I'm in my twenties and love books, movies, games, and stories of all kinds. I have a B.S. in Business, and consider myself to be pretty damn smart (who doesn't?). And like the protagonist of Gurren Laggan, I have a tendency to use my own name as a statement about how great I am; you have my word that I was doing it first.
My tastes in books run to the so-called genre fiction, specifically fantasy and science fiction. I also like the occasional mystery or thriller, but my tastes in those genres don't run quite as deep. But as long as someone's getting killed in a book, I'm happy. :) And years of English classes have instilled in me a deep and lasting hatred of "literature," which are generally books that no one likes except critics and English professors. The closest I've ever come to reading a romance novel is Bujold's The Sharing Knife, which was surprisingly okay.
My favorite modern authors include Butcher, Bujold, Banks, Brust (why are there so many "B"s?), Sanderson, and Rothfuss. To be honest, I just assembled that list by looking over at one of my bookshelves. As far as older writers go, I like Vance, Zelazny, and Lieber, among others. These are just some of the books I own, and I've read countless more by taking advantage of my local library to actually check out books, instead of DVDs like everyone else who shows up there.
The book that has had the most influence on who I am, at least recently, was Memory. The main character asks himself questions about what he wants and how he lives his life throughout the novel, and as I read I asked myself similar questions, since our worldviews had some congruence.
As a side note, I also really enjoy Agatha Christie and similar "whodunnit" style novels, and I always figure out the killer by the end (except Death on the Nile, my favorite, and some very, very bad short stories). At some point, I'll explain how to figure out plot twists in advance, if you're so inclined. :)
My three "Desert Isle" books are Elantris, The Phoenix Guards, and No More Kings. The reason you've never heard of No More Kings is because it's a book I wrote, probably my favorite out of every one I've written. But it needs editing and a proper ending, and I figure the Desert Isle would give me plenty of time to work on that.
Also, I'm using the "Desert Isle" as a mechanism, so if you own list includes a book like How To Escape From a Desert Island, shame on you.
My favorite movies include Lord of the Rings, Big Trouble in Little China, Dark Knight, Star Wars, Hot Fuzz, and Ghostbusters. On a side note, I'm pumped about seeing DKR tonight at midnight, but sad that it will be the last Nolan Batman film. My favorite TV shows include Firefly, Farscape, Community, The Office, and seasons two, three, and four of Babylon 5. I have seen ONE episode of Star Trek (with KHAAAN!). I don't watch a lot of anime, but I try to catch the ones that are supposed to be pretty good.
I love games of all types, and more importantly I love to win games. I enjoy board games (there are ones made for adults, if you weren't aware), and my favorites include Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, Race For The Galaxy, and Rex, even though Fantasy Flight ruined my own plans to purchase the Dune license and sell my own copy of the original Avalon Hill classic. I also greatly enjoy RPGs.
I play video games, like every other non-Amish male in my age group. My tastes are pretty standard PC games like Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and League of Legends, as well enjoying the great co-op experience of Left 4 Dead. I love RPGs when they have strong stories, and get bored quickly with them when they don't. I think Bioware probably writes the best stories today, at least they did before Mass Effect 3, and if forced to answer I'd tell you that Six was the best Final Fantasy. There was a time when I was hella good at Counterstrike and Team Fortress.
I've written a few books over the years, none of them published, and they typically involve some element of the supernatural. I think some are pretty good, some aren't terrible, and they were all entertaining to write. I've also written a few short stories and the like.This blog is about more than my own (average at the absolute very best) writing, and I'll endeavor to keep any references to my own work to a minimum.
So this is probably an overly wordy expression of my tastes in books and other stories; as I said, I'm new to this blogging thing. But if you also like some of the things I like and want to read blog posts about them, you might want to check out this blog at a future date as I add more content to it. I think some of my future blog post titles, once I stop writing about myself, may be things like "The Rise of the Boring Character," "The Best Sidekick in the World," and "Classism in Fantasy." But hey, the future isn't written in stone.
I will not ever discuss, and have no interest in, politics, religion, or similar topics that have the tendency to be both boring and incredibly divisive. The exception to this is when I write about politics and religion within works of fiction, of course.
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