Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, took over two decades to complete, comprising 15 books (including the prequel), or 11,916 pages, or 4,410,036 words, or 461.4 hours (for the audiobooks). I don’t put those stats there to frighten you, but rather to give you an appreciation of the epic 114-week-long read along that it took to read all 15 books as a group.
Yeah, we’re that kind of crazy.
What follows are our comments not only on the series, but on the experience of reading this epic fantasy as a group at ~100 pages a week. We welcome your thoughts in the comments.
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015/03/114-week-long-wheel-time-read-along/
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The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand.
It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust.
You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode.
So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.
"A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009 (16:50-17:23)