I’m a big fan of Stephen Lawhead and (the deceased) Robert Jordan whose final Wheel of Time book just hit the shelves.
Lawhead’s Byzantium and his Patrick are, in my humble opinion, among the best books written in the last 3 decades with Byzantium the greater of the two.
Robert Jordan’s world is captivating.
I have not read either Lawhead or Jordan (although I listened to a CD version of the first volume of Wheel of Time series and thought it was pretty good). I’ll have to check them out.
For those of you who are gamers, there was a series originating on the Playstation that I wish I was rich enough to buy the story rights for.
It was called Xanogears/Xenosaga.
Written in Japan, it was an epic story spanning 10000 years and including every bit of hard sci fi/space opers you can imagine. A lot of the background materials are out there on the net and are a story in themselves.
You had everything you can imagine built around a core of political/religious intrigue that the word ‘epic’ does no justice to whatsoever.
What was supposed to be a six game series ended at 4 (three Xenosaga, which was a re imagining of Xenogears) and the original....
Because gamers bitched it was too much like reading a book. Sales tanked and they pulled the plug. Had they marketed it to adult/older gamers, rather than teens, the outcome would likely been different.
How many kids can grasp Nietzsche wrapped in a background of Catholic lore?