Freitag, 20. Januar 2017

Lieblingsbücher #10 - Anthony Pt.1

Hallo ihr Lieben!
Heute mal wieder in englisch, und zwar erzählt euch heute Anthony aus den Niederlanden etwas über sein Lieblingsbuch.


What is your favourite book?
I choose for a book series, "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan (the final three book are posthumously co-written with Brandon Sanderson.)
Why is it your favourite book?
It's one of the best series in the fantasy genre. It's extremely detailed which makes the story seem as if they are about real people. And, without trying to spoil too much, it puts a different twist to the standard "good vs. bad"-story


How often have you read the book?

As the series wasn't yet finished when I started to read the books, this is different for each book. The earlier books I have read about ten times, but so far I've only read the complete series twice. It's a long story after all - fourteen books, a prequel, and an in-depth guide about the story's world.
How did you hear about this story?

I just randomly picked a book from the fantasy section of the library, and as I thought it might be interested, I borrowed the first book, and kept reading the series, eventually buying the books myself.

Who is your favourite character?


Min Farshaw. She's one of the girlfriends of the main character, Rand al'Thor. Although Min is one of the few characters who cannot practice magic (which is called "channeling the One Power" in this story), she has symbolic visions of the future. Although we know that whatever vision Min sees will always come true, it's not always clear what they mean. So thanks to her, fans have been busy for years to figure out what was going to happen in the stories. Plus, Min is a sweet young lady. If Rand al'Thor was Harry Potter, then Min was his Hermione Granger in the sense that she saw Rand for who he truly was, and she did not see him as the "Chosen One", or "Dragon Reborn" in this series, the saviour of the world he never chose to be. In fact, in the later books Min tries to do everything to keep Rand alive by reading as many books about the prophecies about the Dragon Reborn, very much like Hermione studied books to help Harry.
What is your favourite place in the series?

I have a soft spot for The Two Rivers. This is where the series started, so every time we return there, it's like coming back home (and finding out so much has changed).
Has a film adaptation been made, and if yes, what do you think of it? If not, are you in favour or against a film adaptation?

There are plans for a TV series adaptation, much like "Game of Thrones", but I haven't heard anything about it anymore for months. I think a TV series is the only way an adaptation of these books will work, because it's too long and too complex to make it work as a film.

What are the qualities a book must have for you to make it your favourite?
It's not easy to explain, I think. There are many good books, but to really make it great, one has to have some feelings for the characters. The heroes have to be people one can sympathise with. You need to feel happy when they are victorious, you have to be worried about them when there's danger ahead. If you don't care about the characters, then it's not a good book.
Also, the world has to make sense. That may be strange to say about fantasy, but the fantastic elements have to follow some rules in the context of the world, and not being thrown in randomly. No Deus Ex Machina nonsense.

What are you reading at the moment?
Right now, I'm not reading fantasy, but the autobiography of Phil Collins, "Not dead yet".
How do you like it?
I love it. Phil was the first musician I ever listened to, and reading about him and his music is interesting.
Is there anything else you'd like to say?
If you'd like to read "Wheel of Time", be careful. Like I said, the series are 14 books, a prequel, and a guide about the world. So that's a loooooong story. Don't compare it with Harry Potter, the longest Harry Potter book is about the same length as the shortest Wheel of Time book. At least, when talking about the original English books. In Germany, the books have been split in multiple parts, so the German translation counts no less than 37(!) books.
And the world of The Wheel of Time is huge too. 14 countries on the main continent, some independant city states, a desert (with a hidden land behind it), an evil wasteland, and another hostile continent on the other side of an ocean... everything is big in this series. And then I haven't mentioned the big number of characters. I too sometimes started to forget who is who. So it's not always an easy read. Even the biggest fans have complained about the complexity of the story (particularly book 10 is not very popular).
But, if you'd like to take on a challenging series with good character development and a rich detailed world, you probably won't be disappointed when reading "The Wheel of Time".


 xo,
lisa

Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen