Rhythm of War Review - A Slow Burn Towards Book Five

A brief refresher: the Stormlight Archive is set to be Brandon Sanderson’s magnum opus, the grandest and most ambitious of his many, many books within a shared universe called the Cosmere. Against an ancient threat supposedly defeated long ago, the Knights Radiant must rise again to protect the world of Roshar and its inhabitants. There are sentient ideas come to life called spren. There are giant swords that cut stone and sever people’s souls. And of course, there is Stormlight, the magical power source held in gemstones that are renewed by a massive hurricane which has ravaged the world for millennia. It’s a series planned to have ten books, and Rhythm of War is the fourth.

I’ll avoid specific Rhythm of War plot spoilers for this review, but there will be plenty about the series so far. SPOILER WARNING from this point on. There, you’ve been warned.

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Anyway, there used to be only one hurricane. Now there’s two; an opposing storm has arisen which empowers the enemy with the dark magic of Voidlight. It’s complicated. The nature of these different forms of Light lies at the heart of Rhythm of War’s storyline, but more time is spent ruminating with the series’ many broken characters.

THE STORY SO FAR

These books have never had the most consistent pacing. The Way of Kings was a slow beginning which set the stage for conflicts to come. A big part of what kept me reading was the sheer uniqueness of the setting. A war playing out over a vast plain of fissures and chasms which require slave-carried bridges to cross, and the former soldier Kaladin’s struggle to save himself and his fellow slaves against impossible odds. There were legendary heroes now revered as deities for fighting an ancient enemy that no one even remembers; once-heroic Knights who betrayed humanity yet formed the basis for a culture in which eye colour determines social status; motile plants and giant crustaceans which evolved to survive the storms. This world was different.

While still largely set on the Shattered Plains, Words of Radiance pushed the plot forwards in oh-so-satisfying ways. All the main characters were actually gathered in one place instead of faffing around on separate quests and only briefly running into each other. (Looking at you, latter Wheel of Time books.) People grow and change. Shocking twists occur. Shallan became a much better heroine compared to the first book. Words of Radiance was truly brilliant.

Then Oathbringer took us on a whirlwind tour of very different locales: the grim darkness of the long-abandoned tower city, Urithiru; the wartorn cities of Kholinar and Thaylenah; and the strange and fantastical realm of spren, Shadesmar. The third book zoomed out in scope in order to pack so much into those pages, sometimes to its detriment. But Dalinar’s backstory tied it all together, the bittersweet tale of a man in the process of changing. The Blackthorn is absolutely one of the best characters Sanderson has ever written, apparently the first he ever wrote. I teared up when he saw the light during the final battle, man. That doesn’t happen often.

And that brings us to Rhythm of War, which returns to the slower pacing of The Way of Kings.

BROKEN HEROES

The Stormlight Archive stands out in how the main characters struggle with trauma and mental illness. Kaladin is crippled by depression. Shallan has split personalities which allow her to escape her horrific past. Dalinar must confront the harsh truth that he was a murderous monster for most of his life, responsible for the death of someone he loved. Watching these broken people overcome their pasts and become better, truly worthy of being Knights Radiant, is inspiring. But it’s also frustrating when they continue to struggle with mental health despite their change in circumstances, even though this is entirely realistic.

This makes up the bulk of Rhythm of War’s core conflicts. Kaladin and Shallan are both increasingly lost in their own minds and must confront the traumas that made them who they are. Navani is raised to a central character as she delves into the mysteries of Stormlight and Voidlight while fighting her own imposter syndrome. I was certain this fourth book would focus on Jasnah after she was crowned queen at the end of Oathbringer. But nope, this time it’s Venli who gets the flashbacks. Through her we take a closer look at how the war with the Parshendi first began, even as she walks the dangerous path of serving the Fused as a Radiant singer.

The book’s more adventurous plotline follows Shallan and Adolin as they return to Shadesmar on a mission to convince the honorspren to join the war effort, even though the long-ago betrayal of the Knights Radiant struck them the hardest and reduced the vast majority of their numbers to ‘deadeyes’, the spren version of the walking dead. I liked the growing bond between Adolin and his Shardblade, Maya, a deadeye herself, along with the increasingly complex interplay between Shallan and her alternate personas. On the other hand, it feels like the author gave her and Adolin short shrift with the husband-and-wife aspect of things. Their wedding happened offscreen, for crying out loud! I don’t know, they’re still sweet and loving towards one another, and he’s remarkably accepting of her split-second personality changes. I guess I was expecting their relationship to evolve once they were married.

Meanwhile, for all his battle prowess as a Radiant, Kaladin has grown increasingly beaten down and internally scarred. Rhythm of War puts him situations where he’s forced to face his past, his depression, and the truth about what holds him back from achieving the Fourth Ideal. Darkness and the struggle to keep fighting were major themes for him in The Way of Kings and Rhythm of War brings them back in spades.

There’s a strong focus on character development in these pages. It's nice to slow down with the characters as they go about the routines of their lives, treating wounds and sketching spren and brushing horses. But what stood out for me was the lack of worldbuilding. Compared to all the unique and interesting locales of earlier books, the settings in this one felt too familiar. Urithiru, Shadesmar, the Shattered Plains, Kholinar, Azir. These are all places we’ve been to before (with some exceptions). Though it is interesting seeing how they’ve changed over time, the settings just don’t feel as groundbreaking as they used to. What happens to our heroes and heroines and yes, villains too, is groundbreaking! Stuff happens, make no mistake. Rhythm of War just takes its sweet time getting there.

It would be remiss of me to leave out the outstanding endpaper portraits of the Heralds and the detailed illustrations throughout the book. The artwork of the Stormlight Archive has always been excellent and it remains so here.

CONCLUSION

Rhythm of War sets up some much larger and more exciting conflicts down the line. Seriously, Book Five is going to be crazy. But Book Four, well. This might just be my least favorite Stormlight title so far. That doesn’t mean it’s bad; none of these books are bad. It’s just outshined by earlier titles.

Rhythm of War was fine. But I have a feeling that the fifth book will be a lot better.

 

A Whole New World

So recently my family discovered the HGTV channel. In the evenings after dinner, we’ll watch shows about fixing, renovating, and discovering new homes. One in particular is called Perfect Home Asia, about American couples, families, and individuals looking for the ideal house or apartment as they move to an Asian country for the first time. They often get work as English teachers, amusingly.

I’m sure that Western audiences find the participants relatable and the differences in culture and design exotic. I do too when the setting is somewhere far away like Japan or India. And sometimes the show will be set in a Southeast Asian country like Thailand, Singapore, or Malaysia. It interests me, seeing how people from the United States react to local fixtures like squatting toilets and dragon fruit. Things that are outside their comfort zone.

Because twenty-one years ago, I was one of these people. I was born in the US and moved to Malaysia at age eight. Most of my teens were spent adjusting to a very different climate and culture. Most of my twenties were taken up with forming a new identity as someone of mixed heritage and coming to appreciate my Sabahan roots. And now here I am entering my thirties, having lived most of my life on this culturally and ecologically diverse island called Borneo.

Isn’t that curious? I was born on the other side of the world, and now I call this one home. Life is strange sometimes.

The other reason I like the show is that it awakens a bit of wanderlust in me. For all that I moved across the world as a child, I’ve stayed in one place since. For one reason or another, I was always at home, guarding the fort while others have traveled to other countries and continents. Heck, I’ve barely even gone anywhere within Malaysia.

The jungles of Borneo are among the oldest in the world.

I talk about books and video games because that’s where I’ve spent a lot of my time over the years: with my nose in a book or my hands on keys and controls. I’ve also talked about psychology, self-improvement, and addiction. These are topics that interest me; the ways we think, grow, and become hooked on things. And of course, I value imagination and creativity. Whether it’s fantasy and science fiction, words and bright colours, or emotion and thought, I’ve spent much of my life thus far exploring other worlds.

The irony is that I’ve hardly explored at all in real life.

And over the past two years especially, with the pandemic keeping borders closed and all of us hunkered down, wary of even going to the mall, I’ve come to realize that I don’t want to just stay in one place when this is over. When my mom was my age, she’d left home on her own adventures a long time ago, flown across the world and back again. My life has been pretty localized by comparison – although growing up in Malaysia has been an adventure all its own.

But don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not a bad thing that I’ve always been home. I got to spend these years with my mom.

Because we were together, we made so many memories throughout the years. Going out for pizza, movies, all the quiet dinners at home together. Struggling with her illnesses, her cancer diagnosis, sleeping on the hospital floor at her bedside during chemo. Through the good times and the bad, my mom and I were together until the end of my twenties. I’ll always be grateful that we had this time together. Not everyone is so lucky.

I can’t believe it’s been over a year now since she passed away. Time speeds up as we get older, and it sure as heck isn’t slowing down.

My mom is gone now, and I know she wanted me to spread my wings, so to speak. I’m entering a new phase of life. Everything that’s happened over these last few years – my mom’s illness and passing, the pandemic keeping us all locked in place – makes me realize that I want to experience life. To see new horizons, storms, and sunsets in other parts of the globe. There’s so much out there that I haven’t seen or done. Not yet, anyway.

I’ll still be talking about fantasy worlds, to be sure. But nowadays…

I want to explore the real world too. 

Why Anti-Vaxxers Are Nothing New

We’re more than halfway through 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic rages on throughout the world. Malaysia has just passed the grim milestone of 20,000 cases a day. More infectious variants such as Beta, Delta, and Lambda are on the rise. Repeated lockdowns have taken their toll on the economy. Amidst the threat of the virus, people have lost loved ones, livelihoods, and even their will to live. Things are looking bleak.

But unlike in 2020, we now have an effective, non-economically damaging way of fighting back: vaccination. Multiple COVID-19 vaccines worldwide are in various phases of rollout, such as Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac. In Malaysia, the process for getting one varies from appointment via the MySejahtera app to outreach programs for more rural areas. Walk-ins are now allowed in certain parts of the country. What matters is that more and more people are getting vaccinated.

Including me: I had my second Pfizer dose last month. I am now considered fully vaccinated. That does not mean I can’t still get infected, because I can. I’d just be much less likely to end up in the hospital. If anything, we’re only in the pandemic’s second act. The Delta variant moves fast; you can get it from breathing the same air as an infected person for a few seconds. 

And yet amid so much turmoil, some people remain convinced that this is all a conspiracy, that the vaccines are a scam to inject us with microchips and turn us into sheep or whatever. These people believe that COVID-19 doesn’t exist. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But a glance back at history shows us that reactions like these are nothing if not predictable.

Today I’m talking about why anti-vaxxers are nothing new.

First, let’s go over a brief refresher on how our bodies’ immune systems work and what, precisely, these vaccines actually do.

How Does the Immune System Work Anyway?

There’s an old Disney movie called Osmosis Jones that characterized the immune system as our bodies’ police force. It’s close enough. The immune system is the collective term for the various organs, tissues, and cells that work together to combat threats to the body. These could be germs, foreign substances, or mutations within the body itself, e.g., cancer.

More specifically, there are two distinct subsections to the immune system: the innate immune system, which activates a blanket response against common viruses and bacteria; and the adaptive immune system, which learns to target specific threats which have been encountered before. The latter is integral to how vaccines work.

Let’s take a common childhood disease, chickenpox, also known as varicella. Everyone knows that if you’re infected once you’ll almost always be immune for the rest of your life. (I caught it when I was ten or eleven, no idea how.) But why? It’s the adaptive immune system to the rescue! Having suffered through the first infection, your body has learned to recognize the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) and will unleash a blistering assault on any future incursions.

The History of Vaccination

This is where vaccines come in: they intentionally activate the adaptive immune system. ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ isn’t just a quote. As early as 16^th century China, a method called variolation involved exposing healthy people, often children, to scabs and secretions from those infected with smallpox as a means of inoculation; this caused them to contract a milder form of the disease. The practice became common in many parts of the world. Because individuals treated this way could still transmit smallpox to others, variolation sometimes led to further outbreaks and public backlash. But anyone who survived would be immune.

Source: The History of Vaccines

An English doctor, Edward Jenner, developed the first true vaccine in 1796 based on a similar insight: country milkmaids who’d had the mild disease of cowpox never contracted its far more dangerous cousin, smallpox. (The word ‘vaccine’ is derived from vacca, or ‘cow’ in Latin.) His experiments with inserting pus from cowpox-infected individuals into the arms of children granted them immunity. Jenner was widely mocked and ridiculed for his work, but the results were undeniable. Within 150 years, this once-deadly illness had been completely eradicated.

The same story can be told for many other historically terrible diseases such as polio, measles, and tuberculosis. Through vaccines, antibiotics, and modern medical treatments, these illnesses either no longer exist or are far less of a threat than they once were. COVID-19 is just the latest in a long, long line of illnesses attacking vulnerable human bodies which haven’t had a chance to develop immunity before some form of effective treatment was developed.

But getting people to believe in those treatments could be an uphill battle. From the 19^th century onwards, reasons for vaccine hesitancy have ranged from religious and sanitary concerns about inserting foreign matter into the body to resentment towards government laws requiring it, to wilder ideas about sterilization and biological warfare. Anti-vaccination organizations, protests, and beliefs have been around as long as vaccines themselves. 

An anti-vaccine poster from the 19th century.

In fact, many modern safety practices were once the subject of heated debate.

The Problem With Public Opinion

Did you know that seat belts, of all things, were once considered controversial?

During the mid-twentieth century, there were major debates about them in the United States where they were first introduced. They were restrictive and uncomfortable, detractors claimed. These restraints could trap passengers in a burning car or prevent them from being thrown clear of an accident to safety. The government had no right to impose these ridiculous laws impinging on people’s freedoms, they said. Using a seat belt should be an individual’s personal choice.

An instrument of tyranny.

The reason this sounds like nonsense today, of course, is hard evidence. What are the odds of surviving being ‘thrown clear’ headfirst into oncoming traffic? The effects of sudden and immediate deceleration on the human body are common knowledge nowadays. But this wasn’t always so. Once, the idea of having to restrain yourself in a moving vehicle was radical and dangerous.

Or for a medical example: washing our hands. Since childhood, we’ve all been taught this most basic of personal hygiene practices. Everybody knows how germs spread through contact and that keeping your hands clean is a smart thing to do. But this wasn't always the case.

In 1847, the spread of diseases was still poorly understood. A Hungarian doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis was struggling to understand the high mortality rates among women giving birth in his hospital. Eventually, he realized that these mothers were far more likely to fall ill and die if attended to by doctors and students who’d come to deliver the baby fresh from an autopsy. (Gross.) Midwives were not required to deal with dead bodies, and their care alone in an alternate ward led to a much higher chance of survival.

Semmelweis mandated a new rule requiring handwashing with chlorine for doctors. Death rates in his maternity ward fell dramatically; this was the first evidence ever that washing hands could prevent the spread of disease. But the practice was unpopular. Some doctors disliked the implication that they were to blame for the deaths and gave it up. Semmelweis attempted to spread his doctrine of handwashing to other parts of Europe only for it to be considered controversial. The practice only truly caught on after his death.

Fast Times and Fake News

There have always been, and always will be, resistance to new methods, technologies, and new ways of behaving. In the face of nationwide lockdowns, economic hardship, and being told that we need to behave in certain ways for our own safety, the more individualistic of us are bound to resist. Wild ideas have always flourished in the face of change. That is nothing new.

What is new is how interconnected humanity has become. Information travels fast nowadays. Propaganda, fake news, and misinformation are all too easy to disseminate for a susceptible audience. Online communities provide social validation for beliefs that most people would rightly call crazy, encouraging budding conspiracists to fall deeper down the rabbit hole. And the sheer volume of information that the internet affords us is overwhelming. How do we know what to believe?

I’d say taking an interest in the actual science and data, for starters. Do your own research, the conspiracy people cry. And I agree with that. I also believe in a healthy dose of skepticism and paying attention to who’s doing the talking. A health director-general with decades of medical experience is going to know more about treating illnesses than, oh, let’s say a billionaire politician telling people to drink bleach. Putting our faith in the professionals, not just some quack with a YouTube channel.

Yeah, maybe not this guy.

But conspiracy theories will always be around. Just like demonic possession was so often blamed for mental illness, people will always invent sinister reasons for what they don’t understand. Because at least that way, there’s a plan. Someone’s behind all of this; somebody’s in charge.

It’s a lot scarier to think that no one is in charge. That the world is complete chaos, plain and simple. You could get hit by a car or find a cancerous growth or fall and break your leg tomorrow. Nobody knows how the future will play out. No one ever knows.

Conclusion

When I got my first Pfizer dose, I barely felt a thing. Was this it, I wondered while waiting in the hall for my second appointment. I didn’t feel faint or dizzy. No allergic reactions, thankfully. What did happen was that my shoulder began to ache throughout the afternoon. By nighttime, it hurt a lot, and numbness had set in. But the next day, the pain was already receding. I felt fatigued and out of breath for a day or two. Then I was fine.

After the second dose, my arm didn’t even hurt as much. Instead, I had prolonged palpitations twice in the days afterward. I’ve had them in the past due to too much sugar, caffeine, and stress. But I'm pretty sure these two times were because of the vaccine – because I haven’t had any palpitations since. None at all. The Pfizer vaccine is supposed to affect a minority of young people’s hearts. But hey, I’m not dead yet.

Any long-term effects of these new vaccines remain to be seen. I don’t deny that. None of us should. What we do know is that COVID-19 is real, present, and killing people right now.

Vaccination is not a silver bullet, but herd immunity is what will beat this thing, starve it into more manageable numbers. It remains to be seen whether COVID-19 can be completely eradicated like polio and smallpox. But we can and will turn the tide. I look forward to the day when we can move around freely again, stop wearing masks, and meet far-off loved ones face to face.

That day isn’t here yet. But it will be. We just need to do our part for now.

Ten Insights I Learned In My Twenties

Well, it’s happened. As of now, I have been on this planet for a full three decades. Pretty wild. I can’t believe I used to think thirty was when you had it all figured out. Um, no, I do not. Not at all. I’ve just accumulated a larger amount of life experience.

Our twenties are interesting because it’s the era of experimentation. As young adults, this is the decade when we get a better handle on ourselves and who we are, the work we do and the hobbies we enjoy. The experiences we pursue. Some of these may be edifying, enlightening; and others can be taken too far. For me, a large part of my twenties was about the contrast between self-improvement and accepting myself for who I am.

I’m more well-rounded at thirty, certainly. I find it easier to talk to people nowadays. Travelling and pushing my boundaries strike me as genuinely exciting things to do. (In moderation, of course. Let’s not go overboard here.) In other ways, I’m not so sure that I have improved. For a long time, I’ve struggled with feeling distracted and hooked on the internet. I’m not the only one, not by a long shot. But I worry about how technology is affecting me. I’ve already quit one addiction, only to find that another one may be flourishing more than ever.

Anyway, today I want to talk about the idea that life is supposed to follow a linear trajectory. That we’re meant to hit the right goalposts at the right times, with careers and relationships and parenthood falling neatly into place. Yeah, that doesn’t happen. Our lives are subject to a vast array of factors, everything from geography and documentation to parenting styles and how far above or below the poverty line we happen to fall. There are all these narratives that form, these stories we tell about the people who made it, whatever it means. They cover up the fact that nobody has any clue what’s going on. We’re all just doing the best we can with what we have.

So without further ado, I present to you some of my biggest insights learned as a young adult; distilled knowledge freshly poured into sparkling carafes for your consumption. Read responsibly now. 

1. Having a routine helps.

I’ve been working at the same job for more than eight years now. It’s strange to me how constant my employment has been throughout the many phases of my twenties. I’ve lived in four different houses during these years, but work has always been the same. For all this time I’ve been getting up and commuting to the same place; seeing the same people; doing the same things; and then going home in the evening. My job is where I’ve made friends, gained greater confidence, and been bitten and scratched (playfully and otherwise) by various animals. It’s been consistent.

Perhaps this is something others would chafe at. But I find it comforting. I had a lot of anxiety about my future growing up, a lot of fears and worries. Looking back, I wanted a sense of structure. And now I realize that that’s exactly what my job provides: a daily routine and a sense of purpose. Don’t get me wrong, at times I’ve found work tiring and frustrating and repetitive. But it also gives me something to aim for while figuring myself out. (Also, money. That helps too.) I’m still grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given.

2. Sometimes we don’t struggle with depression; we struggle with our reality.

I worried about a lot of things growing up. I also used to overthink my worries, creating a vicious cycle of getting anxious about being anxious and depressed about being depressed.

For anyone who can relate, these feelings are justified. They are genuine reactions to the uncertainty of one’s circumstances. For all that I had a steady job in my twenties, I still had no idea where my life was going. And continuing the trend from my teenage years, I did my best to shut those feelings out. Much of my life has been this way, I feel: a series of reactions to internal and external pressures. Would I have spent so much time lost in books and video games and the internet if they didn’t represent an escape into other worlds? I wonder.

I still love books and games, don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t be writing these long essays without an appreciation for the written word. But one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that these emotions which we strive to avoid come from a place of powerlessness, in which our traumas, other people, and the world itself are pushing us around no matter what we want. This is called having an external locus of control: the sense that mastery over our lives lies with outside forces. Which is somewhat true. But that way lies despair.

What matters is what we are doing about our lives. Do we play the cards we’ve been dealt or throw them aside in disgust? Are we doing things to improve our lot, or forever drowning our sorrows before they come back to life and strangle us? While our circumstances may not be our fault, they are always our responsibility. We must persevere, take risks, and push our own limits. That’s when we realize how much we can affect our own lives and develop an internal locus of control.

And a lot of the stuff we worry about doesn’t ever happen or isn’t that bad if it does. Reality, you see, is what we make it.

3. Many of the things we worry about won’t seem like such a big deal when they happen.

So here’s the thing: a bunch of milestones that I worried about growing up ended up happening without much fanfare. I still remember reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at fifteen, the same age Harry was kissing Cho Chang, and wondering when that was going to happen for me. Well, these things did happen during my twenties. My first kiss, first relationship, second relationship, etc…

In hindsight, did my stressing out help with these things? No, not at all. It only stole the joy of the present moment. Worry is a transient thing. When proven wrong, it moves on to a fresh fear instead. This is how our minds work. We evolved to run from a rustling in the bushes that might be a tiger. The people who didn’t run got eaten. But because we focus on negatives, our minds can easily go haywire and see tigers in every bush when there are, in fact, none. Sun bears, maybe. Perhaps a python here and there. But there’s no way every bush has a tiger. They wouldn’t be on the verge of extinction then.

Ahem. Worry exists for a reason; it’s there to force us to consider future possibilities and the actions we might need to take to deal with them. But it can also blow things out of proportion and paralyze us with indecision. On that note…

4. We must lean towards proactivity.

I don’t mean productivity here, not exactly. We can’t always be productive, that’s a recipe for burnout. Rest is crucial. But it’s always a good idea to be proactive.

See, I’ve figured out a simple rule for life over the years: doing things now makes your future easier. Putting them off makes the future harder. Amazing, I know. My genius knows no bounds. But seriously, this is one of the most basic life principles possible: putting in the work has benefits down the line.

As an example, let’s say I fold the laundry tonight instead of leaving it in a heap. Now my clothes will be neatly folded tomorrow. I won’t need to dig through a crumpled pile to find what I’m going to wear. That’s one less thing to worry about.

Now here’s the thing: these little choices add up to your entire life. Neglect your studies and self-improvement? That’s going to limit your potential. Can’t (or won’t) open your mind to other points of view? That’s going to stunt your perspective. Don’t put the effort into understanding your spouse’s needs? Your marriage is going to suffer. Never show up for Junior’s football games? Don’t be surprised when he resents you ten years later. Don’t save for retirement? You get the idea.

The problem is that being proactive is harder than it sounds when we don’t feel like it. Our emotions get in the way.

5. Emotional awareness is important.

So you know how to read a textbook; good for you. But how are you at reading yourself?

It’s said that a high IQ will only get you so far in life, and that EQ, your emotional intelligence, will actually take you farther. Based on hard-earned experience, I feel that this is true. Every short-sighted choice we make – to indulge, to give in to fear, to lash out in anger – is the result of letting our emotions rule us. I’ve done all of these things more than I care to admit.

It’s something we just have to accept: our emotions are what make us human. They can also hold us back.

Recognizing when you binge on social media when you’re feeling stressed, how you snap at people when you’re feeling insecure, the way you avoid a problem that seems too big to handle. It makes a difference. These are all coping mechanisms that fail to assuage the underlying cause. We have to understand ourselves and come up with better responses to our emotions. Because if not…

6. We stick with bad habits for a reason.

Let’s explore this idea further. If you call something a mistake and keep repeating it, well, deep down that ‘mistake’ must feel right to you. Clearly, it’s fulfilling (or covering up) an underlying need. So what might that be? What chemical highs are you using to get you through the day? Sugar, nicotine, alcohol, dopamine? I stay up late playing video games because I love them, of course. But also because there are nights when I don’t want to face tomorrow.

Talking about these things is difficult because everyone has different vices. The issue is one of excess: how we spend our limited time and energy, and how we react to negative emotions. The things we do when we’re hungry, angry, lonely, or tired can make or break us over time.

7. Always take into consideration the fact that you might be dead wrong.

Yep, a Terry Pratchett quote. God rest his soul. But seriously. This is perhaps the most important skill a person can have: the capacity for self-reflection.

Because the hard truth about life is that we are often the source of our own problems. Emotions rule us, remember? The ability to recognize when we’re screwing ourselves over and to change our behaviour accordingly is the basis for any form of growth. The first step to solving a problem is to recognize that the problem even exists.

A few years back I mentioned that growing up is about becoming aware of your own bullshit. And the truth is that sometimes I have been the toxic person. There are things I have said, done, or failed to do which have hurt others and made their lives worse; which have made my own life worse. Sometimes we do the wrong things. But it always feels right at the time.

This is why we need to be able to learn from these behaviours and choose better ones. I’m starting to see that it’s a lifelong process.

8. It is frighteningly easy to settle.

And here we come full circle. I said at the beginning that I appreciated having a daily routine, a sense of consistency throughout my twenties. But at what point does security become stagnation?

Because here’s the dark side of routines: it’s all too easy to get lost in them. You come home from work tired and unmotivated. You think about working on a side project or learning something new. But no, you’re exhausted. You don’t have time. Instead, you turn on Netflix, watch a movie or play a game, and let that project of yours pass you by. It can wait until tomorrow, you think.

Then tomorrow comes and goes and turns into weeks, months, years. The dream dies out, and all you have left are regrets.

A few years back, someone I respect told me that the most important advice he could give was to not stop writing. And I have stopped, at least for quite some time now. The fantasy novel hasn’t gone anywhere. I have all these ideas for articles but never make anything. Heck, it’s taken me two months just to write this post. What the hell, me.

It’s so easy to become complacent and drift through life without pursuing your full potential.

9. Everybody dies.

My mom died last year. This was my own personal tragedy of 2020. The pandemic kind of happened in the background for us. What really mattered were those last few months with her while the cancer got worse, her lungs failing, breaths growing shorter and shorter. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

It’s not like she was the first family member to die in my lifetime. My grandfather passed when I was thirteen, an uncle when I was twenty-six. But this was different. This was my mother. How to explain the world of emotion that fills me at these words? From my youngest memories back in the US to an uncertain adolescence here in Malaysia, to the man I am today. My mother was the only person who was with me through it all, the good times and the bad. And now she’s gone forever.

I’m more aware of death now, if that makes sense. We all know we’re going to die, sure. But we don’t believe it. Not deep down in our heart of hearts. Well, I guess I’m starting to believe. There was a small interaction in one of my many games, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, that stuck with me. At one point, an Imperial fleet docks into the floating city of Bujerba, a neutral city-state well aware that the Empire has swallowed much larger kingdoms. A young mother tells you that her son was amazed at all the airships. But she looked at them and felt afraid.

War and death and inevitability. The atrocities happening in places like Israel and Myanmar, the ever-present threat of COVID-19. The loss of loved ones. These things frighten me. This is the first time in my life when I can honestly say that I miss the good old days, when my mom was still alive. She had sixty-two years. If I last as long, that means that half my life is over. Such brief lives we humans live.

All we can do is move forwards.

10. Live for the moment.

Looking back on my twenties, a lot of stuff happened. I grew and changed in so many ways. Yet here I am entering my thirties, still living heartbeat to heartbeat. It’s all we ever have.

Don’t take the moments for granted.

Ready Player One - Movie Review

 Ready Player One is a story about video games.

Retro games, to be precise, juxtaposed with the infinite possibilities of a futuristic VR paradise. It’s also a window into a grimy dystopian future where everyone just wants to escape into their avatars. This is the ultimate fan service movie, a love letter to Eighties pop culture. A story about defiant gamer underdogs taking on a massive corporation for the fate of the virtual world. It’s based off a bestselling novel, which I own and have read.

And you know what, I’m taking sides. For once, the movie is better than the book. Let the flame wars begin.

Right, so. This is not a normal position for me to take. It’s usually the other way around. Translating text onto the big screen inevitably requires compromises, sacrifices, characters cut and scenes compressed in order to fit a two-hour runtime. Much of the magic and majesty is lost. Trying to make everything line up exactly like the novels doesn’t work, but too many changes can lead the films astray from the originals.

They’re two vastly different mediums. (And let’s not even talk about video game tie-ins.) By their very nature, books are slower and more introspective, but also allow a level of immersion that I still believe is unrivaled in any other form of storytelling. Whereas movies are faster, flashier, and more visual. (Duh.) To make an adaptation work, you have to change things around. The end result might not match the source material word for word, but it will almost certainly stand out on the big screen.

And in the case of Ready Player One, I enjoyed the movie much more than the book. They’re both great stories. But this time, Hollywood did it better.

FIRST TO THE KEY

Set in a dreary mid-21^st century prediction version of America that’s been ravaged by climate change and other disasters, everyone spends their time in a virtual playground called the OASIS. Created by visionary game designer James Halliday, the OASIS is where fantasy and reality blur together. You go to school there; you work there; you live there. And when Halliday died, his last missive to the world was to announce a treasure hunt. Somewhere in the vast reaches of his creation were three hidden keys. Whoever found them all would win the ultimate easter egg: half a trillion dollars and full control over the OASIS. Kind of a big deal.

This kicks off an entire subculture of obsessed gamers hunting for the egg: egg hunters, or ‘gunters’. Wade Watts is one such fanboy, a poor kid living in squalor with his aunt and her abusive boyfriend who dreams of escaping his impoverished life for real. In the OASIS he calls himself Parzival after the knight who finds the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. Joining him are his best friend Aech, a hulking mechanical modder; Daito and Sho, rocking samurai and ninja avatars respectively; and Art3mis, badass heroine and love interest.

Against them are Innovative Online Industries, a massive corporation with eyes on controlling the OASIS for themselves. IOI fields an army of ‘Sixers’ in numbered jumpsuits, the company grunts who aren’t even allowed to use their own names, led by their totally uncool CEO, Nolan Sorrento. When Wade and friends make a breakthrough in the quest for the keys, the conflict soon escalates into an all-out war for control of the future.

Let the games begin.

ALTERNATE REALITIES

After some opening exposition, the movie starts with a race for the first key along an insane course through New York City littered with death traps, a T-rex, and King Kong himself. It sets the tone nicely and marks a major contrast with the source material: this is not at all how the first task played out in the novel. The book places much more emphasis on arcane knowledge of pop culture trivia which only someone as obsessive as Wade would know. Dungeons and Dragons, traditional sci-fi/fantasy, and cyberpunk are all strong influences. There were also more details on the actual game mechanics, which was nice.

That said, something like half the book is one long chain of Eighties references. Wade spends a lot of his inner monologue geeking out over old movies and sitcoms and video games. No doubt it’s all meaningful for someone from that generation (the author himself, for starters). The problem is that I didn’t grow up in that generation. I was born in the Nineties. Most of these references meant nothing to me. And for a futuristic virtual reality world, all the Eighties vibes could make it feel weirdly unoriginal.

But it looks great on screen. Which is cooler, reading a laundry list of upgrades installed in Parzival’s souped-up DeLorean or watching it in action during a high-speed race sequence? There’s no question, is there. And the soundtrack of Eighties rock songs does stand the test of time. ‘I Hate Myself For Loving You’ was an awesome prelude to the action.

The movie wisely injects more modern pop culture references into the OASIS as well. In the book, Parzival is a devout reader of Art3mis’ egg-hunting blog; in the movie, he gushes over her walkthroughs and Twitch streams. Overwatch characters and the Spartans from Halo fight alongside Lara Croft and the Iron Giant. The fact that these things I deem ‘modern’ will someday feel as quaint as mullets and shoulder pads themselves is not lost on me.

Finally, the camaraderie between Wade and his friends gives the movie a warmer-hearted feel, which the book could often lack. Many pages are spent setting up Book-Wade’s actual life, his poverty, and going to school in the OASIS. He spends most of his time alone, constantly hooked up to the devices which are, ironically, his only form of human contact. The High Five only meet in person at the end. The book could be darker and more mature in many ways, something the film version seeks to remedy. References to VR porn and sex robots are excised for obvious reasons. IOI’s ruthlessness is toned down. Movie-Wade and his gamer friends hanging out and joking around right from the start makes the atmosphere much more lighthearted and approachable.

FIGHT FOR THE OASIS

Ready Player One is an excellent coming-of-age adventure all its own. This is a heady mix of virtual reality action and nostalgia for the real-life origins of video games themselves. It also finds time to remind us that getting lost in fantasies isn’t always a good thing. There has to be a balance. But honestly, the scales are weighted towards one side over the other here.

Definitely check out the book if you’re interested. Give it a read! Compare and contrast! And see if you agree that the film adaptation just works better. It takes the source material and builds something even cooler, more family-friendly, and more flat-out, action-packed fun. This is a movie that gamers young and old alike are bound to enjoy. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

The Stormlight Archive, Smartphones, and Rediscovering My Love of Reading

One of my resolutions this year is to read more books.

I was originally going to call this rediscovering my love of fantasy. But that didn’t really fit. I never stopped loving fantasy, all the magic and adventure and exploring new worlds. Likewise, I’ve never stopped reading per se. Looking up the news, reviews and random scrolling has taken up an unfortunate part of my days. It’s left me feeling frazzled and with a poorer memory than ever. I know I wasn’t this bad at remembering things when I was younger. That’s got to be at least partly because I’m so often distracted, unable to focus. 

Technology has changed our lives for the better. But it’s also had myriad side-effects that leave our brains struggling to cope. I don’t like what the constant stream of information has done to me, even as I actively seek it out. Because I want the novelty. It distracts me from things I don’t want to think about. This year, I want to start focusing again.

Today I’m talking about long stories.

Growing up I devoured books. Reading was one of my favourite things to do, pretty much. My childhood was filled with evergreen series like The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter. I adored The Wheel of Time. After reading The Eye of the World at eleven, I spent the next ten years collecting the entire series. (Even New Spring, which wasn’t much of a prequel.) The Sword of Truth was also a favourite during my teens, though those books didn’t age so well. (I only just found out that Terry Goodkind passed away last September, RIP. Another casualty of 2020.) Guy Gavriel Kay was a late discovery; his poetic prose and history-inspired settings were a breath of fresh air. And though The Lord of the Rings threw me at first with its older writing style, I came to love the epic that started it all.

Epic fantasy made me want to be an author. I wanted to write books too! To create fantasy worlds for readers to get lost in. As I got older, though, my tastes began to shift. I branched out into other genres. Popular science, self-help, autobiographies. Traditional classics like Dickens, in all their verbosity. And technology sped up at the same time. I soon had my very own portable communicator in my pocket and could look up whatever information I wanted, whenever I wanted.

Smartphones are a great idea in theory. In practice, I’ve often struggled to put mine down.

Over the years, I started spending more and more time on the internet. You know what I’m talking about. Social media, random browsing, and a shifting cluster of blogs and gaming websites. The amount of time I spent on actual books decreased remarkably. I’ve quit social media in the past, then came back to it over time to keep in touch with people. Was that the right choice? Online communities have been both a bane and boon in my life. I do need to limit it, at any rate.

Anyway. One of the few book series I’ve kept up with is The Stormlight Archive. Written by Brandon Sanderson, the hotshot fantasy author who finished The Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan’s tragic passing, Stormlight is a fascinating epic in its own right. Set in a world wracked by massive hurricanes called highstorms where entire ecosystems have evolved to cope, he spins an ongoing tale of cyclical apocalypses called Desolations and the ancient order known as the Knights Radiant, reviled and long forgotten, who must return to save mankind.

The fourth volume, Rhythm of War, came out late last year. That meant it was high time to reread the first three. (I’m on the third now.) These are big books, people. Rhythm of War has 1,232 pages. It’s downright intimidating how prolific Brandon Sanderson is. And reading them again, I’m reminded of how compelling these stories are.

What really spoke to me about Stormlight was how the main characters are broken, scarred by haunting life experiences which become the foundation for the heroes they must become. When Kaladin feels that on some days everything turns bleak and the light goes out of the world. Where Shallan knows that underneath her intricate illusions of adulthood, the real her is the traumatized little girl she once was. How Dalinar struggles to grow beyond the terrible man he was for much of his life. I felt these things; I could relate. And I’m guessing a lot of other readers felt the same.

Because I’ve often had bouts of bleakness and depression too. There are parts of my past that I don’t talk about either. All too often, I feel torn between my impulses and the person I could be. And following these characters as they face their pasts and their own innate flaws and finally make better choices…it’s one of the most inspiring things I can think of.

This is the power of a good book, and a good story. It makes you want to do better. To be better. To put in the work instead of letting yourself be torn in a million different directions.

Because this isn’t the person I want to be. Always distracted, oblivious and inconsistent. To a certain extent that is me, simply because I’m the kind of person who spends a lot of time in their own head. It’s why I grew up loving books in the first place. But it’s also about the environment I’ve cultivated for myself. It’s about getting off the internet and spending more time reading, and learning, and doing things with intentionality. Not just pulling out my phone and drowning in memes for an hour. Is it any wonder we’re distracted if we’re always seeking out distractions on purpose?

And yet the issue isn’t black and white. Because you know where I read the first book in the series, The Way of Kings? On my phone, as an e-book. It was bloody convenient too. Just as technology has evolved, my reading habits have as well. I still like the feel of a good book, the weight and heft and not having to press a power button. I fully intend to buy Rhythm of War as a paperback. (Maybe a hardback, even.) But the sheer portability of our devices cannot be understated. Back in 2018 while me and my mom were in hospital for her chemo, I read some other Sanderson books, the Mistborn trilogy, by buying them online, downloading them onto my phone, and reading that way. All without ever leaving the hospital ward.

Likewise, there are great websites full of insightful content out there. Mark Manson’s body of work, for one. I haven’t mentioned him yet this year, have I? Wait But Why is another. And I recently started taking free online courses on Coursera. There’s so much knowledge out there for the taking.

Our devices are not inherently good or bad, and neither is the internet. It’s all about how we use them. I love my phone for the connectivity and convenience; I hate it for eroding my attention and sucking up my time like a fire hose in reverse.

Modern technology is amazing. We’ve come so far, made so much progress. Yet the Digital Age has also flooded us with all sorts of useless information: mental junk food. And it’s always available, 24/7. In a world of endless novelty, which are you going to choose? That one, five-hundred-page in-depth novel? Or fifty clickbait web articles and fluffed-up news stories? This year, are you going to start focusing again?

If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to reading Oathbringer.

 

Good Morning, 2021

 

I’m actually writing this past noon, but screw it. We’re all up late on New Year’s Day.

I’ll keep this short because honestly, I don’t have much to say. 2020 was a terrible year for the world at large. It wasn’t the best in my tiny little portion of existence either.

On one hand, I was lucky in that the pandemic didn’t affect me as much as other people. My job was deemed essential and I spent the lockdowns going to work as usual. We were even able to go on vacation not long before Malaysia shut down back in March, and I took a second, shorter trip later in the year. It was my first time taking a flight by myself. That’s progress. Looking forward to traveling more in the future.

On the other hand, 2020 was the year my mom passed away. Kind of a big deal, to make the understatement of the century. Life changes when a loved one’s ends. I’m glad we were able to spend the lockdown in the first half of the year together, the last few months she had left. Looking back, I’m so, so thankful that she pulled through her emergency surgery and chemotherapy back in 2017. Those last few years were all the more precious for it. At least we still had time to be together. We still had time. Not everyone can say the same.

And now here I am, on the verge of turning thirty. It’s a strange feeling. I’m nearly the same age my parents were when they got married. Am I ready to be a husband? To be a father? Time to start thinking about these things, you know.

The vaccines are out, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. As long as we’re alive, there’s hope for a better tomorrow. More importantly, it’s up to us to make a better today. Time to set goals and pursue them, to stay the course and put in the work. And to have fun too, goddammit. Life is too short not to. More posts about books and video games and life lessons coming soon. And I should really, finally finish writing Wraithblade.

Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s make 2021 our best year yet.