Brandon Sanderson: There's always another secret project.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Brandon Sanderson: There's always another secret project.

cams: Mar 28, 2003

How similar is the "Wheel of Time" series to Sandersons' storytelling style? I know he only did the last 2 of like 50 books, but I'm considering picking it up since I've been on a Sanderson kick and I've almost read everything he's published.

EDIT: Mostly I'm curious about how Wheel of Time deals with characters, is it constant throughout or is each book new poo poo? I enjoy characters.

Also, finished Elantris last night. It's pretty funny going through it after I already read the Stormlight books and all the Mistborn stuff. From the first chapter you spend the rest of the book just WAITING for someone to go anime. It is really the prototype to Kaladin's of "dump piles and piles of poo poo and sorrow on this dude to build up to the good stuff."

Other than that, fun read. You can definitely tell it's one of his earlier works just on polish and style though. I have to say I am extremely interested in the entire "cosmere" thing and find it impressive how well he does it.

cams fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Jun 13, 2014

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 03:37

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 08:26

cams: Mar 28, 2003

nucleicmaxid posted:

That was my favorite little Easter egg/ nod to the old books. And really, for as brief as it was, was very memorable and I enjoyed it.

Can somebody remind me what it is? I read all the books but it's been a while and I'm curious if I missed something. I don't think I did though.

Is it just family/city names and stuff?

# ¿ Dec 21, 2014 06:27

cams: Mar 28, 2003

The idea of Kaladin as an "angst-ridden teenager" I see repeated in this thread is pretty dumb. I think he is completely justified with the world in which he lives given the circumstances of the last few years of his life. He went from an optimistic young man to a betrayed soldier to an exploited slave to captain of the guard in... what, I think it's like a 3-4 year period?

I guess I understand the sentiment of "I am tired of reading about the angst of a young man", but Kaladin being pissed at poo poo makes a lot of sense to me.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2015 08:08

cams: Mar 28, 2003

Tahirovic posted:

Doesn't change the fact that his wallowing is annoying to read and you can only take so much of it

But I didn't really find this to be true at all and it's the part that really confuses me. I'm going out of my way to post about it because it is so strange to me to see so many people annoyed at having to read about someone going through this part of the human experience.

As someone who has a great interest in the entire field of storytelling, "I don't want to read about people who are sad" is really confusing for me.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2015 08:26

cams: Mar 28, 2003

Pwnstar posted:

It get frustrating to read though for sure

I guess I just don't understand why so many people are frustrating reading about an angry young man who is completely justified in being as angry as he is. Obviously everyone is gonna like certain things and dislike others, I'm just surprised at how seemingly-unanimous this sentiment is in here. Kaladin's story has been one of the most compelling to me in these books.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2015 08:41

cams: Mar 28, 2003

Pwnstar posted:

Yeah Kaladin's story is engaging but every time he starts moving forward with his life he has another breakdown and starts regressing because he can't accept good things happening. There's also the dramatic irony thing where we know Dalinar is a cool dude who would be able to help Kaladin and vice-versa but Kaladin won't trust him because he's a noble and totally just like all the others and you just want him to shut up and be happy for once.

Like the part where he and Shallan are having their adventure they overcome adversity and grow to like each other a bit and you are thinking ok cool, Kaladin is moving on yay. Then he sees that she is engaged to Adolin and he immediately regresses to thinking she's just another lighteyes who only cares about power and money etc etc.

Yeah, i find this completely believable and it would be really weird to me if he suddenly turned around on a deep-seeded hatred that is based on a man he trusted killing a bunch of people and enslaving him in order to gain power.

Again, I get that it is possible for some people to not particularly enjoy Kaladin's arc so far, it is the consensus of hatred for his characterization I've seen in this thread that is strange to me.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2015 09:46

cams: Mar 28, 2003

Superstring posted:

People like character arcs and stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Depression is the beginning and middle on loop.

Were two books in to a ten book series, which characters have had arcs with a beginning, middle, and end?

I'd actually say Adolin is the character we've seen the most change from so far and it's pretty clear we've only seen the beginning of where he's going.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2015 10:12

cams: Mar 28, 2003

Based on the name and description, I imagine it is conceptually similar to a wormhole.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 03:08

cams: Mar 28, 2003

Lobsterpillar posted:

I think I remember him from the musical version. He's pretty miserable.

At a Q/A with Sanderson, he was asked if Justice might be from the gutter, too.

He said read and find out.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 17:29

cams: Mar 28, 2003

My theory since I read book 2 was that, assuming Adolin's ending puts him down a "darker path", Kaladin will end up killing Adolin at some point. Just the vibe I got.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 06:56

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 08:26

cams: Mar 28, 2003

Che Delilas posted:

I swear to god if this series becomes a script for a CW show I'm going to burn it to save money on my heating bill.

It most likely will because romance is part of the human story and there are only so many ways to tell a dramatic tale of love.

I think the fairest complaint anyone could have is that there are very few likely outcomes that are good for Adolin. I think one of the best case scenarios would involve Shallan getting ~*~*~feelings~*~*~ for Kaladin and confronting him about it and Kaladin going "yeah i feel some of that too but uh i have, almost literally, gone through hell and now have real power to change the world for the better so i'm gonna do that and ignore all that" and that would be the end of that.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2015 06:16

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Brandon Sanderson: There's always another secret project.