Tangently Off Topic....

So I am aware that sometimes people find books that most people aren't aware of.
For instance, if I were to mention the Harry Potter series, or Game of Thrones, or Hunger Games, people would at least recognize the name if not the series itself. There are a few others with such notoriety, but there are also a large number of series that never reached the fame that those did, even if they have a few books under the name.
One such series is the Symphony of Ages by Elizabeth Haydon. If you recognize it, yea! If not, well I'm gonna talk about it.
I'm not sure how this book series was originally intended to be done, but there are a total of nine books in the series. According to the wikipedia page (which everyone knows that wikipedia is not always full of correct information) it was split up like this:
Rhapsody: Child of Blood was released in 1999, Prophecy: Child of Earth (2000) and Destiny: Child of the Sky (2001) make up "The Rhapsody Trilogy"
Requiem for the Sun (2002) and Elegy for a Lost Star (2004) make up "The Middle Books"
The Assassin King (2007), The Merchant Emperor (2014), The Hollow Queen (2015) and The Weaver's Lament (2016) make up "The War of the Known World".
I found this series initially in 2009 (I believe) and my local library had the first five books. I remember asking my godmother for 6, The Assassin King, for my birthday in 2010. I got it, and I read it, but read The Merchant Emperor in 2015 (according to GoodReads, that is what I have it marked as) it had been about 5 years since reading the previous book and I didn't remember much about books 6 and 7, but since I had read the previous 5 a few times, that information was more in my head. So since I've been trying to remove books from my to read list by reading them (makes sense right?) I decided that I needed to re-read the whole series so I had all the information straight in my head. Let's just say that most of what happened in 6 was vaguely familiar, but I didn't recognize much from 7.
Either way, not really what I wanted to talk about.
Okay. Set up. I enjoyed the world that Haydon created in Rhapsody, but I adored both Prophecy and Destiny. I loved the love story between Rhapsody (the title character, one of the main characters) and Ashe (also known as Gwydion, and by a few other names), and I loved the idea of their time-crossed love. If you have read the story, you understand; if you haven't, it doesn't make much sense and trying to explain it will make this longer than I intend. Now, I'm a sucker for soulmate stories and the idea behind it, so these fantasy books really fulfilled that. Requiem for the Sun and Elegy for a Lost Star added in the element of they have a child together and it is magical (literally, the child gets referred to as the "Child of Time"). And again, Haydon did a wonderful job with the fantasy element, and fantastic story weaving for this.
I felt that The Assassin King and The Merchant Emperor had too many view points in the story telling, and therefore that the material just dragged on. However, it kept to the pattern and it really set things up for the next two. But The Hollow Queen also had as many view points and it's hard to correctly format books if there are too many viewpoints going on in my opinion.
Now I'm going to point something out. The three main characters, Rhapsody, Achmed and Grunther are very long lived characters because of events in the book. Ashe is also a long lived character but for slightly different reasons. But things to point out timeline wise. Rhapsody, Prophecy and Destiny happen relatively right after each other, maybe a couple of weeks in between each book. There is a four year gap, however, between Destiny and Requiem. The next four follow practically right after each other, like the first three.  The big difference is at the very end of The Hollow Queen it mentions something about peace only lasting about one thousand years. Which when you read The Weaver's Lament you realize there is a thousand year gap between books 8 and 9 (I'm getting tired of typing the names out....). In the final book, they explain certain things that Haydon had hinted at previously, as well as expanding on certain things. But it also took a left turn out of no where. I freaking cried for a good chunk of the book. I tweeted that "The Weaver's Lament is tearing my heart apart like I thought Kingdom of Ash was going to. THIS. IS. NOT. OKAY." (Kingdom of Ash being the final book of Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass series)
Like, KOA ended and I was like yeah, okay, not the best situation but the main characters are still alive. They can move on from this, eventually.
Now I'm gonna tell you what I had put for the GoodReads review for the book:
"So this finale begins a thousand years after the previous book. And HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.
Wow. Haydon decided to rip my heart out of my chest, tear it into tiny little pieces and do a samba on it.
Did not see that coming at all, and considering I have gotten pretty good at guessing what is going to happen, this was a completely 180 and sharp left at "far from alright".
In the end, it is a good ending to the story, but definitely not how I images this story would end" 

I was expecting rainbows and sunshine and kittens and happily ever after. Instead I get sadness, angst and misery with salt in the wounds to top it off. Like, I appreciate the not being able to guess what happened (not being predictable), but at the same time wow. Just. Wow. 

I'm trying to process my emotions on a book series that ended completely different that I expected and that has been with me for about 10 years at this point. 

One thing to note however, is that throughout the series, Haydon continued to remind the reader of information in a way that was slightly annoying, like she was trying to make sure that if, for instance, the third book was the first one that you read, you may be a tad confused but could figure out information. But when you do what I did, which was re-read all the books before reading the ones you had left to read for the first time, it was unnecessary. Why yes, I do remember why Ashe is calling Rhapsody "Emily" and why Rhapsody calls Ashe "Sam" and why Grunther finds it funny to make comments about eating Rhapsody. 

Ok. Stopping here before this gets any longer.

Proof I Am Still Alive

So despite the fact that it has been colder where I live than in the fucking South Pole,  I am still alive.
Work is causing depression to flair up and anxiety to form, but I am still alive.

Anywhooooo....
In my post Word Vomit, A Redux from September of last year, I talked about the longevity of certain shows of certain natures. I also talked (previously) about how the shows that air on the CW Network are geared towards 18-25 year olds. I want to talk about that for a hot minute.
For the 2018-2019 schedule (September 2018 to usually April or May 2019), Criminal Minds (CBS) had been renewed, but for a shorter 15 episode season. Normally, at least the previous seasons, it had around 23 (sometimes more, sometimes less, but around that number). About mid-way through January it was announced that it was renewed for a 15th season. However, it was only going to have 10 episode, which is a dramatic drop, and that it was going to be the last season. (Sorry for spoilers if you hadn't heard yet). Although I am a couple of seasons behind on this show, season 11 episode 15 "A Badge and a Gun" is my next episode to watch, this was kinda sad news.

Yesterday (again perspective because I have not gone to sleep yet; January 31st) the CW network renewed 10 shows of its current lineup. Including (because I watch them) Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, The Flash and Supernatural. Remember how I mentioned that Supernatural and Criminal Minds began airing the same year, 2005? No word yet on how many episodes Supernatural will get at this point, a full season order being around 22. Legends of Tomorrow is almost guaranteed to have a shorter season than the rest, but that is par for course at this point.
The point is that Supernatural, which has slowly been losing viewership, is going to outlast Criminal Minds. Now, CM has also slowly been losing viewership, but the Neilsen rating has never dropped below 3 million viewers. For the 14 episodes that have aired, it has an average of 4.67 million. The final episode for this season is set to air on February 6th.
Supernatural has an average of 1.459 million for the 12 episodes that have aired this season. This season is set to have a total of 20 episodes.

Now I know that the Neilsen rating isn't the only thing that networks use to set parameters on what gets renewed and what gets cancelled. Because the SyFy network renewed The Magicians for a season 5 before season 4 even aired, despite rarely having a 1 million viewership rating (usually around 0.7 million; they had one in season 1 and one in season 2). Budget is another. If it is extremely costly to produce (between salaries for actors and workers, any CGI, advertising, etc) then snip snip. Sometimes its the main actor(s) leaving for new projects, disagreements between cast members/crew members, or other unsavory problems (Roseanne Barr being a prime example).

So the point of this post actually got lost as I was writing it, so short and sweet. I was really hoping that the CW network would do the smart thing and not renewed those shows, with the exception of Legends of Tomorrow (as previously mentioned, short seasons mean more material to work with) and Supergirl (although they have some problematic areas too).

In tangentially related news, Agents of SHIELD had been renewed for a 7 season, despite not airing until July 2019 (theorized reason being they can shoot back-to-back and reduce cost of production this way). This still makes me happy so I'm mentioning it again.