Infinity Blade: Awakening

Infinity Blade: Awakening by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It has been long since i visited the fantasy genre, got turned off of it thanks to JK Rowling and the steaming pile of dog shit she called "the deathly hallows" But i played Infinity Blade (on the iPhone) which almost seems open ended and storyless - like an RPG version Punch-Out, but the comparison is just the gameplay, one-on-one arcade style fighter. Comparison on any other level would be unfair since Infinity Blade is one of the most beautiful games i have seen for the iPhone.

Given that the developers do not have the luxury of making a full fledged game with elaborate cutscenes and complex gameplay on such a limited platform, i can definitely say that this book(/novella) adds that missing dimension. Most elements of the game are tied in perfectly and leads into an ending that would serve as a springboard for the next installment, Infinity Blade: II.

The role this book plays in the Infinity Blade universe is also my criticism towards it. It brings a lot of potential to the series and consequently a lot of expectations as well. I would like to see the book standing out on its own, with the game being the "add-on", i.e. the game playing out major action scenes from the book as opposed to the book filling up missing plot points from the game.

Brandon Sanderson is an incredible story-teller and i would really like to see him, chair entertainment and epic games turn this into a modern-day classic like the Lord of the Rings.




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I am not there.

I live in suburban Philadelphia, in a small town called Ambler. I’m not joking about the part where I say it is small. It has a street called “Main Street” and that is literally where everything happens. It is a good town, a lot of nice people, trees and clean crisp air. This suburban setting has its flipside(s); I have absolutely nothing to do outside of work, most people I know live 3 hours away in New York City, and I don’t want to be out and about on the streets of downtown Philly after 10pm. I don’t have a car nor the means to get one (at the moment, atleast 2 months before I even get close) I can’t make new friends! I am really not that old but an interesting mix of apathy and awkwardness stops me from doing it. College kids are stupid and older “kids” are, uhh, old. Seinfeld said it best, by the time you are an adult you have chosen your friends and you are stuck with them for life. SO, my TV is my roommate, my iPad and iPhone are my best friends, and my computer is my girlfriend. “Why don’t you read dude?!” the wise ones would say. I do.

I have been reading a lot off late and have built up a belief system purely based on my interpretations of what I read. I like to talk; rather, I love to talk about things i have read and get feedback, what most people call "an intelligent debate". Intelligent. But the more discerning members of my audience would have realized by now, there is no one to listen. So I made the poor decision to find people to “talk” to, online. Although I’m sure there are several people who share the same fascination with being informed as I do, the more I read – the more I feel others are not. I find myself getting increasingly aggravated by ideas that disagree with mine. Any argument opposing my “world view” only serves to reinforce my existing convictions, when I myself advocate free thought. Why do I have to take sides? Why have I become this self appointed crusader, fighting for the cause of rationality and logic the way I see it? Do I really have to argue and “win” to feel more comfortable about my own beliefs? Even if I do "win"; I have not, in any manner, reduced entropy in this society. I like to think so, but I have not.

So what do I do?! I seem to have found a way to be even more condescending by implying I am beyond mere right and wrong. I know what to do! I am going to be a -thought hedonist-. I just made that up, like I am going to with everything starting now. I am just going to go with whatever I feel is most suitable given my state of mind at the time. Ask me the same question a while later, I just might say something else. “WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?!” one might ask. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I simply am not there.

I Remember Nothing

The title is from Nora Ephron’s book of the same name, which started off really well I should add, but after the first few chapters she ironically begins chronicling her life. My past, on the other hand, just seems to be a series of vague recollections which I cannot definitively place in time. People, names, places, dates, times reduced to an unsolved jigsaw puzzle with several missing pieces. Yet all of what I don’t remember has resulted in the person I am now. I have been ‘maintaining’ a blog for about three years now, angryindianpsycho.blogspot.com. Was I angry? I have had a pretty decent life so far. Was I a psycho? Haven’t done anything too far from the ordinary from what I can recall. Am I an Indian? My passport seems to agree. I went through my blog and found that my anger stemmed from sexual deprivation and Indian psycho since my favourite movie was(is) American psycho. From my posts I understand that the idea of being an intellectual badass appealed to me and projected myself as one. My posts then turned into random philosophical musings, rants about desis in the US and failed attempts at comedy, adding pieces to the puzzle.

How did my thought evolve? What events occurred at those times that significantly affected the way I think and act? My whole past has been slipping away slowly and I just did not notice. My old blog, however lame, was able to give me good enough insight and I intend to carry this forward. This is going to be an effort to record significant events, observations and my thoughts about them, a blog about nothing, but everything that is Sajeev Krishnan.