Glen Cook's Black Company getting that small screen treatment too, courtesy of Eliza Dushku

Who will be executive producing with David Goyer (among others) and starring as The Lady. If the name Eliza Dushku sounds familiar, she played Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Echo on Dollhouse, and was in the 2000 classic movie, Bring It On. I have to admit, I'm pretty surprised to see her name attached and I'll freely admit that part of it is because she's a woman, but also awesome because a woman is exec producing and starring in a show based on a military fantasy series. Still, she optioned the entire entire series through her production company, so this isn't some kind of clever ploy by a group of men to try and snag media attention by using Dushku's name as a front.

Another admission: I've never read The Black Company. I have the book and its on my 'to be read' list, but I've just haven't gotten around to it yet. Still, this is good motivation to bump it up in the queue.

Like Sony's Wheel of Time adaption, The Black Company doesn't appear to have a TV deal yet. Given that the eponymous Company are a group of sell-swords who fight for the highest bidder, I think it would fit well with AMC. It depends on how expensive the show is. AMC is infamously tight wadded even when it comes to their biggest hit, The Walking Dead, which reportedly has a shoestring budget. I just hope it doesn't end up on one of the movie channels because I want to at least be able to check it out if and when it hits the boob tube.

Wheel of Time getting the TV treatment from Sony Television

And may we all hope and pray that they don't try to Game of Thrones it and add a lot of pointless sex and violence and breasts. Unfortunately, everyone wants their fantasy TV show to be the next GoT rather than let it be its own thing.

But anyways, Sony Television is producing it and a guy named Rafe Judkins is the showrunner and writer. I've never heard of him, but he's written for other shows such as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Chuck, and some show called Hemlock Grove. I guess that's good? I honestly don't pay attention to who writes what when it comes to television.

What I'm curious about is what and who gets cut during the adapting process. At 14 books, there's no way that every character and subplot is making the jump to the small screen. I imagine the main plot will be streamlined with events jumbled around for better flow. Unless whichever network this show ends up airing on plans on doing one season per book, I wouldn't be surprised either if entire books are merged.

Now that happens to be easily the most important question: where will it air? I'm hoping against hope that it won't be on one of the "premium" channels like HBO, Showtime, etc. or on a streaming service like Netflix because I'd like to be able to actually watch the damn thing.

Then there's the casting, but I don't know who should play who. I can't tell the latest Hollywood darling from Gregory Peck, so I'm useless on that front.

Your fantasy real estate: Neuschwanstein Castle

It does have a very fantastical look that would make it ideal for adventuring.

So I was farting around on Wikipedia last month and stumbled across this article about a castle in Bavaria called Neuschwanstein Castle. Built in the late 19th century by King Ludwig II as both a personal retreat and as an homage to composer Richard Wagner.

Seeing the castle immediately got the hamster running in my head and I started to speculate what this thing would be like in a fantasy setting. The first thing that jumps out at you is that Neuschwanstein is not a military fortification. There are no outer walls or any kind of protection save for the hill it's built on top of. So clearly not meant to withstand a siege or hold territory. It wouldn't need to do either if it was located within the interior of a kingdom or empire where having a military fortress wouldn't be needed.

Ludwig II, King of Bavaria.

But like I said at the beginning, Ludwig II built the castle as a retreat and that's how I see it function in a fantasy story or roleplay setting. A nice getaway place for the monarch and royal family for whenever they want to get away from the capital for a while or to hold secret negotiations with foreign powers. Even far from the borders, a castle like this could be a source of much intrigue if a GM had the mind to come up with a quest line.

Of course, it wouldn't have to belong to a monarch. It could just as easily belong to a powerful member of the nobility such as a duke or an earl. There too is a potential source of intrigue for a campaign. A castle such as Neuschwanstein Castle would be pricey to build. Indeed, Ludwig II accumulated huge debts because he insisted on funding the construction with his own money and loans. That level of expenditure could draw the attention of the monarch's court and make them very curious about where the good duke or earl (or duchess or countess) is getting the funds for such endeavors.

A castle full of mystery and intrigue.
(Arto Teräs/Wikimedia)

Campaign ideas:

• A member of the royal court, likely through a less visible functionary, hires a group of adventurers to pay a visit to the noble and try to discover the source of their funding. The infiltration is left to the party, but discretion is preferred by their employer.
• The noble in question is found to have been skimming tax revenue or involved in some less than legal operations. The court wants them in custody but is unwilling to go about it in public for fear of triggering a rebellion or civil war. The party is employed to find a way to extradite the felonious noble back to the capital where they can be formally charged. Alternatively, the court decides to send the party to take care of the problem. Permanently.
• Another alternative is that the royal court decides to make an example of the noble by sending a force to seize their castle and take them into custody for a very showy trial. The adventurers are sent to reconnoiter the area for secret entrances/exits that would allow the approaching soldiers to take the castle from the inside. Failing that, they're to try and sabotage and compromise the castle's meager (because again, this thing isn't a fortification) defenses to make the royal fore's job even easier.

Of course, a GM could also use Neuschwanstein Castle as the setting for a standard dungeon crawl, but I like the three above ideas better. I'm biased in that regard, though. Any of these ideas could easily be adapted into plots for stories too, which is a nice bonus.

2016 has been a pretty good year for fantasy reading

I decided today to do a tally of all the fantasy books I've read this year and I'm sitting at 11 right now. That's not bad, considering that I've read 24 books this year so far and that's a significant increase over what I read last year. Here's the list:

Stardust - Neil Gaiman
Storm Front - Jim Butcher
A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab
Arrows of the Queen - Mercedes Lackey
He Drank, and Saw the Spider - Alex Bledsoe
Magician: Apprentice - Raymond E. Feist
Magician: Master - Raymond E. Feist
Silverthorn - Raymond E. Feist
A Darkness at Sethanon - Raymond E. Feist
Arrow's Flight - Mercedes Lackey
Arrow's Fall - Mercedes Lackey

I'm pretty happy with this list. I know that some of them aren't considered "top shelf" in quality and that there are other books and series out there that run circles around them, but I love every one of these books. Stardust is probably my favorite of the lot. I didn't think I would like the Arrows books because the main character starts out as a timid thirteen year old girl, but I was wrong.

I don't know if I'll be reading any more this year. I'm in a bit of a slump, which sucks because I wanted to read Emperor of Thorns. Well, there's always next year.

And two more books fall

When we last left our hero, he had just finished reading Silverthorn. But what happened after that? Some say he was assailed by a group of kobolds and bugbears. Others say he was eaten by grues, while still others claim that he was last seen riding into the sunset on the back of an owlbear.

And none of these are correct. The last one would have been pretty friggin' awesome, though. No, after finishing Silverthorn, I took a short respite from fantasy and read two sci-fi novels: Ender's Game (actually a re-read) and Parable of the Sower. I returned after that and dived straight into A Darkness at Sethanon and Arrow's Flight.

A Darkness at Sethanon is the fourth in the Riftwar Cycle and the final in the Riftwar Saga. The plot focuses on the story arc began in Silverthorn with the rise of Murmandamus, a moredhel warleader of a massive Brotherhood of the Dark Path army and probably a greater threat to the Kingdom than even the Tsurani were in the first two books, and the extra-dimensional threat of The Enemy, which we also learn the origin of. Actually, I'd imagine most people figured out what The Enemy is before this book; I had at least an inkling of it in Magician: Master.

I would say that A Darkness might be better than Silverthorn. It had a lot more action and the fortress-city of Armengar and its siege was honestly one of the coolest things I've ever read in a fantasy book. I'll write up a separate post for A Darkness later on because it deserves its own post.

I got an itch while reading A Darkness in Sethanon. An itch that only Arrow's Flight, the second book in the Heralds of Valdemar series could scratch. I had been planning to read it at some point, but the itch didn't make itself known until about two weeks ago.

It was so, so worth it. The Valdemar series is quickly becoming one of my favorite and I will read the books until I cannot stand them anymore. Whereas Arrows of the Queen dealt with Talia being chosen as a Herald and her life at the Collegium with all of it's hardships, perils, and adventure, Arrow's Flight focuses on her internship. She spends a year and a half riding a circuit through the Northern sector of the Kingdom of Valdemar, learning to do what a Herald does and all of the ups and downs that come with the job.

This book was honestly heartbreaking and I'm not going to lie, I got teary-eyed a few times because of all of the torment Talia goes through. There's also a lot of great moments that made me laugh and generally it was a short, but worthwhile read. Like A Darkness, I'll be writing a stand alone post for Arrow's Flight...once I finish the one I started on Arrows of the Queen. So in about 20-30 years.

So what am I reading now? Well, funny thing is that I had planned on taking another short break so that I could focus on Flag in Exile (Honor Harrington #5) and start to go through the literal shit ton of books I bought at a library book sale and Barnes & Noble recently (more on those later). That's what I had planned. My brain had other ideas and I'm not reading, among other things, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. My reading habits are both random and vexing.

Another Riftwar book bites the dust (spoilers)

Boy howdy, am I ever on a roll! I kept forgetting to post about it, but I started Silverthorn almost immediately after finishing Magician: Master and finished it just the other day.

A poisoned bolt has struck down the Princess Anita on the day of her wedding to the Prince Arutha of Krondor.

To save his beloved, Arutha sets out in search of the mystic herb called Silverthorn that grows only in the dark and forbidding Northlands, home to the moredhel, the deadly Dark Elves.

Accompanied by a mercenary, a minstrel, and a clever young thief, he will confront an ancient evil and do battle with the dark powers that threaten the enchanted realm of Midkemia.

So how was it? Better than what I had been lead to believe. I actually owned a copy at one point, but got rid of it because I had read some posts on the blogosphere about how it wasn't worth reading and I was easily swayed. I regret that now because Silverthorn was pretty good.

Some thoughts:

Jimmy the Hand is one of the best characters in the entire series, 'nuff said.

I liked how Arutha's quest for the eponymous Silverthorn didn't start until like sometime after page 100. Up until then, the story focuses on him, Jimmy the Hand, and the others trying to flush out the conspiracy against Arutha before his wedding to Anita. The build up towards the assassination attempt and Arutha's quest was exciting and intense and added a lot of emotional weight to what happens to Anita.

Moving on from Magician: Master

I finished Magician: Master on Wednesday and I'm still surprised by how fast I blew through it. While four days isn't a speed record for me, I'm still happy. What's more impressive is how much of the book I read in a relatively short amount of time: 324 pages in the span of about 24 hours, give or take. 125 on Tuesday and 199 on Wednesday.

As for the re-read, it was about as good as the one for Magician: Apprentice. Like I said in the previous post, there were plot details that I'd forgotten or had rearranged in my memory so the end result was that I got the same amount of enjoyment out of Master as I did the first time around. I basically forgot about damn near every character in the Kelewan plot line along with the plot itself!

The all too brief exploration of Tsurani and their culture is definitely one of my favorite parts of the book. Their culture is so different from the standard "European Middle Ages" setting of The Kingdom of the Isles and I'm honestly impressed that Feist somehow combined aspects of different real world cultures - Feudal Japan, China during the Sung Dynasty, pre-Columbian Aztecs, and even the Zulu - into a cohesive entity. That's some nice worldbuilding there.

If you want, you can read what I had to say about Magician: Master the first time I read it.

Finished my re-read of Magician: Apprentice last night (spoilers)

And I can honestly say that I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time. I think the re-read benefited greatly from the four years since I read Apprentice the first time. I had forgotten large chunks of the plot and certain events got switched around in my memory. Like, I thought that Pug's capture had happened at the very end, but it doesn't. Instead, he ceases to be the main POV character for the rest of the book and the POV switches over to Tomas, Arutha, Carline, Martin, and briefly a Tsurani. I think this was a very clever way of ensuring that readers would continue reading the entire book back when it was just Magician. It actually becomes an even better hook after the book was split into Apprentice and Master because you're almost compelled as the reader to immediately pick up Master just to see what's become of Pug. The ploy is still effective after a re-read because I'm just about to jump into the next book today!

But yeah, Magician: Master ought to be as good as I remember it. One of the things I'm looking forward to is revisiting Kelawan and the Tsurani culture. Feist says he mixed together elements of Feudal Japan, Sung Dynasty era China, Zulu, and Aztec cultures and it's a major difference from Midkemia, which is the typical European fantasy setting. It's a nice change up and I'm planning on reading the Empire Trilogy (set entirely on Kelawan) later this year, after I finish with the Riftwar Saga.

I'll probably post some of my favorite bits from Magician: Apprentice later today.

Re-visiting Midkemia

So for whatever reason I decided to do a re-read of Raymond E. Feist's Magician: Apprentice, the first (half) book in the Riftwar Saga. I originally read it and it's sequel (second half), Magician: Master back in 2012 and boy, did I ever need a refresher. Like, I'm reading Apprentice and there are just huge, huge chunks of the plot that I simply forgot. I remember important events, but not what happens between them.

An oddity about Magician: Apprentice is that it's only the first part of a book. Both it and Magician: Master are actually a single book call simply Magician, but when it was published in the U.S., it was split into two parts for whatever reason. I'm guessing it was due to size and printing big ass doorstoppers back in the day wasn't optimal. If that's the reason, then it shows how far both book making and the fantasy genre has come because the two halves combined would probably total less than a thousand pages, or one Wheel of Time book. Easily less than a Sanderson. Easily.

Queen in the North

She certainly would be now that a certain fan theory was confirmed on Game of Thrones.

(spoiler, probably still)

There was a fan theory that Jon Snow wasn't Ned Stark's bastard, but the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen and the season six finale confirmed it. Currently, only Bran Stark knows this and Jon has apparently been "crowned" King in the North as the last known and eldest son of Ned. Of course, if his true parentage gets out, then it could lead to questions of who the true ruler of the North is. Sansa has the stronger claim as Ned's daughter and is considered (at least according to the GoT wiki) to be Lady of Winterfell. Jon does have a claim through his mother, but Sansa's is stronger as the daughter as and sister of the last two Stark Lords of Winterfell, respectively.

Of course, the question is whether or not the Northern Houses would accept a woman as Queen? House Mormont has been lead by two women so far and Lyanna Mormont seems to be widely respected by the other Houses, so it's entirely possible.

As for Jon, having the blood of Rhaegar gives him a stronger claim to the Iron Throne than his aunt, Dany. On the other hand, he's still a bastard and she isn't. He was legitimized by the Houses of the North when he was crowned King of the North, so it stands to reason that the same could very well happen there.

(Pic via HeroPress)