Entertainment - Media

I love love love my Kindle. However, Syp from Bio Break got me intrigued.  He, too, loves ebooks.  And he, too, reads his books on the Kindle.  The difference between us, however, comes in that he is referring to his iPhone app while I have the ebook reader from Amazon.com itself.

So I gave myself a little challenge.  I would read at least one novel in its entirety on my iPhone Kindle and see if Syp was nuts or if my wife had spent an exuberant amount of money on my Christmas gift that was inferior to something I’ve owned for years.

The book I chose was World of Warcraft – Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden.

“This sucks,” I thought to myself as I sat in the faculty parking lot, reading Arthas before my night class started.  I had been under the impression that being backlit would make night reading easier.

I had been under the wrong impression.

After just a few minutes, my head and eyes ached from the glare, so I turned off the Kindle app and started an audiobook to ease my head before I had to teach.

That night, I was perusing Syp’s blog, and I noticed that he mentioned changing the font/background color on the app.  I tried this option (which I had been previously unaware) and inverted the colors.  White letters on a black background was much easier on my eyes.  Even the Sepia setting was easier to read than the stark black-on-white.

Since I made that change, I have had not a headache one.

Probably the best feature of the Kindle for iPhone app is its portability.  As obvious as it is, it’s true.  Being able to read a few pages of a book while waiting on appointments, sitting in the car, even chilling in the mall waiting for my wife to get out of Ann Taylor is awesome.

While the normal Kindle 2 is extremely portable and I keep it in my briefcase all the time anyway, I found the iPhone version to actually be a little more convenient.  I didn’t have to pull out another device to read on or keep up with a separate device.  I always have my phone with me; therefore, my book is with me, too.

And its easy to read.  It took a little tinkering with, sure, but once I found my perfect text size/color and realized I prefer to read in landscape mode (thank goodness for the ability to lock the app in landscape or portrait), it was a cinch to read. Tap a couple of buttons, bada bing bada boom, a book in my hand, ready and easy to read.

There is no native downloading support in Kindle for iPhone.  This is unforgiveable.

To make a purchase from your iPhone, you have to go to the Amazon.com mobile site.  That’s right, the mobile site.  You can’t even use the Amazon iPhone app to purchase a book because you can only Wish List Kindle items with it.  This, my friends, is a serious flaw in the technology.

While certainly not a gamebreaker, one of the major advantages of the Kindle 2 is 1-click purchasing.  Convenience is a major selling point for ebooks, and Kindle for iPhone’s purchasing process is anything but.  I hope that Amazon realizes how obnoxious this lacking is and adds an in-app browser for the Kindle Store.

And it’s relatively uncomfortable to hold.  Unlike the actual Kindle 2, the iPhone was not made for luxurious lounging and comfortable reading.  It was made for multipurpose functionality.  And while it’s perfectly functional, the iPhone just doesn’t fit well in my hands for relaxed or extended reading.

And honestly, that’s the biggest draw of the Kindle 2: it’s exponentially more comfortable to hold and read than a physical book.  The iPhone Kindle, however, gave me a couple of hand cramps and just isn’t something that I rush to grab when I want a nice, quiet night at home.  It is great for on-the-go reading, but I don’t see it becoming a fixture of my quiet evenings at home.

While I do not expect the Kindle for iPhone app to ever be my first choice for ebooks, I have to say that it was a much nicer experience than I had anticipated.   I think my wife made the right choice in buying me the Kindle 2 for Christmas.  I like the iPhone Kindle, and I see myself getting a great deal of enjoyment out of it in the future; however, I do not see myself curling up with my iPhone instead of a good solid New Release hardcover or even the Kindle itself.

I have made the decision, though, to keep a couple of iPhone specific novels loaded at any given time.  That way, I still keep the mobility and wonder of literally never being without a good book, but don’t have to deal with those nagging little annoyances that make me prefer the Kindle 2 as my ereader of choice.

Thank you for reading App Review: Kindle for iPhone, a post from Professor Beej.

I have always enjoyed franchise fiction.  Whether it’s Star Wars, Dragonlance, Magic: The Gathering, or something else entirely, I like having a veritable library of books at my disposal when I want to completely engross myself in a shared intellectual property.  Before now, however, I had avoided the Warcraft franchise novels because  my first experience was with Richard A. Knaak’s adjective-laden wordiness in the War of the Ancients trilogy: I stopped after the first page and never looked back.

So when I got back into WoW with my Paladin, I felt it would be a good time to give Christie Golden’s Arthas: Rise of the Lich King a shot.  And while I had read a few excerpts from it in stores and was less than impressed, my newfound interest in the lore revolving around Arthas made it tolerable and, by the end, a bit enjoyable.

While it was certainly not the most meticulously crafted novel I’ve ever read, Arthas was an interesting diversion to the inundation of Literature (big L) I was experiencing due to my teaching.

Arthas is the first novel of Golden’s I’ve ever put my hands on.  And for an introductory novel, I can honestly say that I won’t shy away from her books in the future.  I don’t know if I will actively seek them out, but she is certainly not abstinence worthy like our old pal Knaak.

Her style is not quite the interesting words one gets from Timothy Zahn or Kevin J. Anderson’s franchise novels, but it’s passable.  She does not overly rely on adjectives to give the illusion of detail.  She’s straightforward without being terse, but she paints a good enough picture for the reader to vividly see the world many of us have only experienced in various videogames.

Long story short: She’s Hemingway compared to Knaak. I’d be content to have her writing career.

It was fun.  It really was.  Even though I’ve read the WoWwiki pages on Arthas a dozen times, seen the cutscenes from WoW, quested in WoW, and played most of Warcraft III, the narrative still interested me enough to keep me awake at night just long enough for one more chapter.  I would often find myself falling asleep in the dark (I read this book, by the way, entirely on the iPhone Kindle app), but would rouse myself long enough to finish my current chapter.

The novel gave voice, finally, to characters I’ve interacted with in WoW whom I had never been entirely familiar with.  Kael’thas Sunstrider, Illidan Stormrage, and Sylvanas Windrunner being the foremost three, not even considering Uther the Lightbringer and Varian Wrynn.

Probably my favorite part of the novel, however, was how Golden took excerpts of dialogue and quest text from World of Warcraft and used them in her novel.  The conversation that Jaina, Arthas, and Uther have before the Culling of Stratholme is straight from the instance preamble.  The scene in Frostmourne Cavern is lifted partially from the game.  Even Arthas’ burning of his men’s ships comes from the text already established in WoW.  If nothing else, Golden successfully recreates memorable scenes from the Arthas lore using moments most players should be familiar with.

Long story short: Interesting characterization and fun  action tie directly to well-known pieces of Warcraft lore.

It brings nothing new to the table.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch. Its entire story is something that we all knew before (we being Warcraft fans).  From Arthas’ falling in love with Jaina and his Culling of Stratholme to his ascent of the Frozen Throne and donning of the Lich King’s helmet, we’ve seen it all before.  I had hoped that Christie Golden’s novel would open up some new narrative threads or explore old ones more deeply, but no.  Not really.  All readers get is a retelling of the story.  An interesting retelling, mind you, but a retelling nonetheless.

Retelling notwithstanding, the book is formulaic.  If you’ve read a single fantasy novel before, you’ve read this one.  While the main character technically being a villain (antihero?) is a decent enough twist on the formula, the events, settings, and plot direction are predictable to anyone familiar with fantasy tropes.  That’s to be expected, honestly, but I was still hoping for something…more detailed.

I really feel as though there should be a sequel to the novel chronicling the events of Wrath of the Lich King from the Wrathgate to Icecrown Citadel.  Sure, it’s still retelling something from one of the games, but at least it would be the complete story instead of the prologue that Arthas feels like right now.

Long story short: Been there, done that.

The whole book feels rushed.  I am unaware as to deadlines and schedules and the time involved in writing Arthas, but it really feels as though Christie Golden were given 6 months to get Blizzard a manuscript to approve.  Like I said, not that it’s bad.  It’s just rushed.  It feels incomplete.

The whole novel is narration.  Well, not the whole thing, but a lot of it.  Dialogue is mostly kept to a minimum with exposition being the order of the day.  And that’s fine, but it makes the whole novel kind of read like a summary.  Because of the nearly excessive narration, it feels like the novel bites off too much than it can chew.  There are too many plots and events and scene changes than the author can handle, so it all ends up in one slightly jumbled/rushed mess that reads like someone explaining the Arthas saga to the readers instead of them experiencing it firsthand.

Long story short: Excessive narration makes the book feel rushed, almost like reading a 400 page WoWwiki entry over Arthas.

If you are a WoW fan, you might as well read it.  It’s quick and just well-written enough for it not to be a waste of your time or money.

However, if you’re not a WoW fan, I’m not sure if I can recommend it.  I don’t know if it would hold its own as a non-franchise fantasy novel.  It’s decent enough, mind you, but it’s nothing special.  There are probably better ways to spend your time and money if you’re not specifically interested in Warcraft lore or Arthas himself.

Thank you for reading Review: “World of Warcraft – Arthas – Rise of the Lich King” by Christie Golden, a post from Professor Beej.