“By force of will … by nature of entitlement.”

“By force of will … by nature of entitlement.”  from ‘The Way of Kings’ by Brian Sanderson

I’ve gone back to listening to audio books during my commute again.  Since I now commute on my own, I can sit there with earplugs in my ears, blocking out all the chatter and noises in the bus, the unwanted conversations that people think everybody should hear …

This is the current book I’m listening to.  I wanted a lengthy novel, an epic one, maybe another series, one that would take me ages to read.  Science fantasy was one genre that I knew fit that.  Browsing through Audible a couple of months ago, I had seen one by Brandon Sanderson, that looked to be a good one – Steelheart.  A quarter of the way in, I was wondering if this was Brandon Sanderson’s style … it sounded like he writes for teens, not for heavy, epic, 10-book series … not at the same level of Robert Jordan’s ‘Wheel of time’ series, for which he had been picked to finish the series.  That had worried me a little.  I still hadn’t read the last book of the WOT series – yes, I know, it’s been a couple of years since the last book came out, but I wanted to take my time reading that, knowing that it was the last book, and I don’t really want it to end … yet … Anyway … never mind the reviews, which were all saying that he did a good job with WOT, but did Brandon Sanderson really do Robert Jordan justice by finishing off the WOT series the way Robert Jordan wanted, and in the way that I expect?  I’ll have to find out soon …

Not satisfied with ‘Steelheart’ – yes, it was a young adult novel, which I had completely overlooked to see what type of genre it was in – I went browsing again, and another Brandon Sanderson book popped up – ‘Words of Radiance’.  It was the second book in a series.  hmmmm …. reading the reviews, it sounded like it could be one of those epic series that I wanted to immerse myself in.  But Brandon Sanderson again, after the less than satisfactory experience the first time?  I decided to take the plunge, and used up one of the precious Audible credits to purchase the book.  If I didn’t like the first book – ‘The Way of Kings‘ – then I didn’t have to buy the second book, which had just been released.

45 hours later, to and from commuting, lunch breaks, and a couple of late nights, I finished … and yes, I did want to know what would happen next.  So I purchased Book Two, which had just been released, and for which I did not have to wait four years … hmmm … but then that means that I’d have to wait years for Book Three?  I got into The Wheel of Time series three books in, so I was reading that for story for a good three-four months, before having to wait for years …

As you see, I’m already on Chapter 13, two days later.  It’s got 106 chapters … 106 !!  If this was a printed book, that would be over a thousand pages, right?  (That’s another on my to-do list … read a book that is at least 1,000 pages long … do audio books count?)  It’s kind of slow-going again, these early chapters, but I’m sure it’ll speed up soon.

The quote above is from the first book, ‘The Way of Kings’.  It struck me that this is probably why we have the alphas among us … for them, everything is an entitlement, being the first-born, the leader, the chosen one … If they do not get what they want by entitlement, then they use force of will, using the entitlement, to get what they want.

Hmmm … certainly makes things a lot clearer around here …