Michael Livingston (1)

This was going to be a TBR pick up later (given I STILL have yet to work my way through [b:The Wheel of Time Companion|23847904|The Wheel of Time Companion|Robert Jordan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1420647322l/23847904._SY75_.jpg|41801093]) until I realized I couldn't get around to finishing some fan discussion videos around the Nakomi entry and also learned in an interview with author [a:Michael Livingston|115795|Michael Livingston|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1438896027p2/115795.jpg], a medieval history professor at Jordan's alma mater of The Citadel that he reads some Old and Middle English in the audiobook in addition to Jordan's editor and widow [a:Harriet McDougal|10803933|Harriet McDougal|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] reading her foreword plus a bonus interview with Rosamund Pike at the end on audiobooks!

Origins is an interesting addition to the Wheel of Time, as a bridge between our world and the fictional one delving into Jordan's notes and how the series initially started as a take on Arthurian legends and became its own sprawling fantasy epic that plays with global mythologies, especially in the cyclical way our legends become those of the Third Age and vice versa. (If we are the first age, Age of Legends is the second, the contemporary story is the third and post-Last Battle is the fourth: what happens in the fifth through seventh? I wonder if he ever intended to explore that...) One of the biggest takeaways I learned was how much inspiration Jordan took from [b:The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth|820465|The White Goddess A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth|Robert Graves|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1311971301l/820465._SY75_.jpg|219413] by Robert Graves, which sounds like it makes dubious claims towards European monomyths but I feel like Jordan would love seeing parallels and twists on similar stories across countries. My favorite Jordan biography fact was that his college aspirations apparently started with a football scholarship to my alma mater of Clemson University, the public ag school in South Carolina before Jordan realized athletics and academics weren't balancing and ended up off to Vietnam instead.

The glossary section works less well on audio, but nevertheless is still interesting. If you want deeper reads into real world origins and parallels of some of the cultural inspirations and aspects of WOT, I strongly recommend The 13th Depository blog led by Linda Taglieri, a long running repository of wonderful details and analysis from Brown Ajah sisters.

I am definitely going to pick up a physical copy of this at some point because I feel like I am missing out on color plates, and I couldn't figure out if the Google Play version of the audiobook had extra files stored as audiobooks elsewhere sometimes do.… (mehr)

The Audible Included library has some real highs and lows, which this fits rather neatly in the middle of.

If I was told there was a story about Queer Black pirates that includes coming to terms with being disabled and a discussion about how gender hierarchy is not a good thing, I would be ready to bite your hand off. Sadly, this one didn't quite deliver for me.

The writing itself is decent and the worldbuilding, in the cultural stories and some references, is pretty good, but I just didn't find the story or characters engaging, despite really being my kind of thing on paper.

The narration is pretty great.

Your mileage may vary, but this wasn't my cup of tea.… (mehr)