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Who cares if a prologue is bad, it's usually like 2-3% of the book.
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Jul 17, 2018 09:14
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Khizan posted:Because he writes like it's a video game tutorial. It would have been 1000x as impressive if the POV was Sadeas in that sequence, because Sadeas would have no loving clue what was going on. Like, Sadeas and his guards race ahead of Szeth while Szeth's loving around making sure he's visible, Sadeas showing his own bravery and trying to draw Szeth off, then when Szeth turns around, he and his guards run after Szeth, too late to reach Gavilar. It would make his turning on Dalinar later actually shocking and underline his hatred of Dalinar's weaknesses. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 15:00
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It would have been dope for the prologue to be Sadeas instead.
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Jul 17, 2018 17:22
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:It would have been 1000x as impressive if the POV was Sadeas in that sequence, because Sadeas would have no loving clue what was going on. Like, Sadeas and his guards race ahead of Szeth while Szeth's loving around making sure he's visible, Sadeas showing his own bravery and trying to draw Szeth off, then when Szeth turns around, he and his guards run after Szeth, too late to reach Gavilar. It would make his turning on Dalinar later actually shocking and underline his hatred of Dalinar's weaknesses. I feel like Sanderson wanted the reader to have a full understanding of how windrunning works before Kaladin started having abilities. It could have been done much more fluidly than expressly stating "This is the first lashing, this is the second lashing, etc."
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Jul 17, 2018 17:38
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TheMadMilkman posted:I feel like Sanderson wanted the reader to have a full understanding of how windrunning works before Kaladin started having abilities. I mean, yeah, there's a risk that going into the assassination sequence cold will just make Szeth look 100% generic anime magic, instead of 75%-but-with-a-twist. The Brandon Sanderson who wrote Blackthorn Dalinar could have pulled it off, the one who started Way of Kings ... probably not. But I really don't think the infodump solution works at all.
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Jul 18, 2018 15:47
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The way Sanderson did the books, he could have dumped all that information in a section break excerpt from somebody's notes or something. Jaznah musing on how the stories about the Assassin in White match up to stories about the old radiants or whatever. The way he did it was the worst possible way it could be done.
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Jul 19, 2018 23:27
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Just finished the first Mistborn book. drat, that was good. It was obvious at many points that Sanderson hadn't progressed as an author as far as he had in TSA, but it was considerably better written than Warbreaker. The magic systems were much more interesting and well developed, the story followed a far more engaging arc, but most importantly the characters were great. I'm quite sure that, much like Warbreaker, there were many hints to the broader Cosmere that I missed, once again the only real link I noticed was Hoid. Who, much like in Warbreaker, had a very brief and not influential appearance, in contrast to TSA (particularly the later books) where he plays a significant role. There are also a ton of unanswered questions - the book had a very satisfying ending, which I was pleasantly surprised by, but was also left open ended enough that I'm psyched to jump straight into the next book. Brandon Sanderson is a good author.
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Jul 20, 2018 06:14
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Unfortunately, the Well of Ascension is the weakest book of the first Mistborn trilogy. I still like it a lot, but it can drag a big in some sections. Hero of Ages on the other hand is a great finisher for the trilogy.
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Jul 20, 2018 09:24
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Torrannor posted:Unfortunately, the Well of Ascension is the weakest book of the first Mistborn trilogy. I still like it a lot, but it can drag a big in some sections. Hero of Ages on the other hand is a great finisher for the trilogy. He probably could've cut a hundred pages from WoA and still been fine, but I didn't really mind it as much as everyone else in this thread seemed to.
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Jul 20, 2018 11:50
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I found Well of Ascension much more rewarding on a reread
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Jul 20, 2018 15:07
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Khizan posted:Sanderson's always had videogamey magic systems, but this is egregiously bad even for him. I keep seeing people here describe Sanderson's magic systems as "videogamey," but I think a better way to describe them would be "alternate science" --- they usually follow strict rules (even if those rules are only partially understood by the characters) and behave in consistent, quantifiable ways. Things like Surgebinding or Allomancy are clearly written to feel like additional laws of physics, and generally interact in sensible ways with real physics concepts (e.g., mass, momentum, etc). I wasn't as bothered by the Szeth prologue as a lot of people seem to have been. I think the purpose of starting the series that way was to make it clear right from the start that this series considers magic to be a science with hard limits. That setup immediately puts the reader in a very different frame of mind than in books like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter where you know magic exists, but there's no clear sense of what kind of things it can/can't do. Personally I'm not sure if it would have been as effective to just describe a flying, glowing wizard with a sword in the prologue and then try to come back later in the book and wrap that behavior in the science of surgebinding.
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Jul 20, 2018 16:51
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That is the best part about Sanderson Magic. When Gandalf pulls some wizard poo poo it's meaningless to the reader. He's a wizard, his power is undefined, magic is undefined, so he just sometimes does what he wants. With Sanderson he says "here are the ways things work and why" so where a character pulls an awesome stunt using well-understood principles, it lets you see how and why it's an awesome stunt. It's like how Jordan hand waved both his magic AND swordfighting scenes. Swordfights in WoT are just rattling off meaningless anime sword style names requiring you to fill in the blanks of what those moves actually look like. Yeah I mean he at least puts forth SOME idea of how the magic works but it doesn't really matter to me if this spell weaves Fire and Air but this other spell is Spirit and Water.
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Jul 20, 2018 19:53
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I'm going to disagree on Jordan's swordfighting names being bad/lazy, I found them to be very evocative without bogging down the narrative. Courtier Crosses the Floor vs. Charging Down the Mountain might not give you the exact movements, but it gives you all sorts of connotations on how the sword, feet, and fighters might be moving relative to each other. Yeah there isn't a strict mechanic to it, but as a narrative technique it's very effective. The main players having power levels dicated by plot I agree is a shortcoming of his.
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Jul 20, 2018 20:31
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DarkHorse posted:I'm going to disagree on Jordan's swordfighting names being bad/lazy, I found them to be very evocative without bogging down the narrative. I agree with your disagreement. I think they're brilliant shorthand. Jordan doesn't need to describe a full frontal aggressive rush, he can say The Board Rushes Down The Mountain. Doesn't need to describe a thrust with a twisting motion that gets around the other's guard: he says The Grapevine Twines. And a lot of them imply a physical stance or motion in addition to whatever the sword is doing. The various "cat" forms imply someone light on their feet. Leopard stances usually imply a stalking motion. Heron forms tend to be tip-toe stances with high strikes. Etc, etc. It's anime as gently caress, true, but it's also a really compact way to give the reader enough information to set their imagination free.
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Jul 20, 2018 20:51
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Loved the sword forms in Wheel of Time and they were definitely evocative, every time someone used Courtier Taps His Fan, someone got their throat cut.
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Jul 21, 2018 22:57
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Mornil posted:I keep seeing people here describe Sanderson's magic systems as "videogamey," but I think a better way to describe them would be "alternate science" --- they usually follow strict rules (even if those rules are only partially understood by the characters) and behave in consistent, quantifiable ways. Things like Surgebinding or Allomancy are clearly written to feel like additional laws of physics, and generally interact in sensible ways with real physics concepts (e.g., mass, momentum, etc). This post nails it. I mentally categorize Sanderson in the genre of "hard fantasy" in the same way I think about "hard science fiction" versus general science fiction. I also wasn't bothered by the Szeth prologue or the way the mechanics of allomancy was introduced. In fact, one of the reasons I love reading Sanderson is because he actually gets deep into the mechanics of his magic systems. As a gamer, I am one of those min/maxing stats crunching players obsessed with the game mechanics...and if some NPC pulls a move that isn't consistent with the rest of the game mechanics, it really undermines the whole game because it's unfair. So taking that analogy into a book, the fact that Sanderson's magic systems have well-defined rules, it really enhances the emotional payoff for magical actions. Example from Hero of Ages: Marsh figuring out that Vin's earring is a Hermalurgic spike thanks to Spike's message (Secret History spoiler) which was Kelsier's doing Example from Oathbringer: Dalinar speaking his third Ideal and creating a Perpendicularity just absolutely floored me. It was all at once unexpected but completely in keeping with the rules of Surgebinding, what a payoff! Here's Sanderson talking about his views on creating magic systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXAcA_y3l6M&t=142s (it's from his BYU lectures which if you're interesting in writing is pretty interesting to watch) SynthesisAlpha posted:That is the best part about Sanderson Magic. When Gandalf pulls some wizard poo poo it's meaningless to the reader. He's a wizard, his power is undefined, magic is undefined, so he just sometimes does what he wants. Personally, I thought the Wheel of Time got much much better magic system wise when Sanderson introduced Androl and started messing around with Gateways. And one of the things I really wanted to find out as a post Memory of Light thing was whether anyone was around to remember how Egwene wove the Flame of Tar Valon (the counter weave to balefire).
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Jul 22, 2018 07:58
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I guess it must be my inner engineer / gamer but I quite liked the Szeth prologue (including the hard, concrete "quarter lashing to float" verbosity), but I can see understand the complaints. As far as short hand anime fighting technique names, again I can see the creativity to it but I just couldn't stand it. It reminded me of when I read Ready Player One where Cline is like, "I'm going to list half a dozen TV shows now" - my eyes would just gloss over and I skip that paragraph. Same thing when Jordan starts rattling off fighting moves; it's short hand alright. Short Hand for "skip to the end of this paragraph" Also can we take a moment to just appreciate how delightfully bad some of the cover art is for Wheel of Time?  "What the gently caress do I do with my hands, you guys?" - Rand Sab669 fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Jul 24, 2018 |
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Jul 24, 2018 13:43
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Yeah, Darrell Sweet was, uh....distinctive. The UK covers were so much better, and the ebook covers were just light years better. I guess Sweet was the 'go-to' artist in the early 90s and it stuck. The worst part is that Sweet either got lovely direction or just did his own thing, since a lot of the elements of the covers were nowhere near what was described in the book (see: trollocs being human with animal helmets, Perrin looking like the Barbarian from the D&D cartoon grown up a bit, etc) Thankfully, Sanderson got Whelan to do the Stormlight covers. Helps that Sweet is also dead, I guess.
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Jul 24, 2018 16:07
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Sab669 posted:"What the gently caress do I do with my hands, you guys?" - Rand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrbUIDlQdJ4
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Jul 24, 2018 16:12
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Whoever did the artwork for the second (?) edition books is great though: I'd say I'm 50-50 on Sanderson cover art. Not actually a big fan of either Mistborn Era covers, but all of the Stormlight ones are great. I really like the colors on the Skyward cover, too.
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Jul 24, 2018 16:14
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Is that Elayne? Cause.... drat. Seeing the cover art pop up on the Apple Books when I get to a new WOT book always gets a nice laugh. Like this one... what the hell? 
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Jul 24, 2018 17:12
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Sab669 posted:Whoever did the artwork for the second (?) edition books is great though: Stormlight covers are by Michael Wheelan, who makes pretty much All Of The Best Fantasy Covers
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Jul 24, 2018 17:13
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Is that Elayne? Cause.... drat. I think it’s Moirane because that looks like the blue stone angreal head jewel she had
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Jul 24, 2018 17:27
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Oh I assumed it was an angreal she made, or the bracelet for Moghedien.
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Jul 24, 2018 17:28
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DarkHorse posted:I think it’s Moirane because that looks like the blue stone angreal head jewel she had You're probably right, but that's dumb because she's been stilled and doesn't get healed until the next book
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Jul 24, 2018 18:49
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Sab669 posted:You're probably right, but that's dumb because she's been stilled and doesn't get healed until the next book You're confusing her with Siuan. It's definitely Moiraine due to the visual clues and also considering the biggest moment of FoH: when Rand is getting dunked on by a ragingly jealous Lanfear and can't bring himself to hurt her to defend himself, so Moiraine suicide tackles her into the doorway Ter`angreal and is gone until Sanderson takes the series over.
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Jul 24, 2018 19:19
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Oh, duh, right. I misread his post 
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Jul 24, 2018 19:25
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aparmenideanmonad posted:You're confusing her with Siuan. It's definitely Moiraine due to the visual clues and also considering the biggest moment of FoH: when Rand is getting dunked on by a ragingly jealous Lanfear and can't bring himself to hurt her to defend himself, so Moiraine suicide tackles her into the doorway Ter`angreal and is gone until Sanderson takes the series over. Noooooo, wish I hadn't read the last part of that spoiler. Although it was fairly obvious that she'd be back eventually.
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Jul 24, 2018 19:29
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Noooooo, wish I hadn't read the last part of that spoiler. Although it was fairly obvious that she'd be back eventually. Hah. I missed the last part until reading this post now  Good thing I'm not invested in the series at all and am just reading it because I'm apparently a masochist.
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Jul 24, 2018 19:36
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I think since I started reading this thread, 75% of the posts have been about WoT. C'mon! 
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Jul 24, 2018 20:12
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Taffer posted:I think since I started reading this thread, 75% of the posts have been about WoT. C'mon! That's really weird since Sanderson wrote three WoT books 
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Jul 24, 2018 20:19
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Taffer posted:I think since I started reading this thread, 75% of the posts have been about WoT. C'mon! His most recent book came out, what, 9 months ago? Everyone was discussing Oathbringer earlier this year, but it's since died down. I'm not ready to reread Stormlight yet  (ok that's a lie but I should finish reading WoT for the first time since I'm almost done with book 6).And there's not much to talk about future works; we know nothing about Skyward which will be his next major side project.
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Jul 24, 2018 20:41
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The Fires of Heaven and Winter's Heart e-book covers are both amazing. They capture the pivotal moments of both books really well. Moiraine looks pretty badass in her cover. By the way, I just read that White Sand Volume 2 has been released some time ago? I totally missed it. I'll be reading it this weekend, looking forward to more Kelton and Khriss!
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Jul 24, 2018 20:52
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Sab669 posted:His most recent book came out, what, 9 months ago? Everyone was discussing Oathbringer earlier this year, but it's since died down. Skyward is proofread and coming out on November Sixth https://twitter.com/PeterAhlstrom/status/1018251027538010112 https://twitter.com/PeterAhlstrom/status/1018266449968709632 Here's the cover  And there's an excerpt here It's apparently connected to one of the other noncosmere books, no idea what.
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Jul 24, 2018 21:22
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Tunicate posted:It's apparently connected to one of the other noncosmere books, no idea what. Steelheart would be my guess; it's the only one with an obvious way to connect multiple worlds/universes/dimensions. Second guess would be Rithmatist.
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Jul 24, 2018 22:30
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Tunicate posted:Skyward stuff Well I didn't mean literally nothing. I know he posted the Cover, and he even posted the prologue online somewhere not long ago. He also basically described it as "How To Train Your Dragon" meets "Top Gun". But I just meant we haven't actually read it, so there's very little to discuss. At least if it were, say, Wax & Wayne 4, we could speculate about where things will go and what might happen, but since it's a brand new series...
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Jul 24, 2018 22:50
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Noooooo, wish I hadn't read the last part of that spoiler. Although it was fairly obvious that she'd be back eventually. AHHH!!! I have not read those books in 20 years. Stopped right when I was waiting for Path of Daggers to come out. It came out and I figure, f this, these books are not even good anymore. But I always wandered about that... Thanks Obama. Loved the first Stormlight book, flew through it at the start of the year. Started the second and did not get into it after 100 or so pages. I need to make myself start again, I'm sure it's great.
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Jul 25, 2018 01:02
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Wheel of time is my poo poo. I'm a Matrim fan for life.
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Jul 25, 2018 01:06
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Wheel of Time is what got me to read Sanderson.
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Jul 25, 2018 03:20
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I've tried reading through WoT about 3 times now, each time giving up a book or two short of double digits. That all predated Sanderson's wrap-up (and any of my own reading of any Sanderson) so I've been gently eyeballing a 4th attempt for a while now. Related, a personal WoT anecdote spurred by RC Cola's declaration: I was introduced to WoT by my childhood best friend. Then in college I introduced him to his now-wife (a co-worker of mine) because they shared a ton of interests, including severe WoT fandom. They've now got 2 kids named Matrim (Mat) and Nynaeve (Nina). It's all my fault.
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Jul 25, 2018 06:28
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