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Sanderson is indeed a cool guy. I noticed he lived in the same city as a friend of mine, and mentioned it to my friend. Figuring he had nothing to lose and that Sanderson seemed pretty approachable, he bugged him on Reddit about getting some books signed. Sanderson agreed, and a few days later my friend had a signed Mistborn trilogy in his hand.
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Sep 30, 2011 20:02
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I liked Warbreaker quite a bit. I thought it was good, though not great. I think the Sanderson Avalanche might have been better than in most of his other books, though: The reveal of Lightsong's past and the girl he had been dreaming of, the revelation that the religion actually WAS right and they were sent back, and his healing of the god king all really hit hard for me - that little all gave me shivers. The statues reveal, however, was pretty weak and boring.
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Nov 22, 2011 21:36
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Alloy of Law didn't really have the Avalanche. It had some good moments, but the Avalanche is generally a cycle of Revelation > HOLY CRAP I DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING > Character Reactions > Revelation > etc.... It builds upon itself, and instead of being one or two game-changing revelations, it's half a dozen or more. Allow of Law was much more even-keeled than most of his other work. Still very enjoyable though.
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Dec 5, 2011 06:33
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Thankfully, that wasn't Sanderson himself: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/n95w1/this_book_is_pretty_good/
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Dec 12, 2011 18:29
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:Something another poster brought up in the WoT thread: Atium. Prescience is a pretty dang big equalizer, and the interactions between that and Balefire should be sweet as gently caress. I'll go nerd here, but Atium only matters if Kelsier can hit her. All Moiraine needs to do is throw up a wall of Air around her, and no coins Kelsier shoots will land on her, nor can he approach to ninja her to death. Atium might get him the ability to dodge weaves of Air or Balefire, but a shield of Air just about stops anything he can do cold. Pending, of course, that Moraine can fight him based on believing him a Darkfriend, of course.
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Mar 23, 2012 23:51
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Edit - removed because I can't read worth a drat. Still think she'd win just by weaving a sphere of solid air around herself, Atium or not.
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Mar 24, 2012 00:50
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I've read every Sword of Truth novel. I enjoy them, though I don't believe in the bootstrapping objectivist message - I can appreciate something I don't agree with. That said, I had a friend who loved the series. In one of the later books, Richard declares he's sending his army to the land of the main bad guy with the intent on loving it up as much as possible - killing women and children, salting the earth, all sorts of fun stuff. To show them that if you wage war against Richard and crew, there are ultimate consequences. Said friend used to use this as a discussion point on how to deal with Muslims in a post 9-11 world. "Richard is right. We just need to go over there and start killing everything and everyone until they give up. You have to hit them hard like that so they see we mean business. They only understand violence."  
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Apr 13, 2012 23:56
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Yeah. Sanderson's strength is writing an absurdly tight narrative, with iron-clad logic, few to no plot holes, good pacing and EPIC reveals. His characters range from blah to average, with usually one or two pretty good characters per book - and those aren't guaranteed to be the protagonists, either. I don't mind the puns. Wit was about the only time that it got to me, and that was pretty deliberate. Lightsong really didn't bother me as much as it seems he did some. But I can't get enough of the way that his stories knit together so perfectly.
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Jun 19, 2012 15:57
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Burning the metal mind has to restore what's in it. Otherwise the system doesn't work. Vin notes when she tries some of Sazed's metal that there IS power there, just that she can't tap it. From the Mistborn Wiki: By burning a metal containing a stored attribute, such as burning atium which contains youth, the user effectively makes a profit on the attribute stored in the metal due to allomancy's property of drawing power from the metal. Thus the user gains more of the attribute than invested. An example of this is the Lord Ruler's immortality which is achieved through periods spent aged, storing youth in atium which he later burns and stores in the main atium minds which sustain him. Note that the attribute stored must have orignated from the user, hence Vin's inability to use the power in Sazed's pewtermind. The term for a Twinborn who can burn the same metal as their Feruchemical ability uses is called a Compounder. A Compounder can store that metal, and tap it later at tenfold the power of a normal Misting.
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Sep 28, 2012 05:03
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Really enjoyed this one, though I'm usually a champion of Sanderson's works, so that came as no surprise to me. None of the twists were hard to spot, but they worked - which was important when they're not based on "Hard Magic" like Sanderson usually sticks to. Having a Soft Magic style where anything could be made up on the fly and yet still piece together logically really shows how well he does at plotting. Really hoping we get some full backstory next book. I'm certain that Prof trashed his own school, but I'd really like to know about Calamity, even though it's mostly incidental to the real plot, unless he goes with a "destroy it to depower all Epics" plot.
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Sep 26, 2013 22:28
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Maybe it's because I just finished Alphas a few weeks back, but the entire time, I couldn't see Prof as anything but Dr. Rosen from it. Which made for an oddly jarring scene when he saved David's bacon with the 'tensors'
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Sep 30, 2013 22:09
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Yeah, getting optioned is pretty much free money, since it just means "we'd like the option of considering to make a movie/tv show with your property, but we might not ever do it. Please accept this money to reserve the rights for a few years". I think it was Stephen King that said he preferred options that never became a movie, because people always bitch about how bad the adaptations are and he just rakes in the cash. Still, if Brandon has enough control over the rights that he's gotten to be a little discerning, maybe it'll actually amount to something halfway decent. Or we could get another The Dresden Files. Edit: Honestly, I love all three Mistborn novels, but I'd rather see The Final Empire done as a single mini-series, full stop. I'm not sure how well the other two books would work out on the small screen and still keep up viewer interest without heavy alterations. The Final Empire would work well with the heist aspect and Vin's training, culminating in the tear down of the Lord Ruler. It's got the right number of main characters for a starring cast, is almost serialized for a week to week viewing with the balls and training happening in sequence, and doesn't have a lot of expensive on-location shooting. Well of Ascension? Hero of Ages? I love them, but no, please don't try to wrangle them onto the screen. Mortanis fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 20:26
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veekie posted:For Gold compounders, any kind of dismembering attack would work well I think. A large axe plus something to keep Miles from shooting holes in you would have taken him out of action pretty rapidly as he loses enormous health reserves to regenerate body parts even as he loses the stores held in those parts. The Lord Ruler survived decapitation supposedly. Was that likely because he also had Pewter to help with the physical healing?
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Oct 17, 2013 16:21
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Regarding Steelheart and Prof: Only Tia was aware of Prof's Epic status. No one knew that there was an explicit limitation on Gifters not gifting to other Epics - without some serious trial and error, Prof would have no reason to believe that just like some people were able to utilize Gifted powers very well, there likely was a subset of regular humans that couldn't use Gifted powers at all. There'd be no reason to think otherwise until there was data available. As far as we know, Prof's experience with Gifting was likely limited to the Reckoners and what they knew about Conflux. Small pool to draw conclusions from.
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Oct 17, 2013 19:36
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It's important to note that burning metals isn't what gives you the power. Sanderson isn't very clear on that in the books, but he's talked about it in interviews. The power itself exists, and burning metals is basically the key that fits in the lock that gives you access to it. It's why there's a hard limit on how much power you can get from burning a metal - it's not based on your genetics or "aptitude", it's like there's a pipe that's only so wide, and once you unlock it by burning the metal, you get access to its full potential. When Vin ate some of Sazed's feruchemy-stored metal, she could feel the power in there. She could burn it as a normal metal, but the power within was locked away. If you burn metal you've stored energy in yourself, it tears the "lock" way wider and the "pipe" access becomes much larger - you can access a far greater amount of Allomantic power now. Your garden hose of strength becomes a fire-hose of strength. So you store some of that excess back into your metal, as you normally would, and use the rest for whatever you want - you've still got 90% of it left, and that's still a dozen times normal capacity. The metal doesn't store any more, but since you're using a firehose to fill a bucket, it fills quickly and you're still left with plenty to use for other stuff. With gold, since there's no benefit of use, he can just put all 100% (which is dozens of times normal burning capacity and storing capacity) into goldminds. Each cycle is a net gain of a metric crapton because of this, and he doesn't have to burn any metals except to fill the goldminds, so he's not continually burning anything (and seeing self-echoes). He probably keeps himself fully topped off, though, so he's always scrambling for gold. He's paranoid of death that he'd never go without the fires roaring. Tapping is fast effect (  ) so he can pretty much be guaranteed to stoke the process up to full even if he's shot in the brain.
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Oct 25, 2013 19:55
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I really enjoyed Alloy of Law. I really love Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages - have signed copies on my shelf even. However, they certainly suffer compared to Final Empire, and I hope the next two Wax and Wayne books don't have a similar drop off. Sanderson's really honed his art quite a bit since then, but I'm wondering what he'll bring to the table on the books. Mistborn was a bit of a natural progression, introducing a rigid magic system and exploring the depths of it and everything with Preservation and Ruin. Alloy of Law delves a lot more into the mechanics of other metals and compounding. I'm wondering what else there is to explore beyond "more story". Which, don't get me wrong, will be great. He just usually explores mechanics as well as story.
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Oct 29, 2013 17:20
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There's also the fact that (Alloy of Law Spoiler) The guy that Wax runs into at the beginning of the book completely looks to be burning Atium when he somehow manages to perfectly beat the little trick he and his girl had set up. It's just too neatly done and really seems like the guy knew exactly where to move her. Atium.
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Oct 30, 2013 17:49
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thespaceinvader posted:Electrum would do the trick, wouldn't it? It only shows you your futures, not other peoples' but it would allow you to know in which you them the bullet hit you, and in which it hit what you wanted it to hit? Also, I'm not convinced something that happens within the first chapter really counts as spoilers when you consider some of the unspoilered things being discussed on this page. Ah, true... I think it would work. You'd be able to see which of your own possible futures you dodge the bullet from and moved your target into the path. You only see your own shadows, though, so you'd have to pay close attention to which shadow you wanted I suppose, rather than watching for the perfect incoming one. I just think Atium seems more thematically likely, setting up the future. Electrum should do it though, in a kind of roundabout way.
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Oct 30, 2013 21:16
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Pretty slick. Whelan's been a staple of my fantasy reading ever since I got into it, so it's great to see that tradition continue.
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Dec 30, 2013 21:30
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Holy crap. I got in. 
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Jan 18, 2014 20:49
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Yeah. It's beyond my ability to believe that an author, who makes a living writing about things that they've never experienced in their lives, could write that convincingly. His personal experience with complex magic systems and all that killing he's done has prepped him for the rest of his writing, but being able to write drinking is the stretch.
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Feb 12, 2014 17:46
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I'm pretty eager to see a mix of a (Cosmere speculation) Radiant and Nicrosil Feruchemist - Nicrosil stores Investiture. Though, without compounding, it might not be all that glorious.
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Mar 8, 2014 02:52
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Yeah, nothing special. It wasn't bad by any stretch but it just didn't catch me like a lot of his other stuff, but it's still an okay read. The only interesting note was the Cosmere ties, which comes in the form of space travelers we learn pretty much nothing about The fact that they exist is pretty much the point of interest.
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Jul 4, 2014 22:38
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They announced it to us at the retreat last week, and it sounds pretty stellar. Normally alumni are barred from returning, but it's fairly open this time. If you're a fan of writing, it's crazy worth it (same price as the retreat I just got back from, so it's basically like a free cruise). If you're going just to geek on Sanderson, don't bother. The man is aloof as hell until he breaks out his Magic: the Gathering cards.
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Oct 14, 2014 22:59
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subx posted:He's kind of an anti-social nerdy guy at heart. Not in a bad "I hate you all" way, just think of the kid that would rather be reading (writing in his case) books than hanging out with others. Yeah, 100%. He's not an rear end in a top hat at all and I didn't mean to convey something like that. He just seems like he's not a fan of being in a group, and I certainly don't fault him for that. It was genuinely great to see him get excited about Magic, though. Also, I did get to hold Firefight. Apparently only 11 people had fully read it by then. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to do more than flip through the pages before it was passed on, but it was still fun to hold months before it's published.
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Oct 16, 2014 17:53
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Legion: Skin Deep was good. I loved the original Legion, and am very intrigued by the slow increases to Leeds' ability and world in general. I'm also very glad it's just a novelette and not a full blown novel - it's the perfect size to not get lost up its own rear end. I want more, but worry that too much of it would start to neuter it some. I enjoy all his work, but his shorter stuff is some of his best. Legion, Emperor's Soul, etc.
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Nov 24, 2014 22:51
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Shadows of Self - the next Mistborn novel - is officially done. Out next fall. https://twitter.com/BrandSanderson/status/538794501205417984
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Nov 29, 2014 21:52
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Somewhere right before Alloy of Law dropped I swear I read that Sazed/Harmony was slowly corrupting under the influence of the shards he held - either the fact that shards themselves subsume hosts due to their semi-divine nature, or due to the fact that he's holding Ruin. We didn't see any evidence of that in Alloy of Law that I noticed, so I'm wondering if that was just a rumor and not something Sanderson said somewhere though.
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Jan 1, 2015 19:32
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It would be depressing to see Sazed lose himself to something less than wholesome over the centuries after all he went through before his epiphany in Hero of Ages. I know a lot of people didn't like his brooding and angst, but it really rang well with me so seeing his downs and ups in that book was cathartic. If he winds up twisted somehow by the end of the series, I'll be sad. Didn't look like it in context of Alloy of Law at least.
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Jan 2, 2015 18:27
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Yeah, just finished it, and while I enjoyed it more than Steelheart, I think it was sloppier and more plot hole ridden. I did like that David's urging and enthusiasm is kind of the catalyst for Prof using his powers more, but I'm not sure how relevant that really is to Regalia's overall plan given that Prof had already used them in the fight with Steelheart, so it wasn't like he had a 100% ZERO policy before anyway. It was just a nice realization that David can't have it both ways and that his eagerness is also the downfall in some ways. I guess facing your fear makes everything peachy and okay (rather than facing your fear and dying), which feels hokey but it's YA. I thought the book picked up a lot once Megan was back on the scene at least.
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Jan 6, 2015 23:24
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Hopeford posted:Lightsong is the funniest character Sanderson ever wrote and I hope he writes more like him. He was just such a casual rear end in a top hat that everyone around him played the perfect straight man. Agreed. The question is whether Sanderson wrote him believing the jokes to be actually funny which isn't where the humor comes from, or if it's one step back with a character that cracks off color non stop jokes in every situation like smearing a giant "gently caress you" middle finger in everyone's face all the time, which is hilarious given context of supposedly being a god. I'm sure he's capable of writing the latter these days, as he's gotten better about the subtle stuff, but Warbreaker is ancient and I'm thinking early Sanderson literally just thought LIghtsong jokes were funny. Still love Lightsong to no end though.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:55
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People must get really mad at Star Wars using 'rendezvous' and 'hell' in Empire. How far does the rabbit hole go? Every word we use is derived from the languages that have gone before. Are people taken out of stories because 'yard' is used, when clearly there's no Old English or German language to pull the word from? I just can't wrap my head around an argument that words based on Earth-locations are verboten when every other word is also a construct of Earth-languages and was crafted through thousands of years of morphing of Earth-history. So many of our English words are ripped from Latin and clearly Roshar didn't have Latin so... Fantasy languages with a half dozen apostrophes per sentence are way more egregious. Or reversing it like in Kingkiller Chronicles and having a character declare only wines from Vint can have a vintage, just to be clever with wordplay in a fantasy setting.
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Mar 24, 2015 00:12
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Finished it this morning. Not much of a Sanderson Avalanche, but the twist was pretty good and depressing. I thought this one was better than Alloy of Law, though I certainly enjoyed both. That extra bit in the Ars Arcanum is super interesting. So it's not just Allomancy/Feruchemy that have benefits when smashed together. It's probably not just another form of compounding, but something unique to each pairing. So, what happens if you pair 3 or more - do you gain each bonus ability, or are there extra ones for adding a third and fourth and on? Either way, Hoid's going to be a mini-god.
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Oct 7, 2015 16:08
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Wow, nice catch. It's so easy to miss because little is called to it, but he did need a new earring and that sort of thing wouldn't surprise me given Sanderson.
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Oct 8, 2015 19:57
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Also, dug the shout out to "visitors from another world" - Pretty concrete that shardpools are how one travels the cosmere then, though that's been more or less known for awhile now. So, the mists still exist. That's Harmony's Spiritual realm manifestation I take it and apparently he just kept them around. If Harmonium is a thing, then that'd be his Physical. What's Harmony's Cognitive realm manifestation? There's a shardpool on Scadrial, so I guess that's probably it, but there's another Shard in play now so it's not definitive.
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Oct 9, 2015 20:50
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I'm not sure the series will go that direction, but the idea that Harmony might be an unreliable narrator of sorts and may turn toward the darker side is tantalizing to me exactly for the reasons of his journey to become Harmony in the Mistborn trilogy. Taking a hero and then tarnishing that - if done well - would be great. Especially since Harmony has a slight imbalance toward Ruin - on a long enough timeline, it's going to become more evident and because Harmony IS Harmony, Sazed is going to think everything is perfectly kosher while things grow problematic.
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Oct 14, 2015 02:27
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Finished Bands of Mourning and Secret History today. drat there's a lot to process. If Kelsier got his body back to show the southerners the secrets of Allomancy, he's likely still around in some fashion. I really enjoyed Secret History, but that last chapter worried me. Now I feel as if all the cool Lord Mistborn stuff we got to hear about in the W+W books is actually just Kelsier pushing Spook around, robbing him of his agency. He didn't become his own awesome ruler, Kelsier was standing around badgering him all that time. Based on Bands, I'm guessing FTL is going to be an Allomantic/Feruchemical version of the Alcubierre Drive. Space and time are linked, so compressing time in front of a ship compresses space; expanding time behind a ship expands space.
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Jan 29, 2016 18:59
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While doing it like Hoid et al do likely is the easiest, that wouldn't make for a book like ALLOMANCERS IN SPAAAAAACE. You need a physical star ship and allomantic-warp-drive or it loses the thematic connection. I'm all for Shadowrun Realmatic fuckery becoming the Matrix. This needs to happen now.
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Jan 29, 2016 19:54
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Well, to be fair, the world of Aeronaut's Windlass seems to be future Earth rather than a constructed fantasy world. I liked it and it doesn't negate a lot of what you said, but the whole created by a deity thing doesn't quite count.
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Feb 15, 2016 06:48
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Ferus uses Latin (Semper fortitudo) - Butcher's certainly aware enough to know that you don't just toss Latin into a fantasy world There's also Spire Albion - Albion is an actual name for Great Britain and again I'm sure Butcher knows this. It stuck out as much to me as if it it had been named Spire California but I'm kinda nerdy that way. This one is stretching, but they refer to the ground as 'earth' quite a bit. While for us ground, dirt, and earth are synonymous, but that's because it's our planet. Another planet calling ground 'earth' is weird, but it's such a common turn of phrase that it's very possible it slipped through the cracks. I note it here because it could line up with the others. Nothing super-damning or anything, but it feels like Butcher put the seeds in there.
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Feb 15, 2016 20:20
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