Just to clarify, my comments about Lord of the Rings the other day weren't aimed at anyone at all. It appears I may have struck a slight nerve with one good friend of mine which was completely unintentional.
Sorry about that ;-)
We are moving house next week and we found a set of keys down the sofa.
There are two silver keys attatched to a long retractable metal chain which retracts into a circular metal thing.
If you think they are yours then let me know.
It really bugs me nowadays that merchandise goes so far some times that it almost ruins the product it is supposed to be promoting.
Dvds are a prime example. You get your dvd, then they release a special edition, then they release a collectors edition, then they release a box set and then they release the directors cut. It gets silly after a while.
Another example is the Star Trek Collectable Card Game. I started collecting this while I was at uni but gave up before long when I realised that they were taking the Michael. They release a new expansion for it so often that it became impossible to collect the whole lot without bankrupting yourself. That's why I like the Babylon 5 ccg - it has been dropped and therefore there are no new sets being made so I have a complete collection. Oh and with the Star Trek one they have just redone the rules and started releasing version 2...
In my opinion, Babylon 5 being cancelled was the best thing that could have happened to it merchandise wise. There is a good base of merchandise, little rubbish and it can be collected to completion without having to worry that your collection will eat all your wages.
Anyway, the point of this ramble is that the Wheel of Time has hardly any merchandise.
There is the books (obviously), a roleplay game, a ccg, an old pc game and thats it. Now don't get me wrong, as I said above, too much merchandise is a bad thing but too little merchandise can be a bad thing as well.
I love the Wheel of Time. Nothing would please me more than to proudly wear a T-Shirt baring the slogan "I use the power, so sue me." (wheel of time joke) or something equally geek-worthy.
Likewise, I would love to have something to collect but apart from the ccg there is nothing.
With B5 I have the ccg, the models, the books, the comics. With Lord of the Rings I have my plates, my figures, my boardgames. (and probably lots more)
I hope that one day there is some merchandise created that is worth buying. There has just been a comic released which covers the story in the prequel so maybe there will be more comics but who knows. What would be REALLY sweet would be Wheel of Time movies but something tells me that it will never happen. Think about it. 12/13 books. Each one needs a movie to do it justice. What actor would commit to that?
Let me know if you see any merchandise I have missed.
So I promised a post about the Wheel of Time. If you aren't interested in hearing about a series of books I am reading then don't bother reading this post since I'm not sure how interesting you will find it :-)
The Wheel of Time series is a series of books written by Robert Jordan. I don't want to give too much away about the plot in case anyone decides to read them after this but the basic premise is that a group of country type people who lead normal lives suddenly find themselves thrown into many adventures involving "magic" and dark creatures etc.
I say "magic" in inverted commas because Robert Jordan hasn't just taken the usual fantasy sterotypes of magic, orcs, trolls, wizards etcetc and integrated them into his story. You won't find elves and dwarves and hobbits and such in Jordan's fantasy world - he has created something new and different and it is exceptional work.
Currently there are ten books in the series plus one prequel and one book which investigates the world he has created. The last announcement was that there are going to be two or three more books before the story ends and I look forward to reading them all. In addition there are going to be two more prequels.
The quote on the front of the book (all books have them - they are a recommendation from some well known newspaper or such) is "With the Wheel of Time Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal" or something like that and I think it's quite true. Although Jordan does not use the Tolkien universe like almost every other fantasy novel/film out there.
I'll digress a second and mention that before the Lord of the Rings movies, some people who had read the books and were trying to be clever used to go around saying "I'm sure the films will be good but the book is better" and "you MUST read the books before watching the films" etcetc. Now that the movies have been and gone the same poeple are now going around still trying to be clever. Only now they can't preach about how great the books are because everyone knows about Tolkien now so they have started bashing Tolkien instead by saying "the story is ok but the books aren't very well written"
It really bugs me. If it is so badly written then why is it arguably the most popular fiction book in existance?
Anyway, I'm getting off track.
I can highly recommend Jordan's books to anyone who likes fantasy generally. They don't rehash what you have heard a hundred times before and even I don't usually read books at the rate I am doing at the moment.
So read them now but if you do, don't blame me if you are still reading Jordan years from now ;-)
Oh and a big thankyou to Russ who was the one who recommended The Wheel of Time series to me in the first place.
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Haven't posted in forever.
Let me think. Over the weekend I visited Georgina, me old chum from school, who saw Anya for the first time. I went over to my mum and dad's for tea which was sweet because my mum cooked a wicked roast for us. After the meal we went to play pool at the Trafford Centre which was fun although somehow Reece and Kieran managed to beat me and my dad so revenge must be had.
Reece came over one night and stayed over. We played some Dungeons and Dragons (mental note - the rules in the dungeons and dragons boardgame are full of holes, must see if there is an errata online somewhere) and watched Con Air.
Last night I found out that we HAVE to move house next week otherwise the sale of our house will fall through. So it looks like we are moving out next week then...
Finished the third book in the Wheel of Time series. I'm not sure if I have written anything about the Wheel of Time books yet so I must remember to make a post later today to fill you in.
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