All sox, all the time

My living room got a facelift last week, thanks to Dan and Ryan (who rearranged my furniture in a night. Gotta love it.)

This was my knitting space (cat mandatory, I assure you):



Trust me - that was as clean as it ever got. And gods help me if I wanted something on the bottom of that pile, like my sock yarn.

This is my new knitting space (the cat is there, she's just not in the pic):



Interestingly, I didn't notice it until I posted the pics side by side but - that's the exact same corner of my living room, taken from the same angle.

Leia has taken the move in stride. She's just to the right of the new knitting space pic, looking bored with my latest project:



Those are Gentleman's Shooting Socks, from Knitting Vintage Socks. The yarn is the Lorna's Laces I couldn't find a decent shawl pattern for, but they're working up into beautiful socks. I'm very pleased with them, except in a few areas. The socks are, I'm convinced, made to fit a skinny man. What this translates to is that the ribbing is too small for my calf, but the pattern after the decreases is still to big for my ankle. And to decrease the pattern, I'd have to decrease another 12 stitches, which would make it very much too small. I haven't yet figured out how to deal with this. Not that I would ever read ahead and figure these things out before I got 6" of sock knit. That would be silly.

I'm still working on the Oompa Loompa socks as my takealong knitting. Now that the Olympics are officially over, I don't feel bad for only working on them occasionally. They only have to be done before CONvergence, and that's July 4. Ah, the hubris. (Let's leave out the fact that I have to design and sew four costumes in the same amount of time. Including two pairs of striped thigh-high socks.)

But one of the two projects is about to get swapped out with scrap yarn, I think. Because I have to start a new pair of socks, and I think that buying a third set of US1 DPNs might make me question my sanity. But Robbyn is a bad influence on me. I've decided what I need to make the purple Koigu into, and I need the DPNs to start. Expect next Tuesday to be yet another report on socks.

I'm really excited, though, I'll be designing something knitted for the first time. Granted, it's just socks, and I've fiddled with sock patterns before (half the socks I've knitted didn't even *have* a pattern). But still. I'll have a design. And maybe I'll post a free pattern. And then ... I'd be a knitting designer. How cool is that? (Yes, yes, I design costuming now. But I can't really share patterns when I do that. The thought of someone liking something I designed enough to knit it makes me giddy.)

The usual

You know, after having to tell an old friend what I do with my time, I've realized anew that I'm a pretty boring person. Sometimes, this bothers me. Sometimes, this comforts me. I think today is a "bothering" day.

For Date Night, Dan and I went out to Cossetta's for dinner. It's not a bad place for Italian, though the entree choices were a bit limited for me. (I love Italian food, but hate red sauce). I ended up getting a chicken and portabello dish in a white sauce that was very good.

It was my week to pick, and in an attempt to do something different, I decided we should go see Cupid & Psyche. It's a musical about a Greek myth - what's not to love? (I really need to plan these things better.) We found the theatre in a run-down section of St. Paul, and waited until they opened the doors. Then I tried to buy tickets. Despite the fact that the website said they accept credit cards, and the ticket booth said they accept credit cards, they did not, in fact, accept credit cards. Merf. As I didn't have my checkbook on me, we gave it up. I repeat my new mantra: I really need to plan these things better. As in, more than 8 hours before I plan to go to a show at a theatre I've never been to.

We've talked about getting some anime before, but we'd never really done so. Partly because neither one of us had watched very much, or looked into it, so we didn't know what to buy. We finally decided to actually buy some, instead of just talking about it. We got Escaflowne...



...because 1) we could afford it, and we couldn't afford any of the boxed series, and 2) I'd seen an ad for the game in magazines. (Yeah, I bought anime on the strength of the ad campaign for the game. A bit backwards, that.)

It was ... well, it was okay. I didn't really know what to expect. The storyline could have been complex, but came across as very rushed, with too little detail in some spots (like, you know, what a Wing Goddess actually is), and too much in some spots. I've since learned that this is a movie version of a series, so we may give the series a go. Do I have any readers that watch anime? Got any suggestions for anime newbies? We prefer complex stories, and less gore.

On Sunday** we played D & D,and I worked on a new project. I was reminded again that I cannot do anything other than simple stockinette stich when I'm at this friend's house. The combination of distraction and poor lighting means I had to rip out a section of stitches several times.

Today is the first day of the last week before Spring Break. This pleases me for several reasons. In theory, I'll have enough time to find my kitchen again, and my sewing room. (Yeah, because I'll choose to spend my free time cleaning. Right.) But mostly I'm pleased because I absolutely detest my Monday night class, and any time I can get out of going to it makes me happy. I think tonight I'll print out all the mailing list emails that are piling up in my inbox and read those while my prof lectures. That won't be noticeable, right?

**I'm skipping Saturday. Saturday I knit and did homework. 'Nuff said.

Come and get it

Edit: Looks like the Meilenweit is going home with Miriam. Thanks!

This is a special weekend post to tell you that I have two skeins of Meilenweit that I just don't want any more.



They need a new home desperately. You want 'em, you can have 'em. They're free if I'm shipping anywhere in the US. You may choose to make a paypal donation to help me cover shipping if you would like, but that's not mandatory at all. I just want to get rid of them. First come, first served.

They are full skeins, though I've tragically lost the ball band. As you can see, I've tried to knit with them, and I just don't like the yarn. So, gently used (but still all there) yarn FOR FREE. C'mon, you know you want to ...

Choices

Okay, so here's the thing: I was running behind in the Olympics. I was knitting every spare moment of every day. Which was not enough. I'll never finish, I thought. That was, while a touch depressing, not the end of the world. I dreamed, I aspired, but I think I overestimated myself.

Then I noticed that I was indeed in trouble when it came to getting my homework done. Now, I'm very serious about school right now, and now is not the time for me to flake on accounting. So.

My final Olympic progress:



One full sock, and a bit of wristlet. I'm not abandoning the project, by any means. I'll still get them done, and relatively soon, I'm sure. I'm just announcing my intent to not work on these monogamously anymore, and not feel pressured, and, above all, not neglect my classes to knit on them more.

I'm still rooting for all of you striving for the Winner's Circle, though. Go YOU!

Move along

This is placeholder text, and an I.O.U. I promise you a real blog post soonish (maybe tomorrow, hopefully tomorrow), just as soon as all the homework I've neglected while knitting stops beating me senseless.

Number Crunching

Doing a lot of playing around with numbers today. Here’s a selection:

1. I got a perfect score on my Word exam. Not that I’m surprised or anything, but it’s nice to know. I now have a 97.6% in the class after missing 5 points for being absent one day. What does this mean? It means (in my warped little world) that I can miss one class per section and still get a very high A. So I skipped the introduction to Excel class last night.

2. I have beaten the Sherman Heel in submission. I told Dan last night that I would be staying up until I fully grokked that heel, damn it! I still don’t quite grok the whole thing, but I got one done (with a little fudging) and that’s good enough for now.

3. I find myself doing these little mental aerobics:

Okay, let’s see. A wristlet is, say, half a sock. And a sock is halfway done once I’ve turned the heel. So having done ½ of a sock means that I’m 1/6th of the way done. And if it takes 1 hour to knit a stripe, and 2 hours to turn the heel, that means I’ve worked for approximately 10 hours, and I need 50 more. That’s insane. Really. Let’s say I (optimistically) get 2 hours of good knitting time in on class days. That’s 2 hours on the 15, 20, 21, and 22: 8 hours. Say I get 3 hours on non-class days (the 16, 23, 24): that’s 9 hours more (17). I’ll only get about half an hour on each of the Fridays (17 & 24), so that’s a total so far of 18 hours. On both Saturdays and both Sundays I can probably knit 5 hours a day (38). No matter how I slice it, I’m coming up 12 hours short. Meaning I can probably finish the socks, but the wristlets are quickly receding from view.

Fun, isn’t it?

4. Don’t you love the Knit Panic counter on the sidebar? Isn’t that just hyperventilating-enducing?

5. Flickr can apparently not crunch numbers as well as I. The gallery badge was interfering with the Olympics badge; apparently, it doesn’t like it when I put two badges on the same page. So the Gallery badge is temporarily gone, and will return once the Olympics are over. Besides, Ryan said it was “kinda creepy” to only have him and my feet on there.

6. Sadly, none of the numbers I am crunching relate to the Accounting exam I have tonight. And I have woefully understudied (something must have interfered, but, gee, I sure don’t know what that might be …) Which means I am very unprepared to take a lengthy and difficult exam about accounting for corporate stock. Please entreat any deity you see fit on my behalf.

Olympic Update

Okay, not all posts in the next 10 days or so will cover the Knitting Olympics, I promise, but I have a bit to catch up on. (Psst …. Non Olympic blogness is at the bottom. Scroll down.)

Day 1: Day 1 went well, what there was of it. I completed 1 ½” of 1x1 rib, decided that was all I wanted of ribbing, and was ready to begin stripes. I’m rather proud of myself for guessing the right number of stitches to cast on, as it was seat-of-my-pants guesswork, and the sock calculator says I’m right. (I waited to check because I didn’t, you know, swatch to know my gauge or anything before I started the sock.)

Day 2: Day 2 was far more productive. I got the hang of stripes fairly early on. Yes, there’s the jog I’ve heard so much about, but, well, the stripes are wide, so I don’t really care. Have the yarn feed from inside the sock allows me to just bring the working yarn up without having to break off between stripes, but it’s playing havoc with my tension. (Shhh….don’t tell Ryan. He’ll never notice.)

Day 3: Here I am, ready to turn the heel. I was thwarted in my attempt to do so, seeing as how I didn’t have the instructions. Since I have mastered the stripes, I was ready to try mastering the Sherman Heel. (Wow, my keyboard is seriously skuzzy. I need to clean that.)

Day 4: So what’s wrong with this picture? No, it’s not a duplicate of Day 2’s pic, sad to say. I attempted to make the heel and it was less than a stellar Olympic performance. So I ripped out, discovering in the process that I was short a stitch. And there was this one joining that was really driving me nuts … so much for half a heel and two stripes. Now what I have is equivalent of Saturday’s progress, and a massive tangle of yarn resulting from carelessly ripped out stripes. The kicker is that I’m STILL one stitch short, and there are no little runaway stitches that I can find. I must have k2tog somewhere without realizing it. I’ll be damned if I’m going to tink to find it, so I’m just going to make 1 on the next round. (Ryan, I promise, the sock is perfect just as it is … you’ll never notice the tension and the little bitty missing stitch) Which, really, is okay, since I’d completely forgotten to add the reinforcing yarn when I got to the heel.

I should have about an hour between work and class tonight, so I think I’ll leave detangling the yarn for another time and start on a wristlet. Tell me, does it look like it rolls to you? I think it does – and that would be lovely, since then I would be able to just knit the whole thing in stockinette, with just a little ribbing on the upper arm.



And, look what my sweetie made me for Valentine’s Day – an Everyday Gods valentine!



Copyright 2005, Daniel Mohr, etc, etc

You’ll notice new Flickr badges on my sidebar. I just thought they looked fun. And isn’t the gallery badge funny looking with only two photos in it? (Yep, easily amused. That’s me.)

On your mark...

As I write this, there is half an hour left before knitters all over the world can raise their needles and begin their own Olympic trials. I'm one of them. Of course, I'm at work right now and it's date night, so my first day of Olympic challenge will be, well, challenging!

I did what I needed to do to get ready for the event, though - I cleared my US 1 needles. (Yes, I own more than one pair; I swear I do. I just can't, um, find the others right now.)

I present to you completed Tropical Fruit socks:

...and my legs. Just look at the socks, okay? These are my first qualifying socks for 200Sox. (Yes, I AM the world's slowest knitter, why do you ask?)

Specs: the yarn was LB Magic Stripes in "Bright Spring," and the pattern was ... well, me making a sock, based on what I know about socks. The heel is really not deformed, I promise; that's just my foot being sucked into my super squishy sofa. These took me about a month, which makes me really doubt my sanity when it comes to making two socks (bigger than these) AND wristlets in 16 days.

Here's a good motto for the Knitting Olympics, courtesy of Kirsten's Knits and The Coolest Sweater Ever:

Damn straight. Here's wishing you all good knitting karma, and an ability to go without sleep for the next two weeks.

Song memories

Robbyn posted awhile back about having an internal soundtrack. I don’t, unless I’m misfortunate enough to get one stuck in my head. I generally have a pretty bad memory (stay with me, the two points relate); I can’t remember a lot of things about my daily life, people I’ve met, or appointments I need to keep**. But there are songs that always bring back memories for me. Generally these are pleasant, and, more often than not, are associated with people in my past.

Some of the songs I’ve heard on musak today:

Baby, Baby, Amy Grant: This isn’t associated so much with a person, but a time in my life – a mindset. I grew up Christian, by my own choice. Often, children are forced by their parents to go to church; I wasn’t. For much of my life, I was the only one that went. I used to walk to the little undemoninational church down the street from us, where everyone went to church in jeans and sang hymns to the accompaniment of a full band. Then, once we converted to Mormonism, we all went together. I remember retreats, camps, events, sleep-ins, and giggling with other girls. Even though I’ve left the church and I no longer hold Christian beliefs, these are treasured memories of possibly the only time in my life I’d consider “innocent.”

Kissing a Fool, George Michael: This covers much of the same period of my life, but does involve a specific person: Dennis. We were 15, and he was my first “real” boyfriend. The innocence of that relationship startles me when I look back at it. We hugged and held hands. I’m not sure that I even ever kissed him. Kissing a Fool was our song for awhile, though I have no idea why, now. It’s even featured in the novel we started writing together. I remember that I wrote the bedroom scene. (As with many things in my life, this was foreshadowing, though I didn’t know it.) I still have that novel, and it’s become my Great Endeavor. I’m convinced I’ll never finish this thing, but it’s too precious to me to give up on. I’ve been tinkering with it now for 13 years. Inconceivable. No doubt Dennis wouldn’t recognize a word of it, other than character names, it’s gone through so many revisions. I think I have 10 different versions of Chapter 1 laying around. I cart it with me everywhere. I have it backed up to no less than 3 different media because it would devastate me to lose it. But I’ve made a promise to myself that, should I ever finish it and, amazingly, publish it, I will hunt him to the ends of the earth to put a copy in his hands.

Memory is a funny thing, though. There’s a great discrepancy between what you think was important, and what someone else does. I wonder if, should I ever produce a copy of Torn for him, he’d say “what’s this?” never remembering our work together so long ago.



**Conversations at our house often run thusly:

Dan: so are you ready for (something)
Me: *deer in headlights*
Dan: did you forget?
Me: forget what?
Dan: that we’re (doing something)
Me: um. You never told me!
Dan: yes, I did. You just don’t remember.
Me: oh, okay.

This can be repeated up to four times for the same event.

Supercon -- now with knitting!

But first, a huge thank you to MN-Kat, who IDed my yarn as being, quite likely, Cherry Tree Hill Baby Loop Mohair. They even have a shawl pattern for it. Guess what I'm doing when I have time?

Okay, I know for an absolute fact that I'm going to leave a lot out of my weekend report. I'm not going to try to split things up by days, I'm just going to throw it all out there. Have fun. And, while this post may be image heavy, it's not as heavy as I would have liked. Sometimes I forgot the camera. Sometimes I forgot the camera and was too lazy to go get it. Sometimes I thought people would be a little upset if I took pictures of them. (This is a relaxing weekend that many people of many different lifestyles enjoy. Not all of them would appreciate it if I "outed them.")

I got to see a wonderful mix of old friends who urged me to come back (whom I failed to take a picture of). I had thought that they were Dylan's friends, and would hate me when I left him. Not so. As I was told over and over again this weekend. Okay, I get it now! And I met plenty of new friends (whom I failed to take a picture of). Though, I don't imagine that I'll remember their names or their handles much longer. I tried to avoid looking at people's namebadges. They gave out stickers for people to put on their badges, and bugs were surprisingly popular ...

Much of the time was spent relaxing in the main area (which I failed to take a picture of), in the company of a surprising number of knitters and crocheters (whom I failed to take a picture of). Really, I was astonished. When I was last here five years ago, I don't seem to remember that many of them/us. Of course, I wasn't a knitter then, but I did crochet, so I would think I would have noticed.

As usual, the main room was also filled with a number of board and card games (which I failed to take a picture of). It was, truly, geekdom's paradise. I alternated knitting with chatting and grazing in ConSuite (which I failed ... oh, you get it). I never did make it to the hot tub, though.

Sometime on Saturday, we ventured out and walked 7 blocks in the cold to get lunch at the Canadian Honker (WIFTTAPO). Ironically, this is the exact same place I had lunch the last time I was at Supercon, five years ago. I just didn't remember it was there. And -- lo and behold -- there was a yarn store on the way there (WIFTTAPO)! This made the walk for me. It's called Kristen's Knits. I got to fondle Blue Sky Alpaca cotton for the first time (so soft!), but I managed to leave with just two balls of sock yarn and the coolest knitting sweater ever (that I did NOT fail to take a picture of, but now I can't find it).

They had an art table set up (WIFTTAPO), and Dan did some great drawings. Ryan made a surprisingly good Panda Magic ** mask:



(The artwork on Ryan's shirt and his badge were done by Dan, promoting his up-and-coming webcomic: Everyday Gods. Don't worry; I'll let you know when it goes live.)

And I did an experiment:



It is perfectly possible to knit with strips of those felt sheets you got as a kid. Seen here knitted on my trusty size ... um ... maybe US 15? Susan Bates needles. I was rather proud of myself, though I think the more traditional knitters were aghast at my temerity.

Also, Katamari Damacy is evil. Flat-out evil. Do not, for love of your knitting or sanity, sit down to watch this game. I don't know what it's like to play it, but whole conversations would drift off into nowhere whenever the speaker managed to glimpse the screen (WIFTTAPO). Knitters would put down their needles, helpless in the face of ... what? A ball o' stuff rolling around on the screen. It shouldn't be interesting. Really. But it is.

I saw a video game I've never encountered before. Dance mat, drum? I present to you the Guitar:



(Is my sweetie not sexy holding a guitar? I'm so lucky.) The premise is exactly the same: you hit the colored buttons and strum when it tells you to. Dan and Michael had a great deal of fun playing this, and it was fun to watch. Particularly when it got late and they had to mute the sound.

On the drive home, my sleep-deprived brain decided that it sounded like a great deal of fun to go to the Minnesota Zoo. When I was already exhausted. In the cold. It was fun.

Okay, Blogger. You win this time. We'll fight it out over my pictures another day.

Ryan, the trusty adventurer. He's still single, my friends. Great sense of humor, wonderful person. We want to find him a girlfriend that knits. :)

I don't know, it's a mystery!

Spent a lovely, lovely evening last night, doing the most unlikely of things – shopping. I’m not much of a shopper, but my closet has a real lack of long-sleeved shirts, and it’s been bothering me. And the Ample Knitters list recently had a discussion that made me, ahhh, reevaluate the size of my supportive undergarments. So I went to all of the usual places: Sears, Target, and the thrift store.

But forget the clothes. Clothes are unimportant. The real finds follow.

This:



While I’m not usually much of a purse person (as in, avoid them at all costs), I love Betty Boop. And I was ready to walk by this; I even gave the spiel to Dan:

But hon, I don’t carry purses. I don’t like purses. I’m not going to drop $25 on a purse just because it has Betty Boop on it and is the exact size to carry a pair of socks …. Damn.



It really is the right size for a pair of socks-in-progress.

I’ve always been jealous of everyone else’s thrift store finds. I never seem to find anything good. But this time:



The Bernat Shakerspun, Sirdar Denim, and random loopy stuff is from Value Village. (the other stuff is from a foray to Hancock Fabrics earlier in the day). Can anyone tell me what the loopy stuff might be? And a guess on weight? I haven’t checked to see how many wpi I get, but it looks laceweight between the loops. Fingering weight, maybe?



Finally, some insomnia the other night gave me the perfect chance to catch one of my children in the act:



Yes, those are clean clothes she’s sleeping on.

We all leave for Supercon as soon as I get done with work tonight, so I get to spend time with sci-fi geeks all weekend in Rochester. It’s a two day trip. I’ve packed more yarn than clothes. *sigh* The camera is coming with me, so you can guess what the post on Monday’s going to be like, right?

Enjoy your weekends, wherever they might take you!

Theme

In honor of the Feast of Brigid (or Groundhog's Day, for the secular), Reya over at Grace's Poppies has declared an open invitations for all bloggers to participate in a Blogger's (Silent) Poetry Reading. My post is so late because I had to get home before I could find anything.

In the spirit of Brigid, Lady of Fire and Creativity, I present to you the only decent poem I ever wrote. It chronicles the beginning of the end of the only coven I've ever been a part of, and is a very bittersweet memory for me.

Lady Brigid, take this offering of creativity, and let it light a fire for me this year. Bless my fibre crafts, my writing, and the passion that keeps all art alive.

*************************************
Theme

The lights and curtains went up
along with the hopes and dreams of the
participants.
Released from our cares and worries,
we respond with cinematic integrity.
We paused, and began the parade as if
for a gawking ensemble of fools and warriors,
but played for a group of four.
It was perfect for a laser show.
The smoke coiled and curled
and four of us put out cigarettes
in perfect tandem.
The carefully controlled lighting
hid anything less than perfection.
Indeed, it hid almost everything.
Like some choreographed animation
we said our lines and politely waited for the script.
Once or twice
we forgot, saying something
for which no reply had been written
Then we would sit
in still frame perfection
and wait for the next to remember her line
to resume the skillful play that was written for only us.
In the sordid stale stillness,
the silence was a comfort, the words
a painful barrage of smoky quartz slivers,
sent to wound the unwary.
We were spared the humiliation of
original thinking, the thorn in the side
of perfect harmony.
We were award-winning actresses
Except
Except once or twice
Then the masks would slide
to reveal the muddied reality beneath,
and our lines ran away from the script.
By accident and fate,
we slipped on the ruptured ruins
of our own innocuous lines.
Like any good director,
The Great Almighty
cried “CUT” in abject horror
at the perfect film gone awry,
the painful admissions of a neglected faith.
We retired to our trailers for
Rejuvination.
Reformatting.
Rest.
The show must go on, it seems,
but now I am playing
with different actors.
--Colleen Palmer, 1996

The Book

This is the book:



Chainfire, by Terry Goodkind. This is the 9th book in the Sword of Truth saga, and the beginning of the final trilogy.

The book itself was not bad, though it’s part of a series I don’t particularly enjoy. You might ask why I read it then. I am a bit of a compulsive reader when it comes to fantasy series. I have to finish them. No matter how bad they are, I don’t think I’ve ever walked away from a series in the middle. (I lie – I just thought of one. The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara series by Terry Brooks. Not that I don’t like Terry Brooks as a person, I just find his writing dull and subpar.) So I continue reading this series, knowing what awaits me. See, here’s the thing. I like this series as I’m reading it. In retrospect, not so much.

This review is not going to make a whole lot of sense for you if you haven’t read the previous eight books. Just sayin’. The rant after the review is probably going to be more entertaining, so I won’t be hurt if you just skip down there.

Okay, am I left with just Sword of Truth readers (or voyeurs)? Good.

The beginning of the book shows us the main character, Richard, being frantically rushed to a farmhouse to be healed from a grievous battle wound. When he comes to, he goes out looking for his wife, Kahlan, only to realize that, not only do people not know where she is, they don’t know WHO she is. All memory of Kahlan has been stripped away from everyone’s minds. Events that she played a part in are rationalized in some other manner, and everyone, right down to Richard’s closest confidante, Cara, believes he made Kahlan up in a fever-induced delirium when he was ill. Now, this made me doubt Richard for about three sentences. Then I remembered that Goodkind loves Richard, and Richard would never, ever be an unreliable narrator. Therefore, Richard is right. It just remains to figure out how.

Richard spends several hundred pages running around asking everyone if the know who Kahlan is, to the vast detriment of the war effort. (Hey, Richard, remember the war? The last hope of mankind? Happening in your kingdom of D’Hara? Remember them?) He even refuses to head the battle at Altur’Rang when Emperor Jagang comes back to claim his home city from the rebels. That’s okay, though, because Richard is always right, and obviously finding Kahlan is more important than saving the free world.

Meanwhile, Ann and Nathan are discovering prophecies gone missing. Books of prophecy that they both have practically memorized have suddenly developed blank pages, and what’s more, no one can remember what they once said. Sound familiar? Yep, I bet this is tied in with Kahlan. The sections with Nathan and Ann are quickly emerging as my favorite passages. Nathan’s dry wit and cynicism offer a fresh contrast to Richard’s saccharine speeches. (Though the Rahl arrogance gets a little old.)

I can’t reveal much more without ruining the plot, but this is NOT a standalone book. When you get to the end, you’ll only have uncovered the mystery – nothing will be solved. But you will discover what’s up with missing Kahlan, why prophecy pages are missing, and the true purpose behind the boxes of Orden. We’re nicely set up for the next two books, where Richard gets to Save the World. Again.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the book. I just skipped the oh, innumerable pages of Goodkind-as-Richard’s philosophy. They’re not hard to miss – it’s generally five pages at a time of Richard talking. The thing is, Goodkind writes a pretty decent quest novel. If you’re into quest novels, and you don’t mind dodging the heavy-handed philosophy, it’s not a bad read.

Don’t worry, the wait isn’t likely to be too long, as Amazon already has the next book listed.

---

Okay, the rant**:

Here’s a taste, just a small one, of what Terry Goodkind says about his books being labeled fantasy:

My books were defined in the marketplace as fantasy purely because of business considerations, not essential characteristics. In the business of selling books, the fact that there are elements of magic in my novels and, far more importantly, that I am published by a fantasy publisher, nullifies every other consideration.

Okay. His books are set in a mythical, pseudo-medieval world, where every single one of the main characters has some sort of magic, where the main character is, in fact, a “war wizard,” and the series’ first book is called Wizard’s First Rule. Which part of this does he not consider fantasy? The dragon in the first book? The magic of the Confessors? The boundaries between countries? The Sisters of Light? The struggle to save the world from the Keeper of the Underworld? What, exactly, Mr. Goodkind do you not see as essential characteristics in that list?

Are you a fantasy fan? I know I am. Terry Goodkind hates us. Hates the fact that his books are labeled fantasy. Why? Because his books, by god, have serious social and philosophical commentary in them. Fantasy fans are obviously tripe-loving denizens of the deep that only come out of the cave when stumbling across a rare gem like HIS books. Obviously, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Dan Simmons, and John C. Wright are also clearly mislabeled. Their books should not be considered “Science Fiction” just because they are set on distant worlds and use space travel. After all, those aren’t essential characteristics. Like hell, Mr. Goodkind.

He goes on to say (at great length) that is books are NOVELS, due to the characteristics of Theme, Plot, and Characterization. Well and good. I think his books are novels, too. But does this sound to anyone else that he thinks maybe Fantasy novels (oops, books) aren’t novels? Are they somehow less worthy? Respectfully, Mr. Goodkind, get off your damned high horse. Just because you write fantasy, that does not make you an unrespected artist. (Your prose does, though, and your incessant mewling about how it sucks to be saddled with the fantasy label. And your ill-thought out philosophy based on reading Ayn Rand novels when you were an impressionable youth. I could continue. Really, being labelled a fantasy author is the least of your worries.)

And this, this is what made me rethink my decision to give this author any more of my money.

Question: Lately I've found myself in many arguments defending your books against 'fans' who say they used to like your books but no longer do to the extent that they used to. Would you mind settling some debates by answering the Question: What, if anything do you have to say to the people that voice the opinion that you're latest four books haven't been as good as the previous four and call them "too preachy"?
Answer: Don't be fooled. The assertion made by these detractors is a note wrapped around a brick thrown through the window. These people are not fans. There are hundreds if not thousands of fantasy books that fulfill their professed taste in books. Why would they continue to read books they claim are bad? Because they hate that my novels exists. Values arouse hatred in these people. Their goal is not to enjoy life, but to destroy that which is good -much like a school child who does not wish to study for a test and instead beats up a classmate who does well. These people hate what is good because it is good. Their lives are limited to loathing and indifference. It isn't that they want to read a good book, what they want is to make sure that you do not. Ignore them.

I’m just speechless with rage at this point. Values arouse hatred in me? I hate that his books exist? I want to destroy all life? JUST because I think his books are two preachy? Shoot me. Shoot me now. Better yet, shoot him.

Gah. Reading the whole thing over again made me cranky. Go read it yourself. Really. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what infuriates me about it. This rant is already too long as it is, and I don’t want to bore you further. But do read it. It’s at least worth a good laugh. (I’m stopping myself from rereading the rest of it, because I don’t want to start frothing at the mouth with rage while at work. Reputation, you know.) When you're done, go read the very good rebuttal.

**All quotes above are taken from the Prophet’s Inc live chat, the text of which can be found at http://www.terrygoodkind.com/chats/PIchat5.php.