Tuesday, January 06, 2009

I'm a believer... (sheepish smiley face)

It was while skimming through Brisingr, that third book in that silly fantasy series by that young kid, when this thought came to me.

But before that I need to get something out of the way - I'm glad I didn't spend my hard-earned 15 bucks on Brisingr. Instead I sneakily went to enips and downloaded an ebook version. Yes, his writing is less amateurish compared to the previous 2 books, but he still steals so many ideas from so many places that reading the book subjects you to a constant stream of deja vu. Since I'd got the ebook for free, I didn't feel obliged to actually read the whole thing and hence the skimming. Unfortunately, no matter how much I crib about the book, I have to find out 'what happened next', and well there are some bits in these books I enjoy reading, where Eragon learns new things and there are fundaes of how magic works etc.

Which brings me to the thought or rather a realization. After reading so many fantasy books, I have a whole world of magic in my head where I accept certain facts as readily as scientific facts I know. For instance, I know (as in I'm completely sure of this in my head) that -
1. Some people have magical potential, some don't
2. Magical potential can vary from person to person, as in some have more of it than others
3. Practicing magic takes energy i.e. you use up your store of energy or magic when you do any spells etc. (Actually I don't think Harry Potters had this funda, but its only logical.. magic has to come from somewhere. You shouldn't be able to do unlimited magic.)
4. You can store energy or get it from other sources.
5. Dark magic is bad but it can make you very powerful and it usually involves leeching off others and harming them in the process.

Some as yet unverified facts (again in my head) -
1. Everyone has a true name and its supposed to give complete power over you.
2. Dragons/unicorns/phoenix etc. exist.
3. There exist non-human races like elves and dwarves.
4. Elves are diabolical.
5. Dwarves like mining.

Yes, yes I'm a nerd! So, well, its annoying when someone writes a books based on all the facts I already know. There has to be something new in it. I read a book and loved it for this neat trick magicians could do, where they can create a bubble of warmth around them which lets them walk around happily in freezing cold. Now that's magic being put to a good use!

3 comments:

kray said...

hey!!! that book is out is it?!!! had almost forgotten about it :P will look for it now :D

and I disagree with one of those as yet unverified facts: elves diabolical?!!! how?! as in definitely not always!!! (okay, I've kinda forgotten about the role of elves in eragon/eldest, but going by most other fantastic series :D)

Akshi said...

Yes, its been out here for a couple of months now I guess. You could go to esnips and get a pdf :D

Hehe.. yeah maybe diabolical is too strong. But they're not all goodie goodie as they seem. Its their elvish brains.. they don't work the same way as ours do.

kray said...

:D point taken