When I say that I’ve read a lot of fantasy novels over the years, I mean that there was a time in my life where I was reading about the equivalent of a book a day. As a lightning fast reader, I’ve read everything from C.S. Friedman, Margaret Weiss and Tracey Hickman to Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, Melanie Rawn and Tad Williams. Included in that bucket of work, were novels I picked based on their size and whether or not there were several books that followed in a series. After a while, I got burnt out on traditional fantasy (with the exception of a few authors) simply because I got tired of the formula. A waif-like character (male or female) ends up saving the world time and time again, but not before becoming ungodly powerful in the way that only fantasy characters can.