Things I Like... Hobbits, Dwarfs and Middle Earth

Sure, I could have just said LOTR, but that would be boring.

With the last of the movies out, and the tear jerker of a song [which I'll share below] released, its a sad moment to look back on the joyous ride that Peter Jackson has taken us on...

It also pales in comparison to the roller coaster that Tolkien took us on in the books. To be sure, those are the foundation to an entire genre.

Some years ago, my parents bought me the Hobbit and LOTR Trilogy. I was a teen, I know that much.  Now, I'd watched The Hobbit cartoon [I loved that cartoon.] and the kiss ass, more accurate than the movie, LOTR's one, that didn't reach the Return of the King.  [They did a cute, but bad, cartoon for that. Same style as the Hobbit].

I read the Hobbit, The Fellowship and the first half of The Two Towers.  Then I reached the second half, and damn if I didn't slog my way through that. I HATE that section of the book, and if anything says to me 'Tolkien was a master at world building, race creation, languages and map making. But he wasn't a great writer' its that book.  Yeah, its not the worst thing you could read. [I've seen worse, let me tell you.] However, its over done at times.  It can be summed up like this...

And they walked... More walking... Whining by one of the Hobbits, encouragement from the other... They meet Smeagol... More walking... Whining... Arguing between all three, on various points... Cowering in fear... They did a bit more walking, and whined while they walked... They did sneaky things [mostly Smeagol] and they perhaps walked a bit more.

Congrats, you've just read most of the second half of The Two Towers... A book that could have been cut into smaller pieces, and not perhaps taken me over 6 months to read.  And I read fast. Once read 15 books in 31 days...

Once I'd finished slogging my way through it, I read The Return of the King.  And, my parents congratulated me by picking up one of the millions of companions out there to help you understand what the hell you'd just read. They're moderately helpful.

Now, life comes full circle and like so many out there, I'm drawn back to where it all started.  The Hobbit.

I shared pictures last week of a Vinyl bound pocket edition [I said leather] of the Hobbit.  The book was 19.99 in store, 15.99 online [plus S&H] and 5.98 [S&H included] at the Amazon marketplace, for a new copy.  Its sitting next to me, and the desire to read it almost overwhelms my need to finish the book I'm already reading.  But, it will be first on my list.

And I think, I shall use my new journal to keep notes on things when I read them this year.  Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea.  :D

Kristy C

Who Am I... A Geek

So, today we'll look at 'Who I Am as a geek'.

It came to me finally, as I've been watching Doctor Who a bit more.

Honestly, I can't remember a time when Science Fiction and Fantasy wasn't apart of my life.  Growing up, we watched Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Star Trek movies.  On VHS Tape I have the old Hobbit Cartoon, and the amazing Lord of the Rings one that's got live action and animation.  The Last Unicorn, The Flight of Dragons and so many others.

I can't remember how old I was, I think about 13 or 14, when I found one of my favorite authors... David Eddings.

The Diamond Throne... It fascinated me and inspired me, I had to read more by him.

From Eddings, I picked up Terry Brooks and a few others, even Robert Jordan.  Never finished the Shannara Series.  Stopped when they went to the Air Ships.  Nothing against Brooks, but the series seemed to repeat.  I also enjoyed the Magic Landover stories.  I also stopped the Wheel of Time books at book 9.  It wasn't bad, just got tired of it after a little bit.

Later on I got into some scifi books, mostly Star Wars.  Young Jedi Academy books and the X-Wing ones are the best, to me.

I've written Fan Fiction for a few Anime's and Video Games, before I abandoned that for more 'serious' writing.

After a few years, I lost interest in anime and manga's.  Oddly, I'd like to still read them, but I don't have a lot of desire to actually sit down and read them.

I also got into comics, but they're damn expensive and keep changing storylines all the time.  So now, I just go about reading what's happened in comics and acting like I know lots more than I do.  ^^  Rather fun.

Over the years I've watched plenty of great SciFi shows, Babylon 5, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica [the original one], and others.  I've also watched some ok things, Buffy, Angel and Charmed.

Almost 3 years ago I started to play a game called Pathfinder.  Loved it really.  Its opened a new door to my geekiness.

There are plenty of books out there I've not read that I've been told I should read, and more than I wish I could read.

Took me all day to write this post.  Not sure why, except that Doctor Who was distracting me.

There's a lot more to write about me as a geek, more than can be contained in one blog.

Kristy C