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Very awkward lookin' trophy there. OK rockets are generally shaped much like that but when you put a dome at one end, well... I mean... OK theres no easy way to say it that trophy looks like a dildo.
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Sep 5, 2013 00:24
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JagGator posted:I like how he has a pen in his pocket. Because you know he probably cranked out another novella on the back of his placemat while he waited for the other awards to be presented. With a new, trophy-based magic system.
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Sep 5, 2013 00:37
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Tunicate posted:With a new, trophy-based magic system. Recognitionmancy?
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Sep 5, 2013 00:40
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404GoonNotFound posted:Recognitionmancy? He could probably make it work. The more famous your are the more power you have?
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Sep 5, 2013 02:14
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Superstring posted:He could probably make it work. The more famous your are the more power you have? Gettin a little close to Malazan, turn left. (I love Malazan)
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Sep 5, 2013 02:23
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Bluedust posted:Gettin a little close to Malazan, turn left. (I love Malazan) Not just Malazan. American Gods (Neil Gaimann) and the Dresden Files (Jim Butcher) have used this system, so it's hardly an Erickson exclusive. Heck, I'd bet (without having looked at any of the books in years) that Terry Pratchett did this in at least one Discworld novel. If I'm translating correctly, kleiomancy is a great system to use in any environment where you've got multiple generations of magic users.
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Sep 5, 2013 04:26
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Grundulum posted:Not just Malazan. American Gods (Neil Gaimann) and the Dresden Files (Jim Butcher) have used this system, so it's hardly an Erickson exclusive. Heck, I'd bet (without having looked at any of the books in years) that Terry Pratchett did this in at least one Discworld novel. Small Gods establishes that gods on the Disc draw power from having people worship and pray to them. The titular small gods are little sprites (spren?  ) that roam the Disc hoping to luck into someone praying to them.
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Sep 5, 2013 08:49
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404GoonNotFound posted:Recognitionmancy? You know, -mancy is supposed to refer to divination. Necromancy originally being divining the future by talking to the dead for example. This isn't an excuse to be pedantic, I just wanted to segue into a way to inform everyone that "alomancy" is an actual thing where you use salt to divine the future (like casting bones is ossomancy or looking into a crystal ball is crystallomancy). So if you want to be a real life allomancer, just spread some salt about and make up some bullshit.
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Sep 6, 2013 11:15
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Superstring posted:He could probably make it work. The more famous your are the more power you have? I quite like 'the less famous you are, the more power (on the proviso that it takes some special thing to have power at all). Mages who can ONLY work in the shadows...
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Sep 6, 2013 22:54
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thespaceinvader posted:I quite like 'the less famous you are, the more power (on the proviso that it takes some special thing to have power at all). Mages who can ONLY work in the shadows... Names have power and everyone that knows your name claims a small piece of your soul? The main villain could be a Keyser Soze figure that's murdered everyone that knows his real name while simultaneously meeting as many people as possible to learn their names?
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Sep 8, 2013 03:05
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thespaceinvader posted:I quite like 'the less famous you are, the more power (on the proviso that it takes some special thing to have power at all). Mages who can ONLY work in the shadows... The biggest problem with that would be that beginner mages would(I think) be better than veterans almost by default. Unless there was some sort of equation involved like "Power goes up one level per magical stone touched divided by number of people who know you are a mage, every magical stone is heavily guarded by kingdoms that don't want ridiculously powered mages" and mages had to Arsene Lupin their way to getting upgrades while remaining undetected. Speaking of Arsene Lupin, I hope Sanderson goes into that magical thief area a bit. I really liked his Mistborn-in-the-shadows scenes, especially in the first novel of the trilogy. I would love to see something like that in say, Way of Kings. Sanderson is really good at having things look stylish as hell and that's a pretty good fit for magical stealth.
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Sep 8, 2013 03:31
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Sherringford posted:The biggest problem with that would be that beginner mages would(I think) be better than veterans almost by default. Unless there was some sort of equation involved like "Power goes up one level per magical stone touched divided by number of people who know you are a mage, every magical stone is heavily guarded by kingdoms that don't want ridiculously powered mages" and mages had to Arsene Lupin their way to getting upgrades while remaining undetected. It wouldn't be the first series to have power vary inversely with experience. The Young Wizards series did it. As your power declines, you just compensate by applying your power more skillfully.
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Sep 8, 2013 04:33
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Sherringford posted:The biggest problem with that would be that beginner mages would(I think) be better than veterans almost by default. Unless there was some sort of equation involved like "Power goes up one level per magical stone touched divided by number of people who know you are a mage, every magical stone is heavily guarded by kingdoms that don't want ridiculously powered mages" and mages had to Arsene Lupin their way to getting upgrades while remaining undetected. You could tweak things a little by having it so that the more you practice magic, the more it becomes a part of you making it easier to strip part of you away with your name. It insulates regular humans from the effects, but as a mage gets stronger they have to become more paranoid and reclusive. That way the babby mages can know a lot of people, be in classes, etc, while the old wizened grandmasters have to keep their faces hidden and communicate by letters since even meeting someone face to face could cripple their power. It'd give all the old wizards a reason to have towers out in the wilderness
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Sep 8, 2013 06:42
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NinjaDebugger posted:It wouldn't be the first series to have power vary inversely with experience. The Young Wizards series did it. As your power declines, you just compensate by applying your power more skillfully. It's actually very convenient that way for the narrative, the young inexperienced character would have the power to change the world. The older mentor type can't do that anymore and doesn't need as much of an excuse to stay out of the action.
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Sep 8, 2013 07:45
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NinjaDebugger posted:It wouldn't be the first series to have power vary inversely with experience. The Young Wizards series did it. As your power declines, you just compensate by applying your power more skillfully. Yeah, and I always thought that was dumb.
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Sep 8, 2013 08:04
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This was posted on Brandon's Facebook. As a Wheel of Time fan, I thought it was pretty cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1zEP0Z5Fk Steelheart comes out soon. 
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Sep 17, 2013 18:48
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Wearing a Szeth shirt like a boss. God I cannot wait for the sequel to Way of Kings. I'm gonna try to get Steelheart and Emperor's Soul in the meantime.
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Sep 18, 2013 01:51
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If anyone is interested in it, you can get signed & numbered copies of Steelheart from http://www.wellerbookworks.com/ for $18.00 + shipping (either $7 or $13). The process is a bit annoying since they don't have any sort of e-commerce on their site, but if you send an email to books@wellerbookworks.com with your shipping address and what type of shipping you want, they will email you back a PayPal invoice. Nice enough people to work with. Links with maybe some more info: http://brandonsanderson.com/a-question-for-my-german-and-other-foreign-language-readers/ https://www.facebook.com/events/155581877983974/?ref=22
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Sep 19, 2013 10:47
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I picked up Mistborn audiobook after reading the OP. Hopefully this will go better than the last time I went with a goon recommend author. Patrick Rothfuss.
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Sep 21, 2013 12:38
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DarkHorse posted:Wearing a Szeth shirt like a boss. Do they still have that shirt that says "I'm wearing your mom,"? Edit: do you think he would be offended if I told him that he was a better fiction writer than John Smith? uh zip zoom fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 14:01
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Super excited about Words of Radiance. I've hooked several people on Sanderson where I work (as well as my wife and father) and we're all giddy in anticipation.uh zip zoom posted:Edit: do you think he would be offended if I told him that he was a better fiction writer than John Smith? He'd probably be very confused why you were comparing him to an early English settler of Jamestown Virginia who was not exactly known for his fictional prose or literary style (because he didn't write fiction) though his nonfiction writings were important for encouraging further British colonization
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Sep 23, 2013 22:07
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Steelheart is out tomorrow right?
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Sep 23, 2013 22:20
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ConfusedUs posted:Steelheart is out tomorrow right? Yep.
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Sep 23, 2013 22:22
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ConfusedUs posted:Steelheart is out tomorrow right? My copy shipped from Amazon today, so... yes
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Sep 23, 2013 23:35
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Apparently the 26th in the UK, that said Waterstones sometimes have books on the shelves early so I guess I'll go have a poke around there before I go to Uni tomorrow.
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Sep 24, 2013 00:17
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When do the Kindle orders ship? At midnight?
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Sep 24, 2013 00:44
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treeboy posted:He'd probably be very confused why you were comparing him to an early English settler of Jamestown Virginia who was not exactly known for his fictional prose or literary style (because he didn't write fiction) though his nonfiction writings were important for encouraging further British colonization Yeah, that would've been a lot more clever if I had said Joseph Smith instead of John Smith. I get it. That's what I get for posting while high.
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Sep 24, 2013 02:02
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So Sanderson's blog has some interesting news about an upcoming event tied to the release of Steelheart. Apparently he's going to be hiding codes inside some random books in bookstores. The codes apparently give you access to a special section of his site that:Brandon Sanderson posted:includes some exclusive goodies, including a ten-thousand-word chunk of Words of Radiance, book two of the Stormlight Archive. As the first one to find the code, you not only get to keep the prize found above, you’ll be able to leave your name on the list of hunters. The fun thing is that after that, you can share your code with friends so they can visit the special section of the website and read the exclusives there themselves. Unfortunately for me he's not coming to my city but he says that he will have opportunities for cities he's not going to. Pretty neat stuff.
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Sep 24, 2013 02:16
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Someone had drat well better share their code 
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Sep 24, 2013 02:49
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AgentHaiTo posted:When do the Kindle orders ship? At midnight? "This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on September 24, 2013." I assume so. But what timezone!?
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Sep 24, 2013 02:55
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Odette posted:"This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on September 24, 2013." When I preordered A Memory of Light I got it right around 9 PST, so it should be showing up soon!
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Sep 24, 2013 04:49
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Odette posted:"This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on September 24, 2013." Mine showed up about 30 minutes ago.
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Sep 24, 2013 09:30
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Just finished the book. Wow! I read it all in one go and couldn't put it down. Well done, Sanderson!
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Sep 24, 2013 11:03
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There is probably a lot of overlap between this thread and the Dresden thread, so some of you have already heard of what I'm about to plug. But if you want more superhero action after Steelheart, written with roughly the same amount of talent and work ethic as Brandon Sanderson, try Worm: http://parahumans.wordpress.com/category/stories-arcs-1-10/arc-1-gestation/1-01/ The first chapter or so is kind of slow (and the first entry is almost criminally unlike what is to come), but after that it really picks up. The superpowers are all fascinating, and a lot of care goes into making sure there is no such thing as complete invincibility -- everyone has an exploitable weakness, and eventually they'll run into another "cape" who can exploit it. Also, all of the characters are more than a power and an alignment; we take occasional breaks from the main story for "interludes", which give the author the opportunity to advance the story from a different character's perspective and really flesh out the characters presented that way. The author has published a new entry at least twice a week, every week, since June of 2011. Including one week of wonders when he/she put out roughly 50,000 words over eight consecutive days. Finally, the author says we are on the next-to-last chapter, so you won't have to wait very long for the amazingly exciting conclusion (lucky you!). We are discussing it in the web serial thread, but we only spoiler-tag the last couple of chapters, so new readers beware!
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Sep 24, 2013 15:33
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I would say that while Worm is certainly an OK web serial, it hardly matches up to Sanderson. It is a fun read with lots of superhero action, but beyond that there's really not much. Superheroes fight each other, then fight big bad monsters, then each other, then big bad monsters, repeat. Each big bad monster is tougher than the last, but you don't get a "So and so just leveled up" feeling at least. As I read it, I didn't get the sense that the author had a story planned out, but rather would write himself into and then out of a corner, sometimes with some pretty heavy handed deus ex going on.
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Sep 24, 2013 16:39
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Odette posted:Just finished the book. Wow! I read it all in one go and couldn't put it down. Well done, Sanderson! Same here actually. I really enjoyed it, and I can't believe I didn't catch the big twist ahead of time. It's really quite simple looking back at it.
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Sep 24, 2013 19:02
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Phummus posted:I would say that while Worm is certainly an OK web serial, it hardly matches up to Sanderson. It is a fun read with lots of superhero action, but beyond that there's really not much. Superheroes fight each other, then fight big bad monsters, then each other, then big bad monsters, repeat. Each big bad monster is tougher than the last, but you don't get a "So and so just leveled up" feeling at least. As I read it, I didn't get the sense that the author had a story planned out, but rather would write himself into and then out of a corner, sometimes with some pretty heavy handed deus ex going on.
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Sep 24, 2013 19:36
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Sanderson put up a clarification blog post saying that if you get a code, you're free to share it... but not publicly. One to one is okay, but if it's spotted on Twitter/Facebook/etc the code will be deactivated. So... whoever finds a code I will loving buy you a plat upgrade so you can PM everyone. Or an admin can put the paygate back up for viewing TBB, ala LP currently. Whatever. 404GoonNotFound fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 01:38
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Algid posted:Given what the current "big bad monster" is I don't think that's a very valid accusation. Yeah, it's not even in the right loving ballpark. Worm is maybe one of the best things I've ever read, and I've read a lot of books across all sorts of genres.
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Sep 25, 2013 02:17
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Steelheart, just... I was a bit iffy at the start the grand rules of the magic system are still very undefined yet, but... that ending felt amazing. Also, I read that character, in that voice. Thanks Futurama.
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Sep 25, 2013 02:58
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