Adam Bolander's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"

Hello, Goodreads! My name is Adam Bolander, and this is my first Blog Post. I’m the independent author for seven novels, all of which you can find on here, and an weekly updating web-series you can read on WattPad and FictionPress. But that’s not what you want to hear right now. Let’s get to know each other!
I live in Arkansas- and no, I don’t run around barefoot (not everywhere, at least), play banjo, or try to hook up with my cousins. I mean, just in case you were wondering. I do have a fond love of the forest, though, with its peaceful quiet and amazing lack of motorcycles roaring past your house at 2:00 in the morning. Can you think of a better place for a writer to live? Because I can’t...
Besides writing and reading, I also love to play video games. If I’m not writing, reading, or working, I’m probably holed up in my living room with all the curtains drawn, telling myself I’ll turn the TV off after one more level... one more level... My favorite console is the Playstation 3, and some of my favorite games are Heavenly Sword, Tales of Xillia, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, and Nier. If you have any idea what those games are, you’ve probably already realized that I’m a JRPG nut. If you have to ask what a JRPG just forget about it and go back to your Call of Duty.
Anybody who knows me can tell you that I’m an absolute goofball. I love to make my friends laugh. If you don’t like excessive sarcasm, you and I might not get along. I tell people that if they never get a sarcastic remark from me, I probably hate them. Hopefully this will keep my blog posts from being too boring. On another note, Zimbabwe is really fun to say. You should try it sometime.
I love to read. Fantasy is my favorite genre, and the only time I read anything else is for Young Adult books like The Hunger Games or Divergent. My list of favorite authors is as follows: Ted Dekker, Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, R.A. Salvatore, and M.I. McAllister. They’re awesome. Go read their books. Just... just do it. I’ve also just finished reading Incarceron by Catherine Fisher. The link to the review is at the bottom of this post. Click it. Read it. READ IT.
Last but not least: MY BOOKS. My novels can all be listed in the Young Adult Fantasy genre, and I’m proud to say that they’re some of the cleanest young adult books on the market. You get all the good stuff (action, adventure, romance, and a good healthy dose of angst) without any of the bad stuff (swearing, sex, drugs, drinking, and just about everything else that has no place in a Young Adult novel). If you’re a fan of stories like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, you should check out my Slayer/Sphinx trilogy. You can get them from the Amazon Kindle Store for 99 cents each. If you’re into animal stories, like Erin Hunter’s Warriors series, give Legends of the Saloli a look. If you just want to check out my writing without having to spend any money (hey, I don’t blame you!), then get on Smashwords and download Staying Human- it’s completely free! You could also look up Amber Silverblood on WattPad. It’s free to read too, and I update it with a new chapter every Saturday. You can follow me on Twitter, username @adambolander1, and like my Facebook page for updates on how my writing is going. Occaisionally I will drop hints about my new book, which I am mysteriously referring to as PROJECT GRAVITY.
Well, that’s just about it for now. I’ll make new posts whenever something interesting happens. Like, when I finish a new book. Or if I review a book. Or if I have a funny joke that I just can’t wait to tell. So keep checking in. Leave me a comment, send me a message, or a friend request. I want to connect with people on here! So come on, let’s be friends!
Until next time! Adam out.

Review for Catherine Fisher's Incarceron: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

All right, I know that Final Fantasy is a series of video games, not books, so let’s just skip over the part where you all throw me into a pit of rabid chinchillas- all right? But even if it’s not a book, I still feel like Final Fantasy can serve as a great example of where the fantasy genre should be, as opposed as where it is now.
First of all, for those of you who aren’t aware, Final Fantasy is a series of video games that started on the original Nintendo system, and have spanned all the major (and not-so-major) consoles. There are fourteen numbered entries, with the fifteenth currently in development for the Playstation 4, and more spinoffs and direct sequels than I can count, like Final Fantasy: Tactics, Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, Dissidia: Final Fantasy, and the Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy. The games are, with the exception of the direct sequels, completely disconnected. You can play them in any order, or even skip some of them, without missing any important details. This is not just because the stories are disconnected, the worlds they take place in are too. The twin words, Cocoon and Pulse, in Final Fantasy XIII have absolutely no connection to Spira and Zanarkand from Final Fantasy X. The games do, admittedly, share a few common elements, such as the summon spirits, which have led many people to argue about how the games might be more connected than was originally beleived- but that’s not important to what I’m trying to get at here.
More than anything, though, the Final Fantasy games are known for having amazing stories. Like most roleplaying games, storytelling is usually the main focus. Each of these games, have a long, epic narrative to share with you that spans over their unique worlds. These stories are long, often requiring anywhere between sixty to one hundred hours to complete. And here’s the point that I’m trying to get at: they’re DIFFERENT.

Now, I’m a fan of fantasy in general. I love Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Robert Jordan, and R.A. Salvatore as much as anybody else. J.R.R. Tolkien is one of my heroes. But have you noticed how the genre has stagnated over the past few decades? Nobody wants to move outside of what Tolkien put forward in The Lord of the Rings. Classic medieval setting, swords and shield, staffs and wands, elves and dwarves, you know what I mean. You’ll be hard pressed to find anything that doesn’t fall even somewhat into these categories. I’m not saying that good stories can’t come from this setting- far from it! Elantris, Mistborn, The Name of the Wind, and The Eye of the World all provided for some awesome adventures. I’m just saying, isn’t it time we moved on to some different settings? That’s where Final Fantasy caught my attention. The settings they put forth don’t immediately bring to mind anything else I’ve ever read/watched/or played. I don’t begin the game and immediately think “Wow, they totally ripped off Lord of the Rings with this.” Final Fantasy VII’s half fantasy half scifi setting was the first thing I noticed about it. You start the game riding a train to a factory, which you plan to infiltrate and set off a bomb. Upon arriving, you fend off a swarm of gun toting guards, mutant tentical-y dogs things, and laser shooting robots with a sword larger than you are. Your partner is a man with a gun for a hand. You also have access to a lightning and an ice spell. Now, tell me that sounds ANYTHING like a book you’ve recently read.
Likewise, in Final Fantasy X, you play as a famous sports star when a gigantic Godzilla-esque monster crashes your big game, somehow transporting you to an alternate, yet almost identical, world. There you become bodyguard to a young summoner who is about to begin her religious pilgrimage to obtain all the most powerful summon spirits and defeat the giant monster- which also turns out to be YOUR FATHER! Yeah, name another book that pulled THAT one on you.
The characters are awesome too, and not just the main characters. Let’s say you walk up to somebody on the street and say “Name a Final Fantasy character.” Assuming they had any idea what Final Fantasy was, they’d probably say, “Sephiroth.” Sephiroth is by far the most popular character in any Final Fantasy game. With his long, silver hair, one black wing, and seven foot long katana, he’s got an image that will stick in your head. He has his iconic theme song, “One Winged Angel,” that is instantly recognizable even to people who haven’t played the game. And these are all things you can appreciate without having even played Final Fantasy VII. Play the game and you’ll find one of the deepest villains of any story I’ve ever experienced. His mother was an alien come to destroy our world, but he, himself, became a soldier to protect it. Upon discovering his heritage, though, his sanity gradually snaps, leaving us with the most terrifying psychopath to ever walk the planet. This guy can swing his sword faster than the eye can see, kill entire armies without batting an eye, and even throw a freaking star at you. And through it all, he has a calm, collected attitude, like he couldn’t care less about the pain and suffering he’s causing. Only one word can describe him: MEM-OR-A-BLE.

So, why don’t authors do that more? Fantasy is a wide open genre. There are no rules! Why do we keep limiting ourselves to what one man created, and thousands of others have replicated? Again, that’s not to say that good stories can’t come from these settings, but wouldn’t it be cool to see something DIFFERENT now and then? Something UNIQUE? Something that doesn’t take place in a renaissance fair? Mistborn gave this to us somewhat, making the setting and style and interesting mixture like Victorian-age and typical fantasy. I say this now, so hear me, readers of the world: WE NEED MORE UNIQUE FANTASY!
I mean, I’d like more of it. I’m not going to stop reading books if it doesn’t happen, or anything. I’ve made this my own personal goal, though. I want to write a story someday that when I’m finished, I can look back at it and think to myself, with sincere honesty, that I could see it being turned into a Final Fantasy game. Not because I think it will (though that would be AWESOME), but because it means I’ll have crafted a story that doesn’t follow the conventions set down by the other authors before me. It will be... yes, I’ve said it a hundred times already, but unique!
But what about all of you? Are you satisfied with the fantasy genre where it is now? Or do you, like me, hope to see some it branch out into more unexplored territories? Let me know what you think in the comments!