Well, I always knew that Orson Scott Card practiced the same religion as me, but his Homcoming series really underscores that fact. ^^;;; I checked out the first volume, and was thumbing through the last couple of chapters while waiting for my computer to wake up, when a block of text drew my eye. Father who has visions, and a younger son who does as well? Father being commanded by a heavenly being (in this case, the Oversoul; in the religious one, God) to send his sons to collect a record from a wicked man who might kill them? The younger son having undying faith in this heavenly being and believing that if it commands them to do something, it will provide a way for them to accomplish it? Even Naphai's line about his faith is parallel to Nephi's. Heck, even their names look the same, though they're apparently pronounced slightly differently ( NAYH-fie and NEE-fie).

For those of your who don't practice the branch of Christianity as Card and I, all you really need to know is that Nephi was a prophet in some of our religious scriptures, and part of his story mirrors part of the first volume of Homecoming very closely.

It feels a bit like a cop-out, but then again, people stick Christ-figures into their stories all the time, with varying degrees of success. So, why not a Nephi figure? ^^;;; I'm wondering if the rest of this series mirrors the stories so closely. On the one hand, I find it amusing (kind of a shout-out, I guess), but on the other, it might turn out to be kind of boring if I already know what's going to happen. I suppose if the characterization is really good, I might still enjoy the series. Hopefully I'll feel for at least one character. 


All this talk about reading a book that you already know the basic storyline to reminds me of Wicked. I recently read it as well as its sequel, Son of a Witch. Honestly, I wasn't overly impressed. It was interested how Maguire gave Oz a political backdrop, but I just couldn't bring myself to care about any of characters, even Elphie. I didn't really like Liir's personality in the first novel, and at the end of the second, he's still an indecisive, sniveling kind of man. At least the first novel had a few characters that I felt had potential. But, just as I grew to like those characters, see their ability to grow into decent human beings, and wish for their success, Maguire would shift the point of view away from them, and when you next saw them, they would have regressed back to their old ways--in fact, they were always worse off than when they started! While I understand that this kind of thing happens all the time in real life, and that Maguire was probably going for a more gritty, realistic view of life, it still didn't make for a statisfying story. At the end of the first novel, I was expecting to feel for Elphie's death. Unfortunately, I really found that I could care less. I don't like feeling that way when the main character dies. My hopes that some things would be cleared up in the second novel were dashed as well. It leaves just as many questions and ugly feelings behind as the first one. All in all, an okay read, but I'm glad I got them from the library.

So, my right calf has been hurting for a while now. Yesterday, the pain spread up to the back of my thigh. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I'd done to it. Last night, I realized that every time I use my laptop at the kitchen table, I put my right foot up on the rungs of one of the chairs. I spent the rest of the night trying not to do so. ^^;;;

I also just tried to use a bot on mIRC. It was taking forever to start up, so I tried another one. After about ten or fifteen minutes, I realized that I had spelled both bots' names wrong. There's a "c" in Eclipse. ^^;;;


I think I need a nap. Anyone else?

Episode 27 of Touch made me cry, too, even though it was mostly flashbacks. 
 

 

In other news, I'm starting training for my crap job on Monday. Hopefully, it's just a temporary job, because even if I get 40 hours a week, I'll be making about half of what I did each year when attending college. That's counting my scholarships, but still. Blegh. I'm so glad I graduated during the worst economic crisis the US has seen since The Great Depression. Lovely.