century trilogy

One Last MIQ: The six most interesting questions I missed (Part 2)

I’ve decided to retire the MIQ blog…and to convert it.

Welcome! This post is part of my Most Interesting Questions series, which means I’ll be answering the most interesting questions I can find or think of. This post will focus on a variety of different novels and franchises.

By the way, if you’re wondering about who I am, I’m an author from Portland, OR. I write epic fantasy and children’s science fiction.

Being that it’s early in my author career, things are very fluid. Therefore, my blog is going to be changing a little after this post.

Instead of exclusively answering the most interesting questions about various bestsellers, I’m going to focus this blog on my day to day author activities too. And possibly I’ll highlight other things in my life. Mostly, I’ll keep the blog writing related.

One part of that conversion will be accepting review requests. Over the last year, I’ve read a few indie published novels, and reviewed them on Amazon. However, in attempting to gather reviews for my own books, I’ve come to appreciate just how hard it can be, especially when starting out, to get those reviews.

So if you are an author, feel free to request a review of your novel. One thing I won’t be doing is creating a book blog. I leave that to those more skilled than I. But I like reading and would not mind helping some indie authors out with getting reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes&Noble, Bookbub, etc. If you’re not an author, just ignore that little plug. Instead, you could check out my books.

Now, I’ll get to my last MIQ blog post. This post covers Percy Jackson, Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, Mistborn, and Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy, among other works.

Q#1: If you could add anything to Camp Half-Blood, anything, rules, places, items, etc., what would you add?

A: Honestly, probably more interaction with the gods. I know it’s not in greek mythology for them to interact with their kids more, but I feel like they should do it, so many of the kids just get abandoned and not claimed. Or at least maybe there should be a movement from some of the campers or counselors to try and convince the gods to do that.

Q#2: Who would win in a fight, Katara or Amon?

A: Probably Amon. But it depends. As we know Katara can bloodbend on the full moon. Amon can blood bend any time he wants. So if it’s not the full moon, then Amon wins. But if it is, then they are both blood benders. Would one be stronger than the other? And though Amon has bloodbent more than Katara, Katara probably has just as much fighting experience as him, and there would be more to their fight than just bloodbending if their bloodbending cancelled each other out. So if it was a full moon, I could see Katara winning the fight.

Q #3: Which kind of Twinborn would you most prefer to be (Mistborn)?

A: Honestly I think it would be awesome to be able to fly, so I would like to be a Coinshot for one of my abilities. Then for the other one I would probably take the steel feruchemical ability, and be a Steelrunner too. That would strengthen my abilities too because they both use the same metal.

Q #4: Do I have to read the Mistborn trilogy to get Wax&Wayne?

A: I would say no. Brandon Sanderson repeats a lot of how the magic system and the world works in the beginning of his books. So if you hadn’t read Mistborn, you would still understand Wax&Wayne. However, that said, I believe you will appreciate Wax&Wayne a lot more if you read Mistborn first. Because there are a lot of things that carry over. It is kind of like cookies and milk. You can drink milk without cookies, and you can eat cookies without milk, but they taste better together.

Q #5: Which one is your favorite character in Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy?

A: In Book 1, I loved reading Grigori’s chapters, and I also loved reading about Ethel. In book 2, my favorites were probably Daisy and Lloyd. In book 3, I actually really came to appreciate Dimka and I would say Walli, but just at the beginning of the book. It’s hard to narrow it down even that far. But if I had to choose a favorite character overall, it would probably be Daisy. Just because her character changes so much, and in such a great way, and I really think she is probably the most well-written character in the entire series.

Q #6: Who is your favorite fictional dragon from books?

A: I love Sapphira from Eragon. Maybe I am biased because she is one of the first dragons I read about in a book, back in 6th grade. But she is really human at heart, she’s not just some wild creature or an all-knowing godlike creature, she interacts and converses in meaningful ways with the world, and has a magnetic personality. Aside from Sapphira, I also love Cuicao from my own books. She’s the dragon partner in Sand and Smoke. I guess it’s cheating to choose my own character, though.

Four Most Interesting Questions about Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy

One of the things I really enjoyed about the first two books in The Century Trilogy was seeing life and the struggles of ordinary people in world wars 1 & 2.

Welcome! This post is part of my Most Interesting Questions series, which means I’ll be answering the most interesting questions I can find or think of on Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy. This post is a little different than my usual posts. I’m veering away from sci-fi/fantasy this month to look at a trilogy of historical fiction books. These are Ken Follett books, and they are really good in my opinion. The first book is called Fall of Giants. As of writing this, there is not a Fall of Giants movie, or a The Century Trilogy movie, but there may be one in the future! The second book is called Winter of the World, and it is the best book of the three in my opinion. All of the books follow a couple different families, through the century. There is even a Century Trilogy family tree you can probably find online, and in some of the books.

By the way, if you’re wondering about who I am, I’m an author from Portland, OR. I write epic fantasy and have dabbled in children’s science fiction.

Anyway, let’s get to the Ken Follett books. Here are the most interesting questions about The Century Trilogy.

CenturyTrilogy

Q #1: How historically accurate are Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy novels?

A: I’d say they are very historically accurate. I have a friend who is a history buff and he’s the one who recommended them to me. I don’t think he would have done so if they weren’t historically accurate. Also, Ken Follett puts a little disclaimer in the back of all the books. In each of them he uses a mixture of fiction characters with real characters. He only places the real characters in situations or locations where they either are known to have been at a specific time, or could have been at a specific time according to public knowledge. Ken Follett also consults experts on the various time periods he writes about – you can see who he consults in the acknowledgements section at the back of each book.

Q #2: Did anyone make a movie about Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy?

A: Not yet, as far as I am aware. However, according to Ken Follett’s website, Sony Pictures and ABC are working on making it into a TV series: https://ken-follett.com/faq/

Q #3: Are the British culture & government really as stagnant & stubborn as depicted in Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy?

A: I’ll do my best to answer this, though I don’t live in Britain, and have only been once, when I studied abroad from January-May in college. During that time, I didn’t really get to know a whole lot about British politics, so most of what I do know comes from films or other books I’ve read, which may or may not be accurate. I do remember seeing the film Darkest Hour a year or so ago, which seemed to depict a similarly stagnant and stubborn political landscape. In it, Winston Churchill has to fight tooth and nail against politicians who don’t want to go to war against the Nazis. Since I live in America, I know a lot more about American politics, and I will say that many of our politicians are stagnant & stubborn, so I don’t think those are necessarily traits unique to British politicians. In America it seems like every other day one politician or another is saying that something is too ambitious or radical to be passed, and we should aim for a more moderate solution. I think part of that is the nature of good politics, the other part might be some sort of selfishness or greed. The argument for things being stagnant is that if change happens too fast there’s a risk it can be the wrong sort of change. The government has a responsibility to make sure its people are cared for, and if something changes that makes things worse for the people, it can be worse than no change at all, especially if the people are already generally well cared for.

Q #4: What are your thoughts on Ken Follett’s The Century Trilogy?

A: I think it is a solid read! The characters are very easy to relate to, and the history is written in a really appealing and educational way. However, I do feel that the third book in the trilogy was a little too spectacular. One of the things I really enjoyed about the first two books in The Century Trilogy was seeing life and the struggles of ordinary people in world wars 1 & 2. By the third book, a lot of these ordinary people have produced extraordinary children, and at times things that happened seemed cheesy or too convenient to happen in real life.

Thanks for reading! Now I invite you to check out more MIQ posts below, or my books. If you enjoy epic fantasy or children’s books, you might find something you like.