Elantris and Legend and Todd

Last night I read the first three chapters of a book, online, on the author's website.

The author's name is Brandon Sanderson (click for link), and the book was called Elantris.

Today, I was browsing in Barnes & Noble, and I found it. On the cover is a quote by Orson Scott Card (the very same to whom I'm personally acquainted) that says "Elantris is the finest novel of fantasy to be written in many years."

I would have bought the book without the quote, but let's say it helps. After reading the first three chapters online, I desperately hoped there would be a link telling me to "Go to Chapter 4."

There wasn't. But I was intrigued enough, interested enough in the story and the characters and the storytelling (none of which is perfect, but it's above average - better than most things that get published nowadays) to buy the book today.

That's what I think we need, as readers. Not an excerpt or a synopsis or a rating system - I want to be able to read the first three or four chapters and judge for myself whether the book is my style and to be able to tell if the writer's there for me or him. And there isn't always time (or space) to sit and read the first few chapters of a book whose cover intrigued you...What if we didn't ever see the cover till we knew we wanted the thing? What a wacky world that would be.

-----(I'm going to start doing this to separate my thoughts)---(lalala I am Neil Gaiman.)

Thinking more about I Am Legend (might has well have been titled I, Legend - in the vein of Smith's current holiday movie book-killing trend) I have realized the significance of a somewhat cryptic and weird scene toward the middle of the film. In it, Smith drives past a mannequin - whom we met earlier (Frank, I think) - that has been placed in a very different spot from where he'd previously been (outside a supermarket). Smith thinks he sees the mannequin's head move, and proceeds to run toward it, telling Frank that if he is real, he'd better say so. Frank says nothing, and so Smith pumps his motionless plastic body full of bullets.

Smith then approaches Frank even further, still trying to figure out how he got where he got without Smith's help...and stuff, at that point, (or things) proceeds happening. Trappy stuff. Now, at first I couldn't figure out why the mannequin was there either, and figured (until today) that the reason it was there was because Will Smith was in fact going crazy and had put it there unbeknownst to us in a Tyler Durden Fight Clubby way. However, I now know that my thinking was wrong and that someone (or thing) else moved Frank. And I would have known that had the script continued in that direction and actually played out the ending of the book (which has been around for 53 years...and can be found at any local library) instead of the typical Hollywood happy/religious/bastardizing ending that we were forced to watch. I'll tell you right now that I can (and will, if asked by the Legend people) write a better (and how!) last twenty minutes for them to re-shoot and throw into the Director's Cut. Then they can pretend they did it right the first time.

Actually, I think I'll just pretend that my ending is what I saw, and hey! That's what I'll remember.



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I want to see Sweeney Todd now.