[Suzerain of Sheol]

Oh, I forgot to mention, if you look at my katana rack, the bottom one (the really long one) is actually two short koadchis in one sheath, the end of the scabbard is the hilt of the second one.

The one above it is reverse-bladed, and the one above that also has two swords in one sheath, though it's more of a katana/wakizashi combo. If you look close, the top part of the sheath is wrapped like a sword-hilt, that's the hilt of the wakizashi. They're sheathed parallel to each other.

[Espy]

I've never seen a real reverse blade in real life. ...The closest I've been is a pair of what might've been katanas (I didn't know the differences in eighth grade) that my teacher brought to show us. Wanted to unsheathe it, but, yeah >.>

[Suzerain of Sheol]

What, really? Your teacher brought katanas to school? That's crazy. My 10th grade history teacher talked about his katana collection a lot, but he never brought any in to show us.

[dragoness129]

The books I saw looked awesome! I love the Fantasy genre! ^_^

Ouch, cutting your leg does not sound good at all. I would have re-sold the blade or keep it under lock and key.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Hmm... something about the thought of selling a lethal weapon secondhand seems a bit underhanded to me. Possibly illegal, too. :p

And I have a love/hated relationship with the fantasy genre. I read a ton of it, but I like a lot less than I read.

[dragoness129]

LoL, when you put it that way, it does sound kind of illegal.

What are some of the ones you love?

[Suzerain of Sheol]

My favorite swords you mean? Probably any of the Kit Rae fantasy swords I have, especially the one with the black blade (seriously, blackened steel is awesome).

Or, if you mean books (just covering my bases there :p), um... Lord of the Rings is up there, though I like Tolkien's Silmarillion a lot more. For more modern stuff, my absolute favorite series ever is Steven Erikson's gargantuan Malazan Book of the Fallen. Also, Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing trilogy is another favorite. A Song of Ice and Fire is cool, too, by George Martin.

[dragoness129]

I was meaning the books. ^_^
Blackened steel does look very awesome.

I have not read Tolkien's Silmarillion book. And I have not heard of those other ones after that.
My favorite series is the Dragon Keeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul.
I also really love the way Brian Jacques writes the Redwall series. The stores are really wonderful and cute!

[Suzerain of Sheol]

The Silmarillion isn't really a sequel or a prequel to LotR. It's a bit tough to explain. It's the mythology of Middle Earth. It takes place (I think) 10,000 years before LotR and is a fairly difficult book to read, in general. I love it, though.

The others... if you like "cute" don't even look at them. They're all brutal stories about war and betrayal that pull no punches whatsoever. The "heroes" in most of them would be villains in other stories.

Anyway, for more traditional fantasy stuff, I always liked Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, but it seems like the first books in those series are always the best and the rest just go downhill. I can't stand reading R. A. Salvatore's new books anymore.

[dragoness129]

That sounds pretty interesting.

No, I am not all about cute. I like a wide variety. I think villains are pretty awesome in general as long as they are not the bad, cartoony types that monologue and make horribly stupid mistakes.

I have read only a handful of the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance series, but I do love the series of them in general even though I have not read all of them.
I have not read any of his new books.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Well, in that case, I guess I can describe them a bit, though if you check my Anti-Fantasy thread in the book forum (which is what I call these books, even though they're firmly fantasy books) I went over them a lot there.

The Prince of Nothing is about a sociopathic monk who feels no emotions and is a genius at manipulating people inserting himself into a crusade and slowly convincing the crusaders that he's a god and taking control of the entire crusade for his own ends. Very dark, very psychological.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a medieval succession crisis/ power struggle sort of story with lots of scheming and backstabbing and main characters getting killed. There's no real good guys in it, everyone has their own agenda.

And The Malazan Book of the Fallen is just the biggest story I've ever read. I think it has over 1,000 characters, all told. It spans an entire world, with the various books jumping between continents and storylines. It's insanely epic with high-powered magic and gods playing a major part in the story. It's just... all kinds of awesome. I've never read anything else like it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the time to read a 10,000 page series.

Anyway, for Dragonlance the original Chronicles and Legends trilogy are great, but everything after that just kind of fell apart, I felt. And for Forgotten Realms, the Dark Elf trilogy was probably my favorite, especially Homeland for the way it sets up the Drow culture, but that series got old fast for me. Drizzt is just too invincible.

[dragoness129]

The Prince of nothing does not sound too appealing to me, but the other two do.
My husband likes Drizzt, but I am not sure how many of the books he has read.
I remember reading "Darkwalker on Moonshae" by Douglas Niles and could never find the second book in the series at my library.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I can understand that. I hesitate to really recommend the Prince of Nothing to anyone who isn't really into psychology and philosophy as well as fantasy, not to mention being able to tolerate what an awful, awful place the setting in those books is.

Oh, and A Song of Ice and Fire is currently being adapted for t.v. on HBO, it's been airing for seven weeks now and it's been pretty great so far. You might look into that to see if you like the story before committing to the books. The t.v. series is called Game of Thrones, which is the name of the first book.

As to Drizzt, I want to say he has 30 novels published about him now, and I think I've read all of them. Because I'm a masochist like that. Like, enough is enough, seriously. Write about a different character, man. I know he's an elf who'll live to be 1,000 but come on. It just gets boring after a while.

I've never read Douglas Niles though I've heard of him. The other 'Realms authors I've read are Ed Greenwood, Lisa Smedman, Tom Reid, and probably a couple of others I can't quite think of at the moment.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

I like the idea of collection swords, but likely wouldn't do so myself unless we're talking little short guys like dirks and daggers. I have a buck-knife that was a christmas gift from dad for camping purposes and that's pretty much it. Though when I finally get my firearms license I'm sure I'll inherit a nice collection of those from my dad, and possibly a couple other relatives. Not sure I'd be inclined to use them for decoration though.

[dragoness129]

Oh, that is neat. I will have to see if it is on Netflix cause I do not have any tv other than that.

Yeah, it would get boring to read too much about one character.

I cannot recall what else I have read, but I do need to get back into reading more.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I don't think it's on Netflix yet (since I'd be watching it on there). I'd wager that once the series finishes airing in three weeks they'll get a hold of it.

It's really impressive to me so far, the acting and dialogue are just fantastic, and the sets and costumes really had a lot of work put into making them look real, you can tell.