[spoilers] Infinite Happiness, Commodore the Suryturk

[spacetyrantxenu]

Cool. I've read his First and Second World Wars.

Waiting patiently for the third release in the series, I hope. Very, very patiently!

[SadGit]

Meh. He seems to have run out of steam. Its never a good thing when authors start fiddling with prequels. Pure sign that they are lost. My guess is Sanderson will end up trying to finish the series.

[Old Harry]

Cool. I've read his First and Second World Wars.

Waiting patiently for the third release in the series, I hope. Very, very patiently!

Third world war?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Yeah, honestly it's just fine if the series ends at two.

[TheHumanHydra]

I saw this book at the used bookstore yesterday, so I bought it. Now you have a reading buddy, Commodore.

I felt the duology had a fairy satisfying ending, though we know with the way the publishing world works, if there can be a sequel, there will be a sequel.

[Commodore]

In other news, I'm now in Alpha test:

[Ceiliazul]

Ben nice knowing you, don't forget to write... And eat, and occasionally breathe.

[Commodore]

Ben nice knowing you, don't forget to write... And eat, and occasionally breathe.

Pfft, it's fine, I played back in 2004(!) when it was all fresh and new, my wife and I take occasional dips now and then but it's hardly the all-consuming fire.

[Commodore]

A Grand Tour
Part Four: The Eastern Expanse
Tetrehahn is an unusual city, novel even to a cosmopolitan like yourself. While technically seaside, the city bizarrely has no docks. Although its surrounds are lush and green, no cottages or hamlets dot the countryside, and very few farms do. It is the site of the nation's most productive copper mines, but no tin is found nearby, so all bronze smelting is done far away. Finally, though the city is fair-sized, more than half of the populace are slaves, poorly treated at that. This ragged city, second oldest in the nation, is a place of horrific slavery and pain, where countless thousands have been press ganged time and again to work crews, settlement parties, and drafted spearmen companies. It is a place of misery, and you are glad to leave it behind to climb the hills southeast.

The rugged country south and east is nonetheless well-peopled and fruitful; you find numerous streams and rivers with cheery hamlets alongside, their rude cottars living banal lives of shepherding and mining, oddly immune to the beauty around them. You take your time through the river valley and are almost sad to reach Mourndar.

The capital of this county, Mourndar impresses you with its culture and its elegant architecture; its coffee shops are the best you have ever frequented and its markets hum with unusual commerce. Although no formal system of open borders yet exists between the two peoples, Americans of Gor with their silver coins are a common sight, waddling with confidence throughout the streets. If you have a taste for the exotic and uncultured grotesque, those blue clad men and women of staggering bulk will not leave you disappointed. But the tour is not yet complete, you have one more city to explore.

North and further up the coast the land rises again, this time to a far gentler stretch of rolling hills. Perched high above a dramatic bay, Rastenford is the gateway to the isolated Durwrath Peninsula. You are unimpressed by the town itself, being another middling burg of little note, but the quiet and homey district...ah, that almost sets you longing for your own home. Perhaps, here, you might realize that settling is not the mark of a small person, but a large one. Perhaps among these people so near the world's end, you might realize that the world of a neighborhood is vaster than the world of a nation. Perhaps...

...but come now, you're a tourist. You couldn't have that. Now that you're at the end of this grand tour, you think you have heard some wonderful things about these “adventure sports” from the Americans...

[Commodore]

Turn 100: Winning

Okay, not really...I'm in the world's first golden age and I'm erecting a nice big pile of catapults, so that's cool. The current civic mix is the slightly odd Rep/Slavery/OR, but at the end of the golden age I'll be adding Caste and Bureacracy to the mix...gotta abuse having the world's best city as my capital to the max, right? Durwrath and the other filler get themselves settled too, then the question is beelining Astronomy or Guilds...I actually right now favor Astronomy; maces are fine units off of boats with excellent tactical mobility for the near stuff, and of course they own barbarian face off in the hypothesized americas.

All of this is rather moot, of course. The giants of Elsewhere are going to be the Eaters, Gavagai and now Krill, who seem to be butchering their lighter neighbors. Both REM and Elkad are mildly behind but neither would be weak/easy prey, unfortunately...