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Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

eke out posted:

i don't see why it'd be a few centuries? 'current' tech level in wax/wayne is like 1920s/30s (in the urban center at least). i'm guessing there's gonna be a lot of fast advancement and it ends up being nearly simultaneous if not literally simultaneous to stormlight era 2

but yeah he easily could make it completely after stormlight ended, it'd certainly create a very interesting teaser if we knew what happened on Scadrial decades later before we know how Roshar ends up


I got the impression they were more in the late 1800s. By 1920, you had airships flying around, which Scadrians probably aren't that close to technology wise, notwithstanding the fact that the Southern Scadrians have magic airships.

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eke out
Feb 24, 2013



Torrannor posted:

I got the impression they were more in the late 1800s. By 1920, you had airships flying around, which Scadrians probably aren't that close to technology wise, notwithstanding the fact that the Southern Scadrians have magic airships.

yeah i'll revise my original guess to "prob a few decades after stormlight era 2", y'all are right that it would be pretty hard to line 1980s tech up with the ~10-20 years after Wax/Wayne books that Stormlight 2 is going to be. I'm guessing that the Lost Metal is going to show us a society right on the beginning of a magitek revolution as southern Scadrian technology starts to get tinkered with and applied, to lay the groundwork for A Whole Lot Of Change Happening Very Rapidly between it and Era 3

i think my read of the tech level was that it was Roaring Twenties but it could easily be more Gay Nineties yeah. my assumption for Era 3 is that we've going to be in like a "Wax and Steris have adult children" timeframe, but this is obviously just pure guesswork and he could go in a ton of different directions

eke out fucked around with this message at 19:26 on May 8, 2021

Democratic Pirate
Feb 17, 2010

Sanderson shared this artist on Instagram and their fan art is very good. Be careful of stormlight spoilers though:

https://lamaery.tumblr.com/

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!
I'm past the big turn in Part 2 of RoW. Things are interesting with Kaladin and Dalinar and Navani, but I wish that after so many books, Venli would do something interesting. Adolin is in the middle of a ghost trial for himself and the fate of humanity but we haven't heard from him in like a hundred pages, meanwhile Venli gets eight more chapters of nothing happening.

LASER BEAM DREAM
Nov 3, 2005

Oh, what? So now I suppose you're just going to sit there and pout?

Pennsylvanian posted:

I'm past the big turn in Part 2 of RoW. Things are interesting with Kaladin and Dalinar and Navani, but I wish that after so many books, Venli would do something interesting. Adolin is in the middle of a ghost trial for himself and the fate of humanity but we haven't heard from him in like a hundred pages, meanwhile Venli gets eight more chapters of nothing happening.

I think I liked RoW more than most here, but the pacing of Adolin's trial was one thing that felt off. We went through large gaps without any updates on the trial. Just one or two more sections during that period in lieu of a Venli chapter would have been nice, and I liked Venli's arc!

LASER BEAM DREAM fucked around with this message at 18:14 on May 10, 2021

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

The thing that felt weird to me about the trial if it was such a sham where he was virtually guaranteed to be guilty, why did they drag it out for, what, 3 days?. It was one of the most interesting arcs of the book for me but the chapters were so far apart that it was just frustrating.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





I just really have no idea what tropes Venli is trying to subvert. Is it the trope that main, POV characters are supposed to be interesting and engaging? She does nothing useful and thinks nothing we didn't already know, the only value she presents to the reader is when she's standing near a more interesting character and happens to witness something interesting happening that we get to read about, if she doesn't get too scared and run away from the scene before the readers get to see the interesting thing happen.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE
We could have had her infinitely more interesting sister as a main characters instead...

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

I'm hoping she'll do good cool fun exciting things in Book 5

Taffer
Oct 15, 2010


Torrannor posted:

We could have had her infinitely more interesting sister as a main characters instead...

What was the reasoning behind that switch, anyway?

ElGroucho
Nov 1, 2005

We already - What about sticking our middle fingers up... That was insane
Fun Shoe

Torrannor posted:

We could have had her infinitely more interesting sister as a main characters instead...

I really liked her sister 😔

Tunzie
Aug 9, 2008

Taffer posted:

What was the reasoning behind that switch, anyway?

The short version off the top of my head is that he felt there was too much overlap with Eshonai and Kaladin, in that they’re both paladins trying to save everyone, and that he felt Venli’s story would be different. I’ll try to find the WoB.

Edit: This one discusses some of the change in the middle of writing it - https://wob.coppermind.net/events/378-stormlight-book-four-updates/#e12844

And this one discusses it more directly - https://wob.coppermind.net/events/369-skyward-san-francisco-signing/#e11666

Tunzie fucked around with this message at 23:22 on May 10, 2021

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





I read another interview where he said his editor told him unequivocally that Eshonai had to die when she fell off the cliff, no last minute saves or narrowly avoiding death. Even though the scene in question was obviously written to the contrary in the final, printed edition of Words of Radiance. In between books, the outline changed, and she actually died in the fall instead of escaping like originally intended.

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

Sab669 posted:

The thing that felt weird to me about the trial if it was such a sham where he was virtually guaranteed to be guilty, why did they drag it out for, what, 3 days?. It was one of the most interesting arcs of the book for me but the chapters were so far apart that it was just frustrating.

They're avatars of Honor and therefore probably feel honor-bound to follow whatever letter of the law exists for this situation.

th3t00t
Aug 14, 2007

GOOD CLEAN FOOTBALL

Tunzie posted:

The short version off the top of my head is that he felt there was too much overlap with Eshonai and Kaladin, in that they’re both paladins trying to save everyone, and that he felt Venli’s story would be different. I’ll try to find the WoB.

Edit: This one discusses some of the change in the middle of writing it - https://wob.coppermind.net/events/378-stormlight-book-four-updates/#e12844

And this one discusses it more directly - https://wob.coppermind.net/events/369-skyward-san-francisco-signing/#e11666
I’ve said it before in this thread and I’ll say it again. The swap from Eshonai to Venli was a mistake.

2 interesting paladins would have been better than the 1 interesting paladin and 1 complete dud of a character that we ended up with.

Venli could have been interesting but she feels really underdeveloped, has no redeeming qualities and her ascension to radiant felt completely unearned after the struggles we saw Kaladin, Shallan and Eshonai go through.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
Venli/Eshonai was always going to be a problem because a lot of the flash back info had already come out in WoR and OB prior to RoW. What I'm wondering is whether he could have swapped the flashback order and done Venli/Eshonai in Book 2 instead of Shallan, then group all of the Shallan stuff together in RoW instead.

Character wise, you'd still get to see Shallan through Kaladin, Adolin and Dalinar POVs and you would still get quite a lot of her backstory via Kaladin in the chasms. The Ghostbloods storyline would be more problematic to spread out since she was doing all of that on the down low - my instinct would be to say an interlude from Mraize would be ideal, though he probably knows too much to be a POV character.

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!
I feel like Ice and Fire has created a stigma in Fantasy where you have to constantly just be offing characters "or there are no stakes."

ElGroucho
Nov 1, 2005

We already - What about sticking our middle fingers up... That was insane
Fun Shoe
Venli answers the question, what if La Malinche felt really bad about killing her sister and accidentally (oops!) genociding her people.

th3t00t
Aug 14, 2007

GOOD CLEAN FOOTBALL

Leng posted:

Venli/Eshonai was always going to be a problem because a lot of the flash back info had already come out in WoR and OB prior to RoW. What I'm wondering is whether he could have swapped the flashback order and done Venli/Eshonai in Book 2 instead of Shallan, then group all of the Shallan stuff together in RoW instead.

Character wise, you'd still get to see Shallan through Kaladin, Adolin and Dalinar POVs and you would still get quite a lot of her backstory via Kaladin in the chasms. The Ghostbloods storyline would be more problematic to spread out since she was doing all of that on the down low - my instinct would be to say an interlude from Mraize would be ideal, though he probably knows too much to be a POV character.
At least some of the Venli/Eshonai flash backs from RoW should have been in the earlier books. It would have fleshed them both out more, which was especially needed for Venli before she became the POV for the listeners.

The redemption arc for Gavilar and the gut punch or rug being pulled out from under us at the end was well done, just top notch. And is a good example of how to kill off a character unexpectedly and have it mean something.

Where as with Eshonai/Venli it feels like an experimental draft that made it to final print that Brandon would re-do if he could. Brandon is so good at outlining and planning things in advance. It feels like he was forced to make a change on this and 2 books later it's still messing up the story. That stupid editor was all "we need to be more like GoT, see how popular it is? Kill this character, I don't care about the butterfly effect of ramifications this will have on the future books".

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.
The only upside to Venli is that Shallan's not the worst character in the series anymore.

Tunzie posted:

The short version off the top of my head is that he felt there was too much overlap with Eshonai and Kaladin, in that they’re both paladins trying to save everyone, and that he felt Venli’s story would be different. I’ll try to find the WoB.

Edit: This one discusses some of the change in the middle of writing it - https://wob.coppermind.net/events/378-stormlight-book-four-updates/#e12844

And this one discusses it more directly - https://wob.coppermind.net/events/369-skyward-san-francisco-signing/#e11666

I hope whomever told him that is no longer involved in the series because Eshonai attempting to free herself of a voidspren and save her people is far more compelling than Venli's stupid "oh no my blind lust for power was bad, I need to make amends" arc that tries to be both the downfall and savior of her people. Bonus points if Sanderson would actually have had Kaladin succumb to Odium at some point and that encountering Eshonai would be the catalyst for both of them finding their way back on to the right path and rejoining the fight against him.

The ROW flashbacks went from "this is boring" to "ok gently caress off for wasting my time" at the end too because the constant look at Eshonai gave the impression that maybe somehow despite all odds she did actually survive and that the final flashback would confirm it and give an indication as to why she hasn't shown up again since then but no, it was just to give her a send off and waste dozens of pages on backstory we already knew and maybe to try and flesh out Venli in an attempt to make people care about her beyond "this is literally her fault" and calling for her long overdue execution.

That Venli is the one "forgiven" by spren is some serious bullshit and I am not looking forward to the awful redemption arc she's going to have (though hopefully she just immediately dies in the next book but we aren't that lucky).

JOSEPH SAMOAN
Jun 13, 2010

Blitzing through Alloy of Law in a few days was really something. I don’t think the characters ever really solidified like they did in any of the other Sanderson novels I’ve read this far, but every fight in the book was immensely more grabbing and better written than any of the allomancy battles in the original Mistborn trilogy. The end result was like a weird anime-ish situation where the spectacle of cool dudes doing cool things with guns was what keeps you reading rather than any real plot intrigue

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Reaverbot posted:

Blitzing through Alloy of Law in a few days was really something. I don’t think the characters ever really solidified like they did in any of the other Sanderson novels I’ve read this far, but every fight in the book was immensely more grabbing and better written than any of the allomancy battles in the original Mistborn trilogy. The end result was like a weird anime-ish situation where the spectacle of cool dudes doing cool things with guns was what keeps you reading rather than any real plot intrigue

This improves massively in the next two books imho. Steris is honestly my second favorite Sanderson character.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Torrannor posted:

This improves massively in the next two books imho. Steris is honestly my second favorite Sanderson character.

I don't really care for Mistborn Era 2 but Steris is great and absolutely my favorite character in those books.

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



Torrannor posted:

This improves massively in the next two books imho. Steris is honestly my second favorite Sanderson character.

also i know they're novel length but i kinda think of that series as being two novellas followed by one proper sanderson book, the first two feel like short arcs in an episodic tv show or something

eke out fucked around with this message at 23:32 on May 13, 2021

JOSEPH SAMOAN
Jun 13, 2010

Torrannor posted:

This improves massively in the next two books imho. Steris is honestly my second favorite Sanderson character.

That's good to hear. I actually started liking Steris pretty early on from what little you get of her and was sad that she ended up basically being absent the entire time, so I look forward to seeing where they go with her.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Is she the one with a list/plan for everything? I did enjoy her more on my second read of Era 2, but everyone but Wayne just kinda fell flat for me.

I'm in the minority that enjoyed Era 1 significantly more though.

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

Sab669 posted:

Is she the one with a list/plan for everything? I did enjoy her more on my second read of Era 2, but everyone but Wayne just kinda fell flat for me.

I'm in the minority that enjoyed Era 1 significantly more though.

Yup. One of the more notable ones:

please flip to the page labeled "In case of kidnapping attempts"

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Sab669 posted:

Is she the one with a list/plan for everything? I did enjoy her more on my second read of Era 2, but everyone but Wayne just kinda fell flat for me.

I'm in the minority that enjoyed Era 1 significantly more though.

I don't think that's a minority opinion overall. It might be here but I have only seen vast preference for Mistborn 1 elsewhere and I agree with that opinion entirely.

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!
Further in RoW:

It is becoming more obvious that Venli was meant to be something different and that Eshonai was supposed to live. I can't believe that Venli has received this much page-time with very little to show for it. I wonder what the word counts for her chapters are like compared to Kaladin's in the first two books. I did enjoy that Rlain finally snapped and was like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0_f5fkrCTA&t=5s

I'll give the book the compliment in that the interludes are much snappier and relevant than previous entries in the series, and I'm expecting the incoming Sanderlanche intrigue before the end of the book. I'm just a little tired of introspective Venli chapters. I don't feel like the book has deserved 73 chapters so far and that this all could have maybe been split into two more succinct volumes.

Pennsylvanian fucked around with this message at 01:33 on May 14, 2021

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

Torrannor posted:

This improves massively in the next two books imho. Steris is honestly my second favorite Sanderson character.

NikkolasKing posted:

I don't really care for Mistborn Era 2 but Steris is great and absolutely my favorite character in those books.

Steris is unequivocally the BEST character. I never thought I was going to be one of those people who wanted to name their kids after fictional book characters but after Bands of Mourning I put "Steris" on the list of baby names and made a very long and sustained case for it (which ultimately was unsuccessful but still).

Sab669 posted:

Is she the one with a list/plan for everything? I did enjoy her more on my second read of Era 2, but everyone but Wayne just kinda fell flat for me.

I'm in the minority that enjoyed Era 1 significantly more though.

DarkHorse posted:

Yup. One of the more notable ones:

please flip to the page labeled "In case of kidnapping attempts"

Also "framed for murder", which is the ending of the greatest comedic sequence Sanderson has ever written, INCLUDING the also hilarious scene when they arrive at the hotel in New Seran.

EDIT:

eke out posted:

also i know they're novel length but i kinda think of that series as being two novellas followed by one proper sanderson book, the first two feel like short arcs in an episodic tv show or something

Because they kind of are, they were random novellas he smashed out during a flight while on a book tour or something. I feel like we may have been robbed by the pandemic somewhat because he hasn't done any flying for a while, so who knows what other awesome things he would have written in an alternate universe without COVID.

Leng fucked around with this message at 18:44 on May 14, 2021

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Sab669 posted:

I'm in the minority that enjoyed Era 1 significantly more though.

I think the vast majority of Sanderson fans think that Mistborn 1 is the better series. The Final Empire is both a fantastic stand-alone book, as well as a great introduction to the Cosmere as the whole. And while Well of Ascension has it's problems, Hero of Ages has a Sanderlanche that just won't stop and will leave you exhausted and happy and sad and awed and so much more. A truly epic conclusion for a trilogy.

The Mistborn 2 books are pretty good, too, imho. But they have lower stakes, and are in many respects just more down to earth. These four books were after all not part of the initial "three Mistborn series" outline that Brandon had. And judging from the little bit Sanderson has revealed about Era 3, those books will probably be quite more epic in scope than the Era 2 books.

I like several characters in Mistborn 2 quite a lot, and would honestly argue that the core group is more engaging than Kelsier's crew. At the same time, as protagonists, Vin or Kelsier far outshine Wax. And I love Steris, but she's clearly not a main character.

But I still very much enjoy the second Mistborn series, and I really look forward to The Lost Metal.

mewse
May 2, 2006

I'm interested in what cold war era mistborn will look like. I don't know if Sanderson is up to writing espionage fiction (will be happy to be proven wrong)

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Yea I'm excited for Lost Metal, and Era 3.

Wax was mega bland for a protagonist, and I just missed how much of Era 1 was about the magic as much as it was the characters. And everyone just being misting / twin born just made every combat seen feel kinda The Same to me. Oh he's gonna make himself real light and rocket jump through the air. Again. Cool.

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.
Era 3 should be interesting because depending on how The Lost Metal goes it could mean we see the return of full Allomancy and Feruchemcy in people or something new through the introduction of Sazium or or whatever his god metal ends up being (and doing).

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

Evil Fluffy posted:

Era 3 should be interesting because depending on how The Lost Metal goes it could mean we see the return of full Allomancy and Feruchemcy in people or something new through the introduction of Sazium or or whatever his god metal ends up being (and doing).

Ettmetal is what Southern Scadrians are using to power their airships and it's explosive like super cesium. Not sure I'd wanna be trying to swallow THAT on the off chance of allomancy or feruchemy!

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Leng posted:

Ettmetal is what Southern Scadrians are using to power their airships and it's explosive like super cesium. Not sure I'd wanna be trying to swallow THAT on the off chance of allomancy or feruchemy!

That’s why there are no Potassium based powers. That we know of.

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

Captain Monkey posted:

That’s why there are no Potassium based powers. That we know of.

Lol if Sodium or Potassium were allomantic metals

aparmenideanmonad
Jan 28, 2004
Balls to you and your way of mortal opinions - you don't exist anyway!
Fun Shoe

DarkHorse posted:

Lol if Sodium or Potassium were allomantic metals

Vin is canonically burning trace amounts of pewter, zinc, brass, etc. from drinking water for her "luck" in Mistborn 1. Sodium or potassium ions dissociated in aqueous digestive lumen would be just fine.

Lawnie
Sep 6, 2006

That is my helmet
Give it back
you are a lion
It doesn't even fit
Grimey Drawer
“Hold on I just need to finish this banana really quick and then I’ll be able to shoot lasers out of my eyes.”

-Mistborn era 3 protagonist, probably

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DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

aparmenideanmonad posted:

Vin is canonically burning trace amounts of pewter, zinc, brass, etc. from drinking water for her "luck" in Mistborn 1. Sodium or potassium ions dissociated in aqueous digestive lumen would be just fine.

Good point

*starts to heavily salt every meal*

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