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Ugly In The Morning posted:I misread that as WoK and got really excited even though I know the next Stormlight book is way far out. I just finished WoK last weekend and I'm loving jonesing, man. I know. I just finished WoK as well, he really teased the magic system this time. He better not die before he finishes this series. I will be very angry. I like those characters, I want to see them win. All of them.
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Aug 5, 2011 13:06
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Haha, well, he's only 36 and seems pretty damned healthy (not GRRM fat or old or whatever), so I think he's got a lot of books left in him and isn't in any danger of dying.
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Aug 5, 2011 14:01
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He'll find a way to finish the series before he's 40. Mormons must have a time machine or something.
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Aug 5, 2011 21:03
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Democratic Pirate posted:He'll find a way to finish the series before he's 40. Mormons must have a time machine or something. They aren't allowed to do anything fun, leaves you a lot of time to be productive I guess.
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Aug 5, 2011 22:13
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Nice title IRQ...I was just thinking that I love Davos. Only 40 percent into DwD though.
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Aug 7, 2011 04:29
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I just finished the first Mistborn book, and I have to say I enjoyed the ending more than the beginning, so I may just read the rest of the series. The characters still felt a bit flat, the dialog was cringe-worthy at times, and I anticipated most of the plot twists, but the setting and magic system are solid, and the man writes action well so... It really wasn't bad, it actually got decently entertaining, though there were times I felt like I should be playing it as a computer game more so than reading it as a book. Maybe I'm missing why Sanderson is getting praise heaped upon him as a major fantasy writer though. Is it just that he's so prolific? Or is it that he's saved the WoT series? Or if his writing an characterization really does improve dramatically then that's awesome and he deserves it... Edit: Time to read GRRM's DwD now. Wish me luck, I just read a synopsis of AFfC as a refresher and I'm already starting to hate myself... shady anachronism fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 01:17
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anachrodragon posted:Maybe I'm missing why Sanderson is getting praise heaped upon him as a major fantasy writer though. Is it just that he's so prolific? Or is it that he's saved the WoT series? Or if his writing an characterization really does improve dramatically then that's awesome and he deserves it... As you stated, his world building is incredible. And yes, he single handidly saved WOT from what could have been the greatest gently caress up in fantasy ever. I'm hopeful that his dialog and charecters will greatly improve as his 10 book epic, Stormlight Archive, moves along, but we shall see. For every bad-rear end charecter in that book, there are some cringeworthy ones. Another reason everybody likes Sanderson is that all his books (except WoT for obvious reasons) tie together into a meta-verse, yet also exist on their own merits. This is essentially what Stephen King wishes he could have done with his Dark Tower books and such. Finish out the Mistborn books, and then check out the 17thshard.com's wiki for more info. I'd talk more about it, but it kinda spoils the last two Mistborn books. http://coppermind.17thshard.com/wiki/Main_Page  EDIT: speaking of the 17th Shard... http://www.17thshard.com/news/brandon-news/alloy-of-law-could-be-a-series-r47 They may have outed the news that Alloy of Law could turn into a recurring series instead of a standalone... 17thShard.com posted:The Mistborn Adventures. Well, that’s sure interesting. Cartoon Man fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 01:39
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anachrodragon posted:I just finished the first Mistborn book, and I have to say I enjoyed the ending more than the beginning, so I may just read the rest of the series. The characters still felt a bit flat, the dialog was cringe-worthy at times, and I anticipated most of the plot twists, but the setting and magic system are solid, and the man writes action well so... It really wasn't bad, it actually got decently entertaining, though there were times I felt like I should be playing it as a computer game more so than reading it as a book. He is aware of the fact that he tends to have what he calls "the Sanderson avalanche" happen in his books, in that they are pretty heavily back-loaded and a whole lot of poo poo happens at once. He has not yet gotten any better about it though. Sanderson's work borders on being YA at times pretty strongly, at least that's my opinion of it. I don't have a problem with that at all, but if you do or were expecting him to be the next Gurm or Robert Jordan or something I could see where the praise is perhaps overblown. It's way more His Dark Materials or Hunger Games than it is ASOIAF or LOTR. I guess I don't see how that computer game comment is a criticism of Sanderson's writing, but it's perfectly fine not to like his style.
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Aug 8, 2011 01:55
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IRQ posted:He is aware of the fact that he tends to have what he calls "the Sanderson avalanche" happen in his books, in that they are pretty heavily back-loaded and a whole lot of poo poo happens at once. He has not yet gotten any better about it though. It wasn't meant as a criticism. I like computer games quite a lot actually. I was more trying to pin down the style, and bordering on YA is probably a better way to describe it. I actually had that thought as well earlier on. I definitely enjoyed the end of the book quite a bit more than the beginning, so I don't mind the back-loadedness either really. It's good to know what to expect though, and I'd unfortunately heard Sanderson hype that implied he was the next Gurm or Robert Jordan, etc... Thinking of him as the next His Dark Materials or Hunger Games or something is, I think a much fairer comparison.
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Aug 8, 2011 02:10
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anachrodragon posted:
I think it's that his stuff is pretty accessible, is highly readable, and is fantasy. That's about it. I don't think anyone is going to say that his stuff is as nuanced or well written as GRRM's or Erikson's or Abercrombie's. He's not on their level, in my opinion. But being a step below the greats is still a pretty good place to be, right? His stuff is still great to read, he writes a ton, and it's way better than the "safe" poo poo that authors like Eddings/Feist write.
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Aug 8, 2011 02:14
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A Nice Boy posted:I think it's that his stuff is pretty accessible, is highly readable, and is fantasy. That's about it. I don't think anyone is going to say that his stuff is as nuanced or well written as GRRM's or Erikson's or Abercrombie's. He's not on their level, in my opinion. But being a step below the greats is still a pretty good place to be, right? His stuff is still great to read, he writes a ton, and it's way better than the "safe" poo poo that authors like Eddings/Feist write. The level of accessibility in his novels helped hook me into fantasy, and allowed me to get more into Abercrombie and Glenn Cook's work than I think I would have been before reading Sanderson. The YA comparison is pretty spot-on, actually.
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Aug 8, 2011 05:26
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He's also active in the community and beyond being prolific, you can see him improving with each book. He's not just cranking out poo poo to get paid.
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Aug 8, 2011 05:27
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Way of Kings is really his only novel that is nearing the top tier level of fantasy. He's gotten so much better with every book, I think, when you look at when they were originally written. I'm not a fan of Mistborn 2 or 3, but that series was written all at once, so I don't think he really had much time to improve between books. You seriously have to appreciate him when he makes a 400,000 word book read as fast as a short thriller, whereas GRRM and RJ's last books felt as long as a trilogy each and moved the plot forward by inches.
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Aug 8, 2011 08:28
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One of the things that really endears him to me and helps me look past his flaws and stick with him as he improves is that he really seems to be doing it because he loving LOVES it. He's not just cranking them out for a paycheck...This man loves fantasy novels and being a huge loving nerd. He posts all the time on Facebook, and just seems like the most accessible of all the fantasy authors as far as interacting with him goes. It feels like one of my best friends got a book deal or something.
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Aug 8, 2011 08:41
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anachrodragon posted:Maybe I'm missing why Sanderson is getting praise heaped upon him as a major fantasy writer though. It's because he's an OK writer and the vast majority of fantasy writers aren't. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are major fantasy writers and they wrote dragonlance. You don't exactly have to be Faulkner, hth
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Aug 8, 2011 13:34
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Also, a writer can be great without straying into the deepest end of the pool. Most people that enjoy deep films can also appreciate something like Die Hard because it set out to do something different but was nearly flawless in its execution. When it comes to books the notion that something isn't valid unless it's high literature seems to pop up a lot.
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Aug 8, 2011 14:56
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Abercrombie has a way to go before he's one of the greats. Finishing a story would be a good start--all we've got are bits and pieces, you never know, he could Steven King us. He's pretty good though, I don't think he's actually going to make a spider eat Bayaz, and I like his work more than I like "better" writers'. Sanderson? Well, WoK was loving incredible. If he can do an entire series of 10 books (gently caress, they start calling it a cycle at that point, don't they?) at that level of quality, with a strong story that covers the entire thing, it'll easily be up there with WoT and LotR. Of course, he's been working on that book for 10 years or something, so I guess we'll see how much of that quality was the result of long percolation when the next one comes out in ... 2012?
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Aug 9, 2011 05:32
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The only thing I really dislike about Brandon is that his funny characters are never funny.
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Aug 9, 2011 12:02
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I also dislike that he introduces incredibly boring pov characters who don't advance the plot and never show up again just for the sake of worldbuilding. I'm looking at you, WoK. You could have been 100 pages shorter and no one would have noticed.
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Aug 9, 2011 15:16
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I can forgive him for that in the first book of a ten book series since they might show up in later books.
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Aug 9, 2011 15:53
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L-O-N posted:I can forgive him for that in the first book of a ten book series since they might show up in later books. Also, the chapter with the random spearman was a great introduction for Kaladin and an awesome setup for later. I thought it was the best use of a oneoff PoV character I've read in a while.
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Aug 9, 2011 16:06
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Also, the chapter with the random spearman was a great introduction for Kaladin and an awesome setup for later. I thought it was the best use of a oneoff PoV character I've read in a while. Some of those characters were really interesting I thought. I hope the dude who collects spren comes back!
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Aug 9, 2011 16:31
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I like Sanderson for all of the reasons mentioned above, and the fact that he's working on fixing his Sanderson Avalanche problem. But I want it to come back as THE Sanderson Avalanche that encompasses all of the book series he wrote in his giant Cosmere thing. I want a huge book full of "  How did I not see that?!" moments. It probably won't happen that way, but there's hope.
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Aug 9, 2011 20:25
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The Sanderson Avalanche is a feature, not a bug. 
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Aug 9, 2011 22:36
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Looking forward to the last book being all avalanche start to finish.
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Aug 9, 2011 23:25
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I'm waiting for Sanderson to write a book where Hoid gathers up several heros from each of these books and forms a Justice League.
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Aug 10, 2011 00:26
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Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:When it comes to books the notion that something isn't valid unless it's high literature seems to pop up a lot. Welcome to the Book Barn, where it's poo poo upon if it's fantasy.
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Aug 10, 2011 03:26
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Maytag posted:Welcome to the Book Barn, where it's poo poo upon if it's fantasy. And yet at one point there were three ASoIaF threads running at one time.
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Aug 10, 2011 05:18
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Mahlertov Cocktail posted:And yet at one point there were three ASoIaF threads running at one time. This subforum has a weird way of being 90% fantasy/scifi but somehow hating fantasy/scifi. Hell the mods killed off the best thread in here.
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Aug 10, 2011 05:40
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It started from the very beginning. I remember when this forum first started, and there were tons of arguments about the different thread icons that should be available. Lots of people argued that Fantasy and Sci-Fi wouldn't need separate icons (which is why they share one today), and some even argued that they should just fall under a regular 'fiction' icon.
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Aug 10, 2011 05:47
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IRQ posted:Hell the mods killed off the best thread in here. If you're talking about the Bad Thread...
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Aug 10, 2011 06:40
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Affi posted:Some of those characters were really interesting I thought. I hope the dude who collects spren comes back! Knowing Sanderson and the way he ties things up at the end, I would assume every single one of those seemingly meaningless one-offs becomes hugely important later.
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Aug 10, 2011 06:49
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I don't mind the Sanderson Avalanche, honestly. I loved WoK and the Mistborn series. I haven't read Elantris or Warbreaker yet because I am in the middle two other books right now. To the point that he is very approachable as an author, I would have to agree. The example that comes to mind for me is that he did a Q&A with the Fantasy Bookclub subreddit on Reddit on while ago. I found it pretty cool that he would do something like that for such a small audience (at least in that subreddit). I'm looking forward to the next Mistborn and WoK books.
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Aug 10, 2011 13:09
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Liesmith posted:I also dislike that he introduces incredibly boring pov characters who don't advance the plot and never show up again just for the sake of worldbuilding. I'm looking at you, WoK. You could have been 100 pages shorter and no one would have noticed. Well your mileage may vary I guess. Because I absolutely loved those little peeks into the other parts of the world. First off I thought they were some of the best writing in the book and they worked as a palette cleanser after some of the crazy happenings from the main storylines. And they did provide some clues (all the stuff about spren and the storms) to the nature of the world that we'll probably need to know down the line. And considering how much plot and story TWOK covered, I don't mind the extra padding. It just adds to the epicness of the book.
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Aug 10, 2011 13:21
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The only boring pov was the fisher dude in the ankle deep lake. I really liked the girl who went around smashing art with a hammer. Also, I'm very excited that he's going to start posting Mythwalker chapters next week, which he says is a very, very bad book. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Aug 10, 2011 |
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Aug 10, 2011 15:26
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I honestly like the Sanderson Avalanche, I just hate when I hit it at 11pm at night and then can't put the book down until I finish it. I also really liked the Spren one-off guy. I want to see more of him in the series.
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Aug 10, 2011 17:39
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http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/08/the-alloy-of-law-chapter-five Alloy of Law, Chapter Five Things get real.
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Aug 10, 2011 17:50
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arioch posted:The Sanderson Avalanche is a feature, not a bug. Couldn't agree more with this. I feel like the book is a huge buildup and a -giant- climax at the end. It's a much better formula than the traditional climax-anticlimax end, which leaves me sorta depressed.
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Aug 10, 2011 19:39
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Alloy of Law: So apparently at some point Koloss blood entered the general population. I don't even want to think about how that happened 
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Aug 10, 2011 20:29
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arioch posted:http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/08/the-alloy-of-law-chapter-five Dammit, why do I let myself read these chapters. I want more now.
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Aug 10, 2011 20:33
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