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Interests
Favorite series:
"Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" (Tad Williams);
"The Lord of the Rings" (J.R.R. Tolkien);
"A Song of Ice and Fire";
"Gormenghast" series (Mervyn Peake);
Lots of other great series, but these will remain my "forever four", I think.
I like to collect books (and read them) and have worked in the book world (selling, loaning, and reviewing) since 1992. I've worked in an academic library since 2007.
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Jiriki's Achievements
Landed Knight (6/8)
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Jon being the Night King is an interesting possibility. However, I have long believed that Arya was meant to slay the Night King in the end (not the dorky way they showed it in the show, with her screaming her way through a line of Others, but actually using her mad assassin skills and Needle), so does Arya kill Jon?
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I see your point about Mr. Sellars' "organic hacking"... how does that even translate to the screen? I don't even know how it could be visually represented. Most of the audience won't be able to understand plant-based high-tech surveillance. I think the Kansas/Oz simulation could be stripped down to the most important pieces because everyone knows that simulation... or a less horrific version of it, at least. The Kitchen Sink simulation can look about as cheap as Toy Story, and not break the budget. But, as you say, there are things in Otherland which I don't think can even be translated well into film. How, for example, do you represent recurring themes such as the fat/thin "twins" (that I've always believed are references to Gormenghast's Swelter and Flay)? How do you make the viewers understand that some of these characters recur much like (the later masterpiece) Cloud Atlas? Could so much "unfilmable" stuff be crammed into a TV show and still have the show make sense to the average viewer? I think the film adaptation of Cloud Atlas and Blade Runner may be the best way to try to present the material in Otherland. One thing I'd love to see is the creators taking Michael Whelan's beautiful, shiny cover art and incorporating it into the CGI of the show. The "golden shadow" message; Paul Jonas drowning in the river, a feather floating tantalizingly overhead; etc. I think they'd need to cut back on the gray world of book 4. That story could be told in less time, no one wants to spend an entire season in a featureless world, and frankly, no one wants to see a guy who looks like The Simpsons' Mr. Burns naked for that many episodes.
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Jiriki reacted to a post in a topic: Revisiting older novels
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Winterfella reacted to a post in a topic: Tad Williams' Otherland has been optioned by the producers of The Witcher and The Wheel of Time
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Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
Tad just lost his father this week. I don't think there will be a huge delay, though, as the manuscript was in good shape back in March, when I received my review copy. -
Madame deVenoge reacted to a post in a topic: Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
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Jiriki reacted to a post in a topic: Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
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Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
Read and Find Out. -
Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
Me too. His example stands in stark contrast to many popular authors who start off strong but Did Not Finish. -
Jiriki reacted to a post in a topic: Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
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Ser Scot A Ellison reacted to a post in a topic: Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
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Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
The current final manuscript page for The Navigator's Children is page 1163. It is a vast novel. I have no idea how Tad thought he could wrap things up 1,100 pages earlier. -
Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
The worlds I enjoyed most in Otherland were the Oz simulation and the Endless House. However, the final book has no simulations at all: just a grey void, and that dragged on me. I felt like the final volume could have been shorter, or we could have at least seen some "dead" simulated worlds or something. I know what you mean about impatience. I do believe Tad has a good conclusion in store, although I really wonder about the end. -
Valandil reacted to a post in a topic: Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
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Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
I cannot say, as I'm sworn to secrecy, but so far, this book is fucking brilliant. There may be things I don't like, as there were a few with TWC (but not EOG) , but so far, I have enjoyed every page. Tad's prose, even in draft, is very, very strong. It's easy to see why George would get so much inspiration from Tad. -
Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
I know what you mean. I fear the ending of TLK because I love these characters (especially the original set, but Nezeru, Jarnulf, and Tzoja now feel like old friends). In the old series, the reunion with Rachel gets me every time. Every damn time. I have wondered why there even IS a Last King, and that phrasing has had me worried for four volumes, now. Otherland's ending also went in a completely different direction than I expected, as well, but I do not re-read it every year, unlike MS&T. -
Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
What I have read is very, very good. -
Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
I have seen the manuscript for The Navigator's Children, or at least a portion of it. The book is large, and as heavy as a small child. -
Jiriki reacted to a post in a topic: Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
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Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread
Jiriki replied to kuenjato's topic in Literature
Let me reiterate what Ylvs has stated: no draft has been submitted. Deborah says on Twitter that the manuscript is "currently being prodigiously cut, as it needs to be". There is no submitted draft. Just a work in progress that got a bit hefty in the telling and is now being pared back. What the final product will be, no-one yet knows. But it clearly will not be a slim volume, because that's not how Tad writes final volumes.