That sound you hear? That's the whoosh of wind as low-flying concepts part your hair.

You do realize that they have to maintain two residences, and one of those in Washington, which has a really high cost of living?

For those of us used to the waits George gives us, 2 years is a piece of cake.

If you like Sanderson, definitely read "The Way of Kings". The magic system in that world is different.

But then again, a lot of people in this thread are leery of beginning series that are just on their first book.... :)

Actually, part of what made this book so long in coming was the fact that GRRM initially wanted the 4th book to skip ahead years, with some of the intervening detail revealed in flashbacks. He got partway into writing it, and realized that wouldn't work.

So, he started over. Then he realized that this new approach required him to fill out all sorts of stuff that he hadn't counted on, which made the book length explode. Then he seperated them into two, and "A Feast for Crows" was born.

He has stated many times that he wrote himself into a corner (my words, not his), referring to the issue as a "Meerenese Knot". It appears he's finally resolved this, and now is comfortable setting a hard date to be finished with the manuscript.

This is one of the best fantasy series I've ever read.

Actually, it's more what I'd call "realistic" fantasy. Now, before you start telling me that fantasy is by definition not realistic, let me explain.

Martin's characters are some of the most relentlessly human I've seen in a fantasy series. None of the characters, save a few who live on the edges (so far) have been pure good or pure evil. Everybody is a shade of gray.

Add to that the fact that Martin isn't afraid to kill off major characters, and it's a delight to read.

Oops, I just remembered, it was PBS, not the BBC.

I can remember in Junior (or was it Senior?) English, being shown a BBC adaptation of LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven. I'd long before discovered Science Fiction and Fantasy. At the time I was more into SciFi, as I hadn't run into any good fantasy since I'd read Tolkien. I'd never read any of LeGuin's works, and I can remember being blown away. Even then I knew the books were usually better than the movie/series, and I immediately went out and got all of her books I could find. I'm still trying to find a copy of that movie on DVD.

Actually, you are saving more than 50% because you still pay for only 13 Watts

Since the idea of these bulbs (at least in most articles, not to mention the legislation proposed to outlaw incandescents) is to "save the environment", isn't the fact that it's actually resulting in more power being generated than they say an issue?

Actually, testimony from the prosecution's witness during the trial stated that Drew did *not* open the account.

Of course, that completely ignores the fact that the technological skillsets to put an automated probe in space versus humans in space are pretty much divergent, with the exception of the tech to launch them there. It's much harder to keep a person who is ill-adapted for near-vacuum environments alive than to modify processing equipment for that environment. As a nation the US already had a lot of experience launching automated systems into space, and yet Apollo 1 still happened.