Wow! Its been almost a month

Crazy how time slip away from you. In the past month, I have been to India, decided it wasn't for me, and came home early. But I shan't bore you with that, and to be perfectly honest, I've explained it so many times now I'm a bit sick of talking about it.

I've been doing some reading list reading. 'The Arte of English Poesie'.

In the words of my father regarding Shakespeare "anything that old has GOT to be boring".

He's damned right, about Shakespeare and this old-as-dust volume on rhetoric.

On another literary note, I've rediscovered my love for 'The Wheel of Time' by Robert Jordan. Oh dear God. He writes the way I want to write. Meticulous details, characters that really grab you. Sure, in the past say 7 books or so he's kind of went a bit crazy with the plot. There's simply too much of it, in short, and there's a general feeling amongst fans that his descriptions are overlong and his women are unrealistic.

I disagree on all points. I *love* Jordan's writing dearly - even with all those slashes of cream, even with Rand's slightly emo-ish bent. Its such an amazingly fully-realised world, absolutely awespiring.

Of course, RJ died of amyloidosis and left the task of completion of his work to Brandon Sanderson.

With all due respect to RJ...WTF?!

I've read the first chapter of the new book "The Gathering Storm" (abbreviated to TGS, which makes me giggle and think of 30 Rock!), as published on the Tor website. It reads like fanfiction. I know that RJ's style was never going to be imitated perfectly, and indeed imitating it is probably a bit silly, but I had never imagined such a wild departure from the style I know and love.

I'm debating about buying the prologue now...of course, curiousity will probably overwhelm me and I probably will buy it, even if only to distract myself from the horrors of rhetoric.