{"id":533,"date":"2017-07-13T16:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T22:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=533"},"modified":"2017-09-10T16:41:39","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T22:41:39","slug":"book-winter-witch-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/13\/book-winter-witch-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Winter Witch (2010)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1347798662l\/7959022.jpg\" alt=\"Winter Witch\" width=\"251\" height=\"400\" \/><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Winter Witch<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nYear: 2010<br \/>\nAuthor: Elaine Cunningham<br \/>\nLength: 368 pages<\/p>\n<p>Years ago, after completing my first NaNoWriMo, I received this book as a prize. Seven years later, as I try to read all the \u201cunread\u201d books on my bookshelf, this book finally made its way into my \u201cread\u201d pile. Full disclosure: I haven\u2019t ever played any tabletop Role Playing Games (RPGs), be they <em>Dungeons &amp; Dragons<\/em> or <em>Pathfinder<\/em>. Because the <em>Pathfinder<\/em> universe defines this book&#8217;s setting, I didn\u2019t have any of the prior background to help me understand the setting better. Still, as this book was a conventional example of the \u201chigh fantasy\u201d genre, it was relatively easy to get up to speed.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, partly because it is a conventional example of the fantasy genre, <em>Winter Witch<\/em> didn\u2019t have that many surprises. Characters going on adventures to prove themselves \/ save someone \/ avoid responsibility seem to be pretty typical in this genre and this book certainly had all of them. While I did appreciate the \u201cmagic\u201d of the mapmaker turned wizard (or would that be a self-renounced wizard, turned mapmaker?) as a unique and interesting ability, it certainly read as a simple tie-in to the <em>Pathfinder<\/em> RPG via the \u201cdungeon master\u201d role. Similarly, the aggressive female protagonist was somewhat unique for her gender, but could easily have been any male warrior trying to save their little sister.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being released three years before <em>Frozen<\/em> (2013), parts of the plot feel very similar. Ice magic. Separated sisters. Love interest betrayal. I know <em>Frozen<\/em> is based on a much older story, so I\u2019m curious if the inspiration for this story was the same. If anything, I would expect a book like this would receive an uptick in sales just on the comparison. Either way, the story was predictable, and the only amusing part was when the mapmaker tells everyone that they should let everyone else do whatever they want.<\/p>\n<p>An average fantasy story with a modicum of interesting attributes, I give <em>Winter Witch<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h1><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><strong>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><strong>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Winter Witch Year: 2010 Author: Elaine Cunningham Length: 368 pages Years ago, after completing my first NaNoWriMo, I received this book as a prize. Seven years later, as I try to read all the \u201cunread\u201d books on my bookshelf, this book finally made its way into my \u201cread\u201d pile. Full disclosure: I haven\u2019t ever played [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,54],"tags":[331,55,682,681,683,8,684,680],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-book","tag-331","tag-book","tag-elaine-cunningham","tag-frozen","tag-pathfinder-tales","tag-review","tag-tabletop-rpg","tag-winter-witch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions\/805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}