You're On Notice, Dawg! Week (loud buzzing of static)

I just can't even.

On literally the first snap of the game yesterday, our season was done. Nick Chubb has a major knee injury, and the news has just been announced the he will undergo surgery, with a hopeful return for the 2016 season.

This is normally the point at which I'd say, "blah blah blah, even if you want to call for Mark Richt to be fired or whatever, our more immediate problem is getting ready for Mizzou right now, so You're On Notice, Dawg!"

But this week?  Nope. I'm too numb. My brain has shut down. I cannot think logically anymore.

I really wish there were more of an intersection between the crowd that has read Brandon Sanderson's epic Stormlight Archive series and the UGA college football fanbase, because I have a perfect analogy for how I feel right now.  In the Stormlight Archive series, one of the 4 or 5 major characters is a young noblewoman named Shallan Davar. Shallan is a bright, ambitious young woman, but she is deeply scarred by an experience that happened to her when she was young.  You see, when she was a young girl, she witnessed her mother's murder (and her father was the prime suspect, though he was never formally charged with the crime).  As a result, Shallan was so traumatized that whenever she started thinking about it, or when someone else brought up that situation, she would literally stop what she was doing, stand motionless, and her brain would fuzz out until that person stopped talking.  Sometimes, her brain would even fuzz out for minutes or hours at a time, and she'd come to, look around, and think, "How long have I been standing here looking at nothing?"

That is where I am right now.  I am like Shallan Davar. I could try to talk about what went wrong yesterday in the game, what we need to fix to prepare for Mizzou, and how it's over-reactionary and careless to talk about firing the head coach right now, but as soon as my thoughts came around to Nick Chubb's inju...
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Oh, I'm sorry, what was I saying? Oh, right, The Stormlight Archive series. It really is an amazing series so far. Sanderson plans for it to be his magnum opus - two 5-book arcs that combine into one giant epic, and he's written the first two books and is about 20% done with the third.  And if you're not familiar with Brandon Sanderson yet, then You're On Notice, Dawg!

If you have any proclivity towards fantasy-type fiction, he's an author you absolutely should be reading. Unlike other stalwarts of the genre like George R. R. Martin or Patrick Rothfuss, Sanderson is a prolific author.  He publishes an average of 2 books a year, not to mention a novella or short story here and there. And though both The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance (the first two books in the SA series) are probably longer than 99% of the books you've ever read (they are both just over 1,000 pages)... they are so worth it.  I can't say too much without spoilering the major plot points of the book, but it has everything you want in an epic story. Intrigue, war, and more robust character development and world-building than any series I've ever read (and this includes the Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones books, not to mention it's approximately 95% less overtly explicit than those books, as well). The major characters of Kaladin, Dalinar, Shallan, Jasnah, and others are compelling and exciting, and the world of Roshar (the planet on which the SA series is set) is a rich, diverse place filled with many different cultures and peoples, and you get to experience at least a little bit of most of them, even in just the first two books. Also, both books are fully-contained stories in and of themselves, so they're rewarding to read as they are, even though the full epic arc is still in its early stages.

If you like reading fiction at all, go pick up a copy of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson at your favorite e-book or (regular) book vendor. You won't regret it.  Hell, I'm 90% certain that reading it will be a lot more fun than watching us play Mizzou this Saturday.

Go Dalinar Dawgs!