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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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Mortanis posted: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. I like it a lot better than the Kaladin cover. That's just such an awkward pose. 
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Dec 30, 2013 22:04
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api call girl posted:Here's Michael Whelan's Shalan: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/12/michael-whelan-shallan-endpapers-words-of-radiance I have no idea why, but I always pictured her with a bob cut. Think a younger version of Leliana from Dragon Age.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:46
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I really like the art of Roshar wildlife.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:49
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theshim posted:I'll second The Black Prism by Brent Weeks. It uses a system of color magic that I describe to my friends as Sandersonesque - by which I mean it's got consistent rules and a full system all planned out ahead of time, just like Sanderson's magic systems (or at least it sure seems so). And this is color magic where different colors all do different things, as opposed to Warbreaker where it was simply color in general.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:44
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Sanderson has actually said if he ever dies before he finishes The Stormlight Archives he wants Weeks to finish the series.
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Dec 31, 2013 02:50
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I really disliked his Night Angel series because of its juvenile approach to, well, everything. It was a fourteen year old boy's power fantasy. Has he improved?
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Dec 31, 2013 03:21
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ConfusedUs posted:I really disliked his Night Angel series because of its juvenile approach to, well, everything. It was a fourteen year old boy's power fantasy. Edit: I found out about the series from Brandon's editor/assistant on twitter 
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Dec 31, 2013 03:52
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ConfusedUs posted:I really disliked his Night Angel series because of its juvenile approach to, well, everything. It was a fourteen year old boy's power fantasy. There's still a bit of that, but it's a lot better than Night Angel.
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Dec 31, 2013 03:58
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ConfusedUs posted:I really disliked his Night Angel series because of its juvenile approach to, well, everything. It was a fourteen year old boy's power fantasy. That's sort of countered by the protagonist being incredibly unlikable (to both the reader and the other characters in the book) and generally very flawed. But having an unlikable protagonist has its own set of problems. I think it's true that Sanderson generally doesn't "make his protagonists meaningfully flawed in a way that may evoke dislike or disgust from the reader", but that's clearly by choice rather than an inability to do so effectively. When it comes down to it, Sanderson wants us to be genuinely cheering for our protagonists. So they are never flawed in a genuinely dark way. But they can be effectively flawed; for example, I thought Joel from the Rithmatist was flawed in a realistic way, being incredibly arrogant about his intelligence in a very realistic teenage way. The scene where he makes a comment about Melody being stupid and the subsequent berating he gets was well done, I think. Sanderson can do meaningfully flawed if he chooses to, he just never crosses that line of making a protagonist flawed to the degree they are unlikable. Personally, I'm ok with that.
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Dec 31, 2013 06:27
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Kelsier of Mistborn is a fine example of a... well, I guess technically he wasn't the protagonist, but he was definitely the most important character in the first book. Sanderson mostly emphasizes Kelsier's strong points through a viewpoint character who views him as a father figure, but there's plenty of subtext there quietly alerting the discerning reader that he's kind of a monster. (And a few instances of another character openly calling him out on it.)
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Dec 31, 2013 07:14
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Cicero posted:Yeah so based on this recommendation I read The Black Prism. Pretty good book. Then I started reading The Blinding Knife; not done yet, but so far it's really good. Feels like Sanderson with more of an edge. Sometimes it feels like Sanderson can't make his protagonists meaningfully flawed in a way that may evoke dislike or disgust from the reader, and Weeks clearly does not have that problem. ConfusedUs posted:I really disliked his Night Angel series because of its juvenile approach to, well, everything. It was a fourteen year old boy's power fantasy.
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Dec 31, 2013 22:30
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Apparently Brandon is on track for finishing up work on Firefight this loving month. What a machine.
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Jan 3, 2014 23:53
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Having just finished Steelheart and liked it ok, I am surprisingly excited about this. Also burned through Alloy of Law and that was great. Looking forward to buying Rithmatist and The Emperor's Soul at some point. Super Steelheart spoilers: I figured that Prof was an epic pretty early, and I was vacillating between Megan being either a spy or an unawakened Epic, but I totally didn't anticipate her being Firefight. I had been spoiled by Sanderson's description of his inspiration for the story, so I was really tuned into whenever the characters showed a personality change. Really missed Steelheart's weakness too, I was thinking the crossfire idea until that was shot down by Sanderson mentioning it. I had originally thought about the "bullet hits Epic then hurts Steelheart," but the description makes it clear that Deathpoint is sneaking up behind Steelheart and the bullet nicks him before hitting Deathpoint. What I'm really curious about now are what Prof's and Firefight's weaknesses are. Also, where the hell did the Epic-readers come from? Prof obviously isn't an inventor, so what's that about? Some new Epic tech? Also, whoever had the idea that Calamity is an alien/super that is Gifting all their powers I think is probably right on. I imagine the motivation is much like with Prof, by spreading it out he becomes more sane, at the expense of the recipients. I also saw a lot of parallels with The Final Empire: I bet they find out that Steelheart was flawed but still trying to do right by people, much like the Emperor. I expect the city to go to hell and David and the gang getting guilt trips as they realize Steelheart was trying to protect them but forced to kill people so he'd be feared, and that he was so paranoid because as long as nobody had the chance to try to kill him, he didn't need to use his powers and was relatively sane. gently caress "Sparks!" and "Newcago." "Slontze" was kinda funny, and weird enough as an insult I was willing to buy it. Whoa that's a lot. Anyway, I guess I'm a Sanderson fanboy now. Words of Radiance just cannot come soon enough. E: Also I always thought Shallan had black hair and slightly darker skin for some reason, no idea why.
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Jan 8, 2014 03:55
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Newcago is the worst thing in the book by far. Stupid loving name.
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Jan 8, 2014 04:18
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Newcago is the single best thing about the book and I refuse to hear otherwise.
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Jan 8, 2014 17:01
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mossyfisk posted:Newcago is the single best thing about the book and I refuse to hear otherwise. The city is awesome. The name is stupid as hell.
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Jan 8, 2014 17:06
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DarkHorse posted:Having just finished Steelheart and liked it ok, I am surprisingly excited about this. Also burned through Alloy of Law and that was great. Looking forward to buying Rithmatist and The Emperor's Soul at some point. There's actually a short story that takes place a few weeks after steelheart [url= http://www.amazon.com/Mitosis-Recko...tosis+reckoners]here[/url] that you might like. Also newcago being that informs more about steelheart as a character than anything else could.
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Jan 8, 2014 17:34
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Prologue and chapters 1 and 2 of words of radiance are up on tor.com right now.
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Jan 8, 2014 20:15
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api call girl posted:Prologue and chapters 1 and 2 of words of radiance are up on tor.com right now. I can't do this to myself. I am forcing myself to wait it out so I can read the book in one disgusting binge.
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Jan 8, 2014 22:01
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Strumpy posted:I can't do this to myself. I am forcing myself to wait it out so I can read the book in one disgusting binge. You're not the only one! I just can't read part of a book.
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Jan 8, 2014 22:10
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Strumpy posted:I can't do this to myself. I am forcing myself to wait it out so I can read the book in one disgusting binge.
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Jan 8, 2014 22:10
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  to all those guys above me
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Jan 8, 2014 22:16
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^^^Thankfully the wait is only a few months.
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Jan 8, 2014 22:17
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Strumpy posted:I can't do this to myself. I am forcing myself to wait it out so I can read the book in one disgusting binge. I'm the opposite, I am unable to not read it if it's available
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Jan 8, 2014 22:44
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api call girl posted:Prologue and chapters 1 and 2 of words of radiance are up on tor.com right now. Learned a good bit about what powers Jasnah might have and her personality. Facades huh.
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Jan 8, 2014 22:52
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ConfusedUs posted:The city is awesome. The name is stupid as hell. I thought it worked pretty well because I could totally see my fellow citizens of this fair state come up with a horrible name like that.
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Jan 10, 2014 09:26
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Up to chapter five on tor.com now.
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Jan 14, 2014 20:28
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I guess I'm at the point where I have to decide if I want to re-read Way of Kings or not. I remember the overall plot but not most of the details you guys have been discussing.
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Jan 14, 2014 20:42
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Having re-read it a few months ago, you are going to want to do a re-read. It felt like an entirely different book, and I picked up so much more.
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Jan 14, 2014 20:48
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api call girl posted:Up to chapter five on tor.com now. The Cryptics are liespren huh, wonder if they have anything to do with fiction and art. What defines a lie? Also I guess we just got to see what happens when you put a spren that's too big into a physical form. And why Shardblades cut souls and cleave rock. They'd have to if they're meant to fight spren encased in stone.
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Jan 14, 2014 22:08
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veekie posted:The Cryptics are liespren huh, wonder if they have anything to do with fiction and art. What defines a lie? They've also been called truthspren, so dunno what's up with that.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:16
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syphon posted:I guess I'm at the point where I have to decide if I want to re-read Way of Kings or not. I remember the overall plot but not most of the details you guys have been discussing. I started doing a reread and I'm having a tough time with it. I'm going to be honest - I love a lot of Sanderson's ideas, but sometimes his prose is very difficult to work through. I find this to be the case in his introductory books, in particular - it was the same way with the Mistborn series. He gets hyper-repetitive when he's trying to explain how the "rules" of his elaborately constructed worlds work, and it starts to feel like you're reading an RPG player's guide after a while. The early parts of WoK are particularly bad about this, and it doesn't really start to lighten up until you're past the mid-point. Excited for WoR, though, because I feel like Sanderson does a pretty good job once he stops trying to codify the ground rules of his series and starts to let the world and characters breath a bit and get on with their business. edit: Just to expand, that's why I think Brandon did a great job finishing up the Wheel of Time. The parameters of the world were in place for a long time, so he just got in there and told the story without letting it suffer under the weight of the mechanical stuff.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:31
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I think Sanderson did a relatively lovely job of wrapping up the WoT, actually. There was too much Sanderson-style One Power abuse that made the last book especially all lovely. Gateways are a great example of this. Gateways as aerial surveillance! Gateway/cannonfire/close! Gateway out a lava flood! Block an incoming weave with a gateway and redirect it into the originator! The entire reason they won the Last Battle basically seems to be the fact that Demandred, the best and brightest general of the Age of Legends, never saw or used any of the obvious gateway exploits, which just feels really loving cheap.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:08
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You'd think someone else would've figured out that gateways were completely OP. I went with the TOR reread for WoK up until i got to their last one and then I finished the book on my own.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:32
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VanillaGorilla posted:I started doing a reread and I'm having a tough time with it. I'm going to be honest - I love a lot of Sanderson's ideas, but sometimes his prose is very difficult to work through. I find this to be the case in his introductory books, in particular - it was the same way with the Mistborn series. He gets hyper-repetitive when he's trying to explain how the "rules" of his elaborately constructed worlds work, and it starts to feel like you're reading an RPG player's guide after a while. The early parts of WoK are particularly bad about this, and it doesn't really start to lighten up until you're past the mid-point. The last time I did a reread, I started about a quarter of the way through it and enjoyed it a lot more. It really does start off rough/slow.
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Jan 15, 2014 03:30
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I really need to finish the rest of WoT stuff so I don't have to worry about spoilers. Not upset about them, just need to suck it up and do it.
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Jan 15, 2014 15:41
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Oh hey, registration for The Writing Excuses Retreat starts tomorrow http://www.writingexcuses.com/2014/01/17/annoucing-the-writing-excusescarl-brandon-scholarship/ It sounds pretty cool.
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Jan 17, 2014 18:47
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Tunicate posted:Oh hey, registration for The Writing Excuses Retreat starts tomorrow It was pretty cool 
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Jan 17, 2014 19:22
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Oh wow there's a livestream writeathon right now! http://www.justin.tv/waygatefoundation Charity donation with questions being answered. EDIT: Stream over. Here's the current progress on the hair-burning memory magic system story: http://waygatefoundation.org/ Which will be contineud sometime, maybe jordancon. Tunicate fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 00:25
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