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I don’t think I’d mind Sarene chapters if they weren’t so much longer than Hrathen and Raodan chapters. At least for part 1, it seems like the Sarene chapters are often as long as the Hrathen/Raodan chapters combined. It is almost a pattern of a 30min Raodan chapter, 70 minute Sarene chapter, and then a 20 minute Hrathen chapter. Though it seems like things bounce around more in part 2. Almost all the chapters are 5-20 minutes long. Aside from an hour long Hrathen chapter (if the numbers stay consistent).
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Feb 4, 2021 16:37
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In my opinion that's partly why Hrathen is better. He's just more tightly written, and you're left wanting a bit more rather than just constantly being exhausted of him. Sanderson has done a lot better with that as he's written more.
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Feb 4, 2021 16:51
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Captain Monkey posted:In my opinion that's partly why Hrathen is better. He's just more tightly written, and you're left wanting a bit more rather than just constantly being exhausted of him. Sanderson has done a lot better with that as he's written more. He also was way more rigid in structure with his first book, always going each POV in a strict order, instead of what the story actually needed. So you end up with all the exciting things being short and the full ones being long to keep everything synchronized, instead of just cutting pages/chapters that aren't advancing effectively
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Feb 4, 2021 17:56
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Captain Monkey posted:In my opinion that's partly why Hrathen is better. He's just more tightly written, and you're left wanting a bit more rather than just constantly being exhausted of him. Sanderson has done a lot better with that as he's written more. RoW 
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Feb 5, 2021 02:05
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aparmenideanmonad posted:Yeah until recently. Wrong
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Feb 5, 2021 02:14
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Not going to try to make an objective literary argument, but RoW is the first book of his I have struggled to get through chapters on a regular basis since Elantris. And I know that I'm not alone. There were lots of great chapters I eagerly plowed through, but it was less than 2/3 of the book. I still want to believe it was editor or plot distribution failure more than anything, but we'll find out soon I guess.
aparmenideanmonad fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Feb 5, 2021 02:21
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ROW - It took me a bit to get through Part 2, that dragged a bit. And I cannot recall a Flashback I enjoyed, so if I did while reading it wasn't enough to stick with me. The good parts were REALLY good though.
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Feb 5, 2021 02:26
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I dont know really what to spoiler or not, but I can say that the flashbacks were hit or miss this time around. I wasn't as jazzed on the Eshoni flashbacks, I feel like she had her book already and maybe it should have been shuffled. Maybe it was and his editors said that it didnt work in those books, who knows? I pretty much liked the rest of it. I think some parts dragged a smidge, but I loved the Rosharian science happening, I loved that non-Singers seem like they might be able to hear the tones and rhythm of the planet because that could have some interesting implications. And I loved the Kal stuff because it really hit rock bottom but was never misery porn. I can see why people didnt like it, but I don't think it was bad by any stretch.
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Feb 5, 2021 02:31
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KKKLIP ART posted:but I loved the Rosharian science happening That was my favorite stuff to happen Navani + Raboniel were the best parts of the book, despite me earlier saying how much I usually don't like SciFi. Like I much prefer Mistborn Era 1 over 2 because I don't like guns and cars in my mostly low tech magicy worlds. But building upon Interlude discoveries to side Novella discoveries to "main series" discoveries is a cool way to both build the world and progress it at the same time.
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Feb 5, 2021 02:38
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Another qualm I have with Elantris - I feel like every single chapter is introducing another couple minor characters that get names. Too many drat characters in this book. I'm just under a quarter of the way through the book and there have to be at least 30-40 named characters so far. Raodan, Hrathan, Sarene, are given. Galladon, Jaddeth, Wern, Iadon, Iadon's wife, Sarene's uncle, uncle's wife, uncle's stepson, uncle's stepson's wife, uncle's two? children, Dilaf, the former priest that was sent away, about 3-4 named noblemen, the currently four followers Raodan has, the three gang bosses in Elantris, the multiple Navi-orbs that also have names. It's absolutely wild. I would also be 100% okay with Sarene's uncle and his whole family just not being in the book. They don't loving add a goddamn thing and those kids are so annoying (I've read that the kids will be the aged-up protagonists of Elantris 2, god help us all).
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Feb 5, 2021 02:38
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KKKLIP ART posted:I dont know really what to spoiler or not, but I can say that the flashbacks were hit or miss this time around. I wasn't as jazzed on the Eshoni flashbacks, I feel like she had her book already and maybe it should have been shuffled. Maybe it was and his editors said that it didnt work in those books, who knows? I pretty much liked the rest of it. I think some parts dragged a smidge, but I loved the Rosharian science happening, I loved that non-Singers seem like they might be able to hear the tones and rhythm of the planet because that could have some interesting implications. And I loved the Kal stuff because it really hit rock bottom but was never misery porn. I can see why people didnt like it, but I don't think it was bad by any stretch. I liked the Kal chapters, but I still feel it would have been a stronger story to role-reverse him and Teft for at least part of the Die Hard plot rather than have Teft wake up and immediately die for the sake of Kaladin-Depression-Plot-4.0. Side note, it's gotten to the point where BS is straight up writing Kaladin as bipolar because we end up with a manic swing at the end of every book. He's done a good job of writing depressive episodes, but the realistic remissions via realtalk/support from bridge 4 or Adolin keep getting buried by yet another Sanderlanche. Regarding Roshar science, I wrote up my issues with these chapters many pages back, but it boils down to him setting up this sciency framework in his systems and then having a completely bullshit-magic characterization of how scientific progress actually works. Like, either go all in and make it a rigorous system according to actual discovery methodology or just do the fantasy handwave and make us live with some mystery. The inconsistent halfway house the story ended up in just ends up super cringey, just like all his "look how smart I am" Jasnah and Shallan academia moments. I did like the Raboniel interactions, but pages of Navani sitting alone and just manifesting scientific progress, complete with bad psuedo physics or whatever the gently caress that was supposed to be, was really bad. For what it's worth, he does a much better job of this in Mistborn 2, where the technology is largely shown as a part of the world. He gestures at spoilers from Harmony that have helped point to important breakthroughs while also dropping tantalizing innovations within the main plotline. Wax is 10 times the scientist that Navani is from what we've actually seen in writing. aparmenideanmonad fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Feb 5, 2021 03:10
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I'm big into how cosmere magic works, so I honestly loved those sciencey chapters because I feel like I got a loooot of answers
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Feb 5, 2021 03:22
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Right there with you on that part, the payoff and filling-in-of-blanks was great. I just couldn't stand the illustration of the process that revealed the info. It made me especially angry because I really like Navani as a character and I don't like that I now, outside of the story, consider her the fake researcher and scientist that she fears herself to be because of bad writing.
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Feb 5, 2021 03:26
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ROW was a fine book but all of the flashbacks of a certain character could be deleted and absolutely nothing of value would be lost tbh.
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Feb 6, 2021 03:30
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Started Words of Radiance. It's my first audiobook, so if I make any goof-ups, it may be attributable to that. Thoughts: -Welcome back, Gaz.  -Reading Kaladin's arc, I kind of feel like a dog who has his bowl taken away every time it gets interesting. The whiplash is shocking and kind of annoying, because it's always something like "and then the assassin cut Kaladin's head off. CHAPTER 6: Shallan was petting a bird on its cute bird head when..." -Shallan's arc feels like I'm being fed grapes by someone. Every time I feel hungry or bored, someone stuffs a grape in my mouth to keep me happy. It's slow-paced, but I'm interested in her character without the story having to put her in constant danger. -Dalinar is still as interesting as he was in the first book. Eshonai is really dull, but I'm interested in the implications of what's going on with her story. -I don't know how many more passages Rysn gets, but holy poo poo that scene of her at the Reshi Isles was hideously boring and went on forever. I think if I had been reading the book, I'd have done some serious skimming. -From now on, when someone comes to me recommending a fantasy author with praise for how good their world-building is, I'm going to understand it as "they build a big world and it all makes sense," instead of "they do a good job building it." Brandon's not the worst by far, but it kills me in fantasy writing when a character in a book is handed a piece of candy, which results in diatribes about how candy is made in this land, and which king invented it, and what that king's whole life is like, and apparently this is the only culture with candy because it has religious influence and it can't just be a piece of candy. If anyone can recommend me some fantasy that doesn't randomly dump wikipedia articles about its lore, I'd be interested. -Another thing that this book does that lots of other fantasy does is that it treats a new book in the series like it's the first book in the series. I mean this in the sense of pushing away established characters to introduce brand new characters in a way that's pace-killing. I'm talking about when Kaladin or Shallan or one of the Kholins is about to do something interesting, and then I've got to have that interrupted in order to be introduced to some new character and their daily routine. A friend of mine who I like discussing writing with put it well when he compared it to A Song of Ice and Fire. ASOIAF is a good example of introducing characters both poorly and well. ASOIAF establishes a strong early cast of characters, and pushes them in different directions together without overly-dedicating itself to specific arcs. And when Martin introduces new characters, it's often through the eyes of established characters (like Jon meeting Ygritte/Tormund/Mance instead of introducing each of those characters separately with their own POV). But then ASOIAF does falter in that regard when it reaches the middle sections of the series and builds up a massive bloat of characters. I just wanted to introduce that series as a way of saying "Brandon, it's frustrating when you leave me hanging on your well-written word like this." Again, I still like what I'm reading, and I love blasting through Kaladin's arc (and the characters around it, of course) and relaxing with Shallan's. I just like picking apart stuff that I enjoy as well.
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Feb 7, 2021 02:42
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Pennsylvanian posted:From now on, when someone comes to me recommending a fantasy author with praise for how good their world-building is, I'm going to understand it as "they build a big world and it all makes sense," instead of "they do a good job building it." Brandon's not the worst by far, but it kills me in fantasy writing when a character in a book is handed a piece of candy, which results in diatribes about how candy is made in this land, and which king invented it, and what that king's whole life is like, and apparently this is the only culture with candy because it has religious influence and it can't just be a piece of candy. If anyone can recommend me some fantasy that doesn't randomly dump wikipedia articles about its lore, I'd be interested.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:27
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Infinite Karma posted:I'm a pariah in this thread for preferring the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erickson to Sanderson, but it's about as opposite as you can get regarding info dumps. It's an amazingly well written series, but is obtuse as hell because there's basically no exposition, it's all characters doing their thing and you've got to pick up the world building from context. Highly recommend it if that kind of exposition bothers you. I immediately thought of Malazan when I read that too. I love both series in different ways!
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Feb 7, 2021 05:23
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I like the Malazan books but I sort of zoned out and got lost. Soldiers as poets was a way I saw described and I have to agree. It’s probably been over a year and I couldn’t tell you what happened but I loved the prose.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:27
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i liked a lot about malazan (it really is the opposite of the sanderson books in terms of magic -- like no one has any clue how it works, most people that think they know stuff are wrong, and it'll never be explained to the reader) but honestly i'll probably never reread because so much sexual violence
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Feb 7, 2021 05:34
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Pennsylvanian posted:
The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone. why yes souls are a currency now shutup and sign a loan agreement to turn your divine soul powered home heat back on. M_Gargantua fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 05:41
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eke out posted:i liked a lot about malazan (it really is the opposite of the sanderson books in terms of magic -- like no one has any clue how it works, most people that think they know stuff are wrong, and it'll never be explained to the reader) but honestly i'll probably never reread because so much sexual violence  Also because getting through the first read hurt my head, it was dense. The other flaw in my mind is that the characters kind of blur together after a while. All the marines etc just feel like variations on the same couple of default characters. The unique protagonists are real standouts though, I loved Tavore.
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Feb 7, 2021 07:08
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eke out posted:i liked a lot about malazan (it really is the opposite of the sanderson books in terms of magic -- like no one has any clue how it works, most people that think they know stuff are wrong, and it'll never be explained to the reader) but honestly i'll probably never reread because so much sexual violence I was alternating between being intrigued by the setting and bored by the story, when suddenly I was asked to read a few hundred pages of rape and murder by a new main character apparently, and.... Ugh. No thanks.
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Feb 7, 2021 07:35
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M_Gargantua posted:The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone. Good recc.
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Feb 7, 2021 12:13
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Jorenko posted:I was alternating between being intrigued by the setting and bored by the story, when suddenly I was asked to read a few hundred pages of rape and murder by a new main character apparently, and.... Ugh. No thanks. I don’t know what book I stopped at but I did t get to anything like that yet. Oof.
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Feb 7, 2021 15:18
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Halfway through Rhythm and can I just say I love Jasnah and Wit
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Feb 7, 2021 17:33
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KKKLIP ART posted:I don’t know what book I stopped at but I did t get to anything like that yet. Oof. you stopped at the right time then because i'm pretty sure the part they're describing isn't even close to being the worst thing in those books
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Feb 7, 2021 17:39
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eke out posted:you stopped at the right time then because i'm pretty sure the part they're describing isn't even close to being the worst thing in those books If you are talking about the whole stuff with Beneth as well as the whole drugged out and willing to do whatever to get the next fix yeah it was messed up. I know that stuff like that happens in the real world and the idea was to really portray that war and the surrounding situations are super messed up, but it doesn’t feel good reading it (then or now) unless there is more later.
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Feb 7, 2021 18:01
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Never read Malazan but IMO scenes like that are valid if they're there to make a point and not just a product of the author writing one-handed.
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Feb 7, 2021 18:03
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Infinite Karma posted:I'm a pariah in this thread for preferring the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erickson to Sanderson, but it's about as opposite as you can get regarding info dumps. It's an amazingly well written series, but is obtuse as hell because there's basically no exposition, it's all characters doing their thing and you've got to pick up the world building from context. Highly recommend it if that kind of exposition bothers you. Malazan is an incoherent mess (which I guess makes sense considering he turned a GURPS(?) campaign in to a fantasy series) but it seems like it would be good otherwise.
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Feb 7, 2021 18:05
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KKKLIP ART posted:If you are talking about the whole stuff with Beneth as well as the whole drugged out and willing to do whatever to get the next fix yeah it was messed up. I know that stuff like that happens in the real world and the idea was to really portray that war and the surrounding situations are super messed up, but it doesn’t feel good reading it (then or now) unless there is more later. no there's a really famous and awful scene later, so bad that Erikson wrote a blog about how it wasn't gratuitous because torture/mutilation/rape has happened throughout human history and still happens today and scenes that put us in victims' shoes force us to acknowledge how horrific it is and that's actually the point. erikson definitely isn't writing it because he thinks its titillating, but it pretty much confirmed i'd rather not read fantasy books that have extended scenes of graphic sexual violence at all anyways it's easily googleable though i would not recommend it (many, many words have been written about it so it's probably the first thing that comes up) eke out fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 18:09
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Yeah I still think the books are good in spite of all that, but it's definitely not drawing me into a reread and really makes me appreciate Sanderson's fairly sexless (and certainly sexual assault-less) stories. That stuff was more commonplace with GoT at the forefront back in the 00s-10's but I'm really glad to see media moving away from it.
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Feb 7, 2021 18:49
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:Never read Malazan but IMO scenes like that are valid if they're there to make a point and not just a product of the author writing one-handed. That's my perspective too. Karsa is a violent horrible psychopath, and you aren't supposed to enjoy him hurting innocent people. It doesn't make it a bad story when the audience is anticipating a comeuppance, which he receives, along with most of the bad guys, eventually.
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Feb 7, 2021 20:11
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Evil Fluffy posted:Malazan is an incoherent mess (which I guess makes sense considering he turned a GURPS(?) campaign in to a fantasy series) but it seems like it would be good otherwise. Only the first book really feels like an old school clumsy PNP campaign translation, the rest come across as very intentional and put together, though the near complete lack of explicit stage setting and constant bouncing around in the world and timeline with few cues really takes a lot of effort for a first time read. That said, it is by far my favorite fantasy series on a re-read. Completely agree that the authors are total opposites in just about everything other than genre. Infinite Karma posted:That's my perspective too. Karsa is a violent horrible psychopath, and you aren't supposed to enjoy him hurting innocent people. It doesn't make it a bad story when the audience is anticipating a comeuppance, which he receives, along with most of the bad guys, eventually. aparmenideanmonad fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 20:24
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M_Gargantua posted:The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone. Good sell. My deal with the Dark Souls games is that I'll just beat them and re-beat them, and I'll never look up lore about the games because I like being lost and figuring out stuff for myself and I don't care if I'm wrong. I'm okay with world-building being that abstract.
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Feb 8, 2021 02:19
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WHY IS SANDERSON INTRODUCING MORE NEW CHARACTERS IN EVERY drat CHAPTER IN ELANTRIS?!!
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Feb 8, 2021 10:06
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We were not joking when we said that Elantris is his worst book. Even his other early book doesn't have this problem, Warbreaker is better than Elantris.
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Feb 8, 2021 10:13
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Torrannor posted:We were not joking when we said that Elantris is his worst book. Even his other early book doesn't have this problem, Warbreaker is better than Elantris. I'm currently 1/4 of the way through this book and I will finish it even if it kills me. I will not let this bad book and its terribly atrocious narrator beat me. I'm on Chapter 11 and there are already over 40 named characters. And that's not to mention all the other Proper Fantasy Nouns he throws around constantly in this book. This is insanity. https://twitter.com/HagneSanti/status/1357742238885961728 Turns out some people DO like Sarene. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Feb 8, 2021 |
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Feb 8, 2021 10:30
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Got further in Words of Radiance today. Thoughts: -I skipped the section called "Lift" about a character of the same name. I'll go back and make sure it's not important, but I was just actually angry at the book at that moment in time. I'm genuinely tired of how bad he is at cliffhanger porn. I'm okay with being left in suspense as long as something with a character I'm invested in is happening. But when a passage like "And then Maincharacter turned around and saw his best friend, his best friend pulled out a huge goddamned sword and used that sword to cut Maincharacter's goddamned head off," followed by a chapter break and the next chapter is "Bimbly pibbles and Dippy Doo-doo walked through the shumbly beach when Bimbly looked over to Dippy and asked 'uwu should we get some wunch befowe we go to the scwuppems fair uwu," It's not captivating, it's just annoying. -Once I got over that, I'm up to Shallan and Kaladin finally having their "just talk" moment in that cubby hole during the storm and I'm of course enjoying it. Brandon's pacing is way better when he has characters converging. -I always have a hard time when a King and a huge gaggle of characters around a King are just "we cannot politically defeat this man who is completely underneath us and is always doing crimes." Just loving arrest or kill the guy like everyone else in your kingdom seems to get away with doing.
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Feb 9, 2021 02:26
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Pennsylvanian posted:Got further in Words of Radiance today. Thoughts: Lift is divisive. I hated her POVs in WoR too. She's the main character of the Edgedancer novella which you could probably skip without too much of an issue for the first five books (she's a main character for the back five), though it did make me like her more. I'm still not a fan of how different her speech is compared to everyone else. It is just really jarring for me.
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Feb 9, 2021 02:44
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Pennsylvanian posted:Got further in Words of Radiance today. Thoughts: That's a big part of the character development for dalinar, he's deliberately trying NOT to just abuse his power, for several reasons. One, Alethkar is barely a country and though it was forged by brutally killing anyone that resisted, it's not a good way to keep it alive past said bully's death. And two, Dalinar himself no longer wishes to be the Blackthorn, for reasons that will become obvious in later books It's actually a very satisfying character arc in my opinion
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Feb 9, 2021 02:53
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