@Feanor Wheel of Time is amazing and Jordan was a fantastic writer (and a personal hero, inspired me to write)
Just need to keep in mind that, like GRRM, the books lose pace and become more and more convoluted due to the large number of characters spreading out across the world.
Now while some books in the series are more significant than others, I disagree with those people who felt the quality was dipping...but if the idea of what begins fairly frenetically and action-packed becoming more political and wide-reaching bothers you, you may not enjoy Wheel of Time.
Also, Jordan died before completing the final book. His work was taken over at his widow (and editor) Harriet's request by Brandon Sanderson, who is a phenomenal fantasy author in his own right (read Mistborn, it's a great trilogy). Sanderson has written the first two volumes of the final book (it was split in three for size reasons) using Jordan's notes and what work he had completed.
You can tell that it isn't the same author, and some people have taken issue with that, but overall I think his worth is worthy of Jordan's legacy, and I am eagerly awaiting the final book at the beginning of next year.
1. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (and Brandon Sanderson)
2. Soul Hunter, Blood Reaver, Void Stalker by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
3. ...I'm struggling to pick from so many choices, that I'm just going to say Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card as I was talking with my wife about it earlier, and its a great, significant book.
@pyromagnestir He had an agreement with the people running the module that led to him forging a magical item that allowed him to leave a "mirror image" (actually an identical NPC) sitting in his throne while he wasn't playing or in those times when he wanted to disguise and get out and about himself (I never actually spoke to the dude, but that was how it was explained to me).
We had done a similar thing when we hatched our takeover plot by going to a GM to make sure it was cool to make it happen, he must have been laughing at us and our plan to "replace the NPC with ourselves to run the guild"
@Grimhild Did you ever fool around with Neverwinter Nights?
While still constrained by maps, character creation, etc, there were some multiplayer servers that had some truly freeform, player-run content that happened within a set world where the players were not anymore special than anyone else.
I had a great experience on one server where a friend and I both joined a thieves guild separately and worked our way up the ranks working doing jobs set by another player, until we worked our way into a position of trust and wealth. We then enacted our plan to murder the NPC head of the guild (death was permanent, unless someone resurrected you) who sat on his throne all day as a figurehead.
We attacked alongside a few others we had roped into our mutiny, only to find that the guild leader we thought was an NPC was actualy a player character. He killed several of us alongside his bodyguard and then teleported away, leading to a several weak long chase as the the thieves guild fell apart, the weaker members siding with us with our promises of gold and power, versus the fewer, more powerful members siding with him.
Eventually, as we fought a series of duels to finally resolve the conflict, we were slaughtered by a group of assassins he had hired to take us out during the battle. The assassins then turned on him and his men, and took control of the guild hall themselves.
All of that was made possible through judicious active DMing and the people that ran the server being really open to ideas put forth by players, while also keeping secrets (we seriously had no idea that dude was another player, or we probably wouldn't have gone at him).
The only thing I ever hear of these days like this is PnP or EVE. I miss it, it was a very unique experience.
Firstly, Dark Knight was better than begins, but the Batman voice came perilously close to spoiling the second movie for me. I was actually laughing it was so bad.
I read the piece, because I am a sucker for spoilers, and I really enjoyed the review. Gonna see it when the wife is off shift, methinks
In Sydney, being a hipster is referred to as "living in Newtown", because that's where we store them all so they can interbreed and form a race of super-hipsters
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