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Gato
Feb 1, 2012

eke out posted:

is that really an anachronism? it's an extremely old fashioned usage

your broader point isn't wrong, but i've just never once thought of that phrase as particularly current and modern

is that so? I've been trying to look into the etymology but I don't know a good source to look into secondary meanings.

Now I'm tempted to make a list whenever I tackle the next book and work out how many of them are actually modern as opposed to my pedantry being overtuned

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socialsecurity
Aug 30, 2003





Gato posted:

is that so? I've been trying to look into the etymology but I don't know a good source to look into secondary meanings.

Now I'm tempted to make a list whenever I tackle the next book and work out how many of them are actually modern as opposed to my pedantry being overtuned

Also this isn't Earth, there is no Earth so "modern language" is meaningless as these people have had their own evolution/culture/language I actually like how it doesn't try to use ye olde english or whatever.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

I assume anyone who cares is probably already in the WOT thread in Book Barn / TV IV, but if not I'll post it here since Sanderson finished the series afterall:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ABgqUh8M98

:hellyeah:

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



Gato posted:

is that so? I've been trying to look into the etymology but I don't know a good source to look into secondary meanings.

Now I'm tempted to make a list whenever I tackle the next book and work out how many of them are actually modern as opposed to my pedantry being overtuned

hah yeah i couldn't find anything from some quick searches either, just know "seems off" comes from the same usage as food being "off," which feels old-fashioned to me

JOSEPH SAMOAN
Jun 13, 2010

After loving Oathbringer to death I am having a really hard time getting through the beginning of Rhythm of War, especially with this seemingly endless battle in the air Kaladin is having.

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
Have finished ReDawn. Alanik's POV bothered me less than the FM POV, maybe because I didn't have so many pre-existing impressions of how Brandon had written here, whereas FM seems less...mature when written by Janci.

Big stuff happens! Spoilers for Starsight AND Sunreach:

Skyward Flight goes with Alanik to try and rescue the Independence faction (their political enemies just pulled off a Superiority assisted coup) and they end up taking over an autonomous platform that has a functioning massive cytonic superweapon powered by Boomslug. The National Assembly Leaders are insistent that they want to strike a peace deal with the Superiority, who have now got M-Bot's holographic tech. They kidnap Cobb and replace him with a Superiority agent and demand the Defiants turn over Cuna, all cytonics and taynix. The Assembly agrees but they're betrayed at the peace talks and the Superiority murders the lot of them and broadcasts it to Detritus. Thankfully, Gran manages to get Cobb and Cuna out in time (turns out she can teleport too? For some specific reason from that particular Superiority ship) and Jorgen is devastated by the death of his parents.

Also Arturo broke up with his girlfriend Bryn and I'm fairly certain an interspecies romance is brewing between Arturo and Alanik, who has been adopted into Skyward Flight as callsign: Angel.


And that's pretty much where the book ends. Talk about a cliffhanger for Evershore, which is coming out AFTER Cytonic. Cytonic is just gonna be Spensa doing her thing in the nowhere so I don't expect that we'll get any resolution unless it happens in a massive catch up info dump afterwards.

Gato
Feb 1, 2012

socialsecurity posted:

Also this isn't Earth, there is no Earth so "modern language" is meaningless as these people have had their own evolution/culture/language I actually like how it doesn't try to use ye olde english or whatever.

My issue is more with the inconsistency - for the most part Sanderson sticks to a generic slightly elevated/archaic fantasy phrasing, but occasionally a modern idiom will just slip in and it jars. Ye Olde English done badly is really jarring as well, so it's a fine line to walk. Some books e.g. Gideon the Ninth use anachronistic language as a deliberate aspect of the setting but I don't think that's what's going on here.

And obviously it's not Earth, but neither are Westeros or, hell, Eorzea, but they're fantasy worlds aesthetically inspired by Medieval/Early Modern Europe, like Storm World (does it have a name? don't recall seeing one in the text). Would they work if everyone sounded like late 20th-Century Americans? Probably, but the imo those settings are improved by the coherence of the language used.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Gato posted:

And obviously it's not Earth, but neither are Westeros or, hell, Eorzea, but they're fantasy worlds aesthetically inspired by Medieval/Early Modern Europe, like Storm World (does it have a name? don't recall seeing one in the text). Would they work if everyone sounded like late 20th-Century Americans? Probably, but the imo those settings are improved by the coherence of the language used.

Roshar is the name for both the main continent, and the whole planet.

Slanderer
May 6, 2007

Gato posted:

some books e.g. Gideon the Ninth use anachronistic language as a deliberate aspect of the setting

Tumblr is a deliberate aspect of the setting?

New Yorp New Yorp
Jul 18, 2003

Only in Kenya.
Pillbug

Gato posted:

My issue is more with the inconsistency - for the most part Sanderson sticks to a generic slightly elevated/archaic fantasy phrasing, but occasionally a modern idiom will just slip in and it jars. Ye Olde English done badly is really jarring as well, so it's a fine line to walk. Some books e.g. Gideon the Ninth use anachronistic language as a deliberate aspect of the setting but I don't think that's what's going on here.

And obviously it's not Earth, but neither are Westeros or, hell, Eorzea, but they're fantasy worlds aesthetically inspired by Medieval/Early Modern Europe, like Storm World (does it have a name? don't recall seeing one in the text). Would they work if everyone sounded like late 20th-Century Americans? Probably, but the imo those settings are improved by the coherence of the language used.

I'm with you. I find it jarring too. And I hate Lift.

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



Slanderer posted:

Tumblr is a deliberate aspect of the setting?

i mean... basically, yes

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

Gato posted:

Some books e.g. Gideon the Ninth use anachronistic language as a deliberate aspect of the setting but I don't think that's what's going on here.

Slanderer posted:

Tumblr is a deliberate aspect of the setting?

eke out posted:

i mean... basically, yes

I've just finished reading Gideon and yes, yes it is, very much so. I don't actually know how I feel about it (every time Gideon dropped some catch phrase I was just like ugh), because I too absolutely can't stand Lift (and yes, I've read Edgedancer).

Sanderson's position is that when he writes the books, is he's translating them to English:

Brandon Sanderson posted:

Questioner
So, when there's wordplay in The Stormlight Archive, we know they aren't speaking English, so are you to assume that that is a translation of the...

Brandon Sanderson
This is what Tolkein said, and I always rely upon this. You're reading the book in translation, and the person translating it is going to try to use the closest in feel, but to also make it translate to English. So even when they use idioms and things like that, sometimes they translate and the translator can drop them in. Sometimes they just don't translate, so the translator comes up with something that works in English... It gets you a lot of loopholes, like if you accidentally call something an ottoman and people are like, "But there's not an Ottoman Empire in this fantasy world!" But you're like, "Yeah, all words work that way." It's in translation. This is why when you read something like Allomancy, and they're like, "Well, it's got Latin roots, right?" Yeah... it's just the roots in their language would be something old Terris, and the easiest way to convey that feeling is to use something that's got-- you know. Stuff like that.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/324/#e9338

Gato
Feb 1, 2012

Leng posted:

Sanderson's position is that when he writes the books, is he's translating them to English:

Well, he needs to translate them better, then :colbert:

more seriously, it's probably partly a question of effort - if the extracts from the in-universe Words of Radiance are anything to go by, he's perfectly capable of changing register when he wants to make a point, but agonizing over every word choice is probably not a good way to get a 1000+ page book out every 2 years.

Leng posted:

I've just finished reading Gideon and yes, yes it is, very much so. I don't actually know how I feel about it (every time Gideon dropped some catch phrase I was just like ugh), because I too absolutely can't stand Lift (and yes, I've read Edgedancer).

It's definitely a love it/hate it thing, and I went swinging from love to hate and back again several times while reading Gideon and the sequel. For what it's worth, when I say it's deliberate I mean that it does actually get some (minor) plot attention in Harrow the Ninth. Whether that justifies it or not is a different question.

also the thought of a novella entirely about Awesomesauce the thief is a little offputting. will I miss anything important if I skip it?

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

Gato posted:

also the thought of a novella entirely about Awesomesauce the thief is a little offputting. will I miss anything important if I skip it?

It fills in some blanks around what Nalan was trying to do. And you get a little more insight into Lift as a character. There is a lot of awesome this, deevy that. On rereads there's not actually as much as it feels like on a first read. I'd say it's less important than reading Dawnshard.

Barreft
Jul 21, 2014

I still wish he cut a bunch of bloat from ROW and weaved in Dawnshard instead.

New Yorp New Yorp
Jul 18, 2003

Only in Kenya.
Pillbug

Leng posted:

It fills in some blanks around what Nalan was trying to do. And you get a little more insight into Lift as a character. There is a lot of awesome this, deevy that. On rereads there's not actually as much as it feels like on a first read. I'd say it's less important than reading Dawnshard.

There's the thread of aimians that runs through both books, though. It's worth the read even if the character is irritating.

JOSEPH SAMOAN
Jun 13, 2010

lift is cool and getting to see the setting from a perspective outside of the central war in something longer than an interlude is fun. The fakeout near the end where she goes to rescue the beggar and runs into the cremling dude is one of my favorite moments in any Sanderson thing

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

JOSEPH SAMOAN posted:

lift is cool and getting to see the setting from a perspective outside of the central war in something longer than an interlude is fun. The fakeout near the end where she goes to rescue the beggar and runs into the cremling dude is one of my favorite moments in any Sanderson thing

"Would you consider yourself more of a hand or an eyeball?" is such an amazing philosophical question and just completely threw me for a loop when it happened, but makes complete sense in hindsight

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy6CmZGX2xA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2pIZTweVwE

https://ashesproject.carrd.co/

:pcgaming: :pcgaming: :pcgaming: :pcgaming:

Sab669 fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Nov 4, 2021

Synesthesian Fetish
Apr 29, 2008

Ya know, I useta be President... I'll let you kids punch me anywhere but the face for a dollar.

Thanks for posting both videos. The teaser trailer got me pumped but I wanted to see what the gameplay was like. Glad they mention Insomniac's Spider-Man as inspiration because that really made me feel like I was Spider-Man while keeping controls fairly simple. Early days but I'm excited

Mordiceius
Nov 10, 2007

If you think calling me names is gonna get a rise out me, think again. I like my life as an idiot!

It’s funny because a Mistborn game makes so much sense. It wouldn’t even be hard because the mechanics are already outlined in the books.

Here would be my pitch for a Mistborn game - don’t do Vin’s story. The book is already the perfection of that. Doing it in game form would be disappointing.

You call it “Mistborn: House War” have it be set 400 years pre-Mistborn books. During a period of history not directly outlined in the books. You play a thieving crew. You end up part of some greater conspiracy. Allow customizable protagonist. Like the Mass Effect or Dragon Age games. An RPG with branching story, like Mass Effect/Dragon Age/The Witcher.

You play as a Mistborn in a crew of Mistings. The whole game is trying to defeat this super evil House Lord that murdered your sibling. In doing so, you eventually spark a House War.

At the end of the story, your team slays the Lord and cause his Great House to fall. And the the Lord Ruler shows up and kills you and your party. The end. Because it turns out he wanted a house war to “wipe the slate clean” so you were really just doing his bidding.

That would keep with the tone of the books, allow you to tell a unique story, and not contradict the story of the books.

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

A couple-centuries prequel playing as a noble in the middle of a house war was the idea behind the cancelled official videogame project
https://www.brandonsanderson.com/announcing-the-mistborn-video-game/

Tunicate fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Nov 4, 2021

Mordiceius
Nov 10, 2007

If you think calling me names is gonna get a rise out me, think again. I like my life as an idiot!

Tunicate posted:

Basically the idea behind the cancelled official game project
https://www.brandonsanderson.com/announcing-the-mistborn-video-game/

Hah. Wasn’t even aware of that.

But yeah, I want a game set in the Final Empire with the RPG party dynamics and storytelling stylings of Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Witcher 3. I don’t want to play Vin’s story.

External Organs
Mar 3, 2006

One time i prank called a bear buildin workshop and said I wanted my mamaws ashes put in a teddy from where she loved them things so well... The woman on the phone did not skip a beat. She just said, "Brang her on down here. We've did it before."
I want untitled goose game but you're a steel inquisitor at a fancy ball.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Mordiceius posted:

You call it “Mistborn: House War”

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/182626/mistborn-house-war

;)



But yea Sanderson's magic systems would adapt to video games so well.

Adnor
Jan 11, 2013

Justice for Daisy

Just take Dishonored and change the abilities.

Macichne Leainig
Jul 26, 2012

by VG
I mean, karnesis in Deathloop is basically just lashings too (and Deathloop I think is now basically confirmed to be in the Dishonored universe).

Narmi
Feb 26, 2008
I finished ReDawn last night. Leng's already given a pretty good summary, so I'll just say that it was pretty good overall, and had some significant plot developments that are going to show up in Cytonic/Evershore. Alanik as a POV character worked out okay, I'm not sure I'd say I prefer her over FM but I did enjoy reading from her perspective and learning more about her people.

One thing I didn't like was how quickly the human leaders were to trust the Superiority. With Alanik's people it made sense; the Superiority had spent years basically infiltrating/molding their society and propping up the Unity party. With humanity, they're quick to trust aliens who have tried to wipe them out twice in recent memory, the second time by a hardliner who just carried out a coup on the guy who was saying they should be nicer to humans, and it's that same guy they expect to just let them be. I can understand the argument that many humans want to war to end, but for them to agree to hand over all their trump cards (including their cytonics) is remarkably naive.

Cobb being replaced is something that stuck out as well. Rinakin makes sense, they know him, they've isolated the people who would realize something is wrong, and they're working with his political opponents. With Cobb they have none of that, yet the people around him don't notice something is wrong. What's strange is that I don't think the story needed him to be replaced, they already had the Assembly wanting to make a deal, so it feel like kinda a moot point.


I suppose the Wandering Leafwas a bit too convenient, but not too bad so I'll give that a pass.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to Cytonic in two and a half week. There's going to be some major upheavals after this.

Koryk
Jun 5, 2007
I just finished it yesterday. I thought there was quite a bit of stuff that didn’t really follow/make sense. I just wrote off as YA simplification.

Cytonic will be a lot of fun.

Lucas Archer
Dec 1, 2007
Falling...
I just finished my re-read of RoW, and in my opinion, I think the book will age well. It's definitely a giant set up for the final book of this half of the series, but a lot of what it does is pretty fascinating.

Navani's whole plotline is one of my favorites, both because it very thoroughly explores her imposter syndrome, as well as some really esoteric lore and information about how the magic system works. In any other fantasy series, I think this would be all fart huffing nonsense, but given how BS uses magic and what it means to the world and universe at large, I can see how all of this would be relevant and necessary for the future. And I think it's partly necessary for Navani's character, to show her being a scholar, to show how she is better than who she thinks she is - which is such a running theme through the books so far, that I don't think we should be surprised it was on full display here.

The Venli/Eshonai flashbacks were also kind of a slog on the first run through, but I feel those are important for Venli's character, how she became both who she is, as well as the struggles she has to overcome in the future. She, along with Navani, Kaladin, Teft, Rlain, Dabbin, is broken, and her triumph at the end doesn't mean as much unless we get to see how far she fell in the first place. We knew it in abstract, but having concretely laid out is good for our understanding of the character.

Even so, the final Eshonai chapter was beautiful and heartbreaking and I loved it all over again.

Even Shallan's storyline, the biggest drag my first time through, was made much better by the knowledge of WHY she is so broken. For so long, I assumed (and I think this was the prevailing view) it was because she killed her mother. But that was only part of it, and until she could confront the whole truth, that part of her story was still open. The knowledge that she killed Testament is necessary for her storyline, and it is yet again, incredibly emotionally affecting.

The Pursuer was the only part that I still think fell a bit flat. Sure, watching Kaladin kick his rear end each time in a more humiliating fashion each time is fun, but there was zero, none, NO chance that the Pursuer was going to kill him. The fights lacked any real stakes because of it - almost like Kaladin had to have a nemesis to face off against throughout the book that wasn't Moash, so Moash could have his big killing Teft moment to drive Kaladin over the edge.


My opinion of the book has risen.

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



Lucas Archer posted:

The Pursuer was the only part that I still think fell a bit flat. Sure, watching Kaladin kick his rear end each time in a more humiliating fashion each time is fun, but there was zero, none, NO chance that the Pursuer was going to kill him. The fights lacked any real stakes because of it - almost like Kaladin had to have a nemesis to face off against throughout the book that wasn't Moash, so Moash could have his big killing Teft moment to drive Kaladin over the edge.

you know in the WOT thread people were talking about the neat thing Jordan does where [extremely general WOT spoilers about some parallels but i'll spoiler just in case] the Forsaken returning are repeatedly surprised by the things people in the 'primitive' current era are able to accomplish

I feel like Brandon's doing a twist on that with the various returned Fused, who all in their own way are coming to realize that they've massively underestimated humans in the current era and dealing with it with varying degrees of success (or, for the Pursuer, repeated failure). it's a really neat complement to the previous book's scene where Taln breaks down at realizing just how advanced humanity is this time and how unbelievably different that is than the last times this has happened -- these people have come back to full scale cosmopolitan empires for the first time in thousands of years, when in the past they were dealing with like Bronze Age technology levels

Raboniel realizes that an unpowered human is her equal or her better, Leshwi finds honorable adversaries she realizes she respects more than her nominal allies, and Lezian finds himself completely unable to adapt after getting owned by this era's premiere fighter like a hundred times

Louisgod
Sep 25, 2003

Always Stupid
Bread Liar
Can somebody help me understand what Sanderson means when he writes something like “Kaladin started”? He does it a lot and I’ve mostly ignored it but it seems everybody in Oathbringer is either pursing their lips or starting and the latter isn’t giving me a good visual of what’s actually happening.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

start verb

stärt

started; starting; starts

Definition of start

(Entry 1 of 3)

intransitive verb
1a : to move suddenly and violently //started angrily to his feet
b : to react with a sudden brief involuntary movement //started when a shot rang out

Louisgod
Sep 25, 2003

Always Stupid
Bread Liar
Cool that’s what I figured, it just doesn’t come off as.. I don’t know, the appropriate word to use at times for me, it’s weird. Maybe flinched kinda works?

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

I can't think of any usages off the top of my head, so :shrug:

But I get it, we all have random words that always just seem "off". I dislike when people say something "smarts" instead of hurts.

Coquito Ergo Sum
Feb 9, 2021

I really did not like RoW when I finished reading it, but I'm guessing it's sort of like LOTR or the later ASOIAF books in that they're kind of easier to digest and appreciate on a re-read. While I can probably scan through the slow, repetitive (re: Venli) parts more easily, I still can't make heads or tails of all of those twist endings. Do I need to read other Sanderson series for them to make sense? My book club had the same qualms I do in that regard.

Am I wrong though in thinking that it feels like a lot of the Stormlight character arcs get rewound sometimes? I understand that a character can't just decide "okay, my trauma is fixed" but sometimes it feels like the narrative forgets that certain progress was made or character-changing events happened. It feels like there was progress with Shallan at the end of Oathbringer that is completely negated or forgotten by the start of RoW.


Leng posted:

Sanderson's position is that when he writes the books, is he's translating them to English:

Thanks to how Metal Gear Solid 3 handled the whole "they're speaking English but it's actually Russian" question I just read all high fantasy that way now and it helps me swallow down some of my questions and misgivings when a character in a fictional universe is eating "beef bourguignon" or says some idiom that only exists because of some Earth event or location.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

I've been making my way through my first re-read of RoW all year long, just straight up skipping the Eshonai/Venli chapters this time and it still drags.

The Navani chapters just get way too far down into the weeds of it, and I think adding more and more more Nounlights just isn't fun/interesting. I've still got 300 pages to go out of the 1500 e-book pages and I really gotta force myself read a chapter or two a day.

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

Coquito Ergo Sum posted:

I really did not like RoW when I finished reading it, but I'm guessing it's sort of like LOTR or the later ASOIAF books in that they're kind of easier to digest and appreciate on a re-read. While I can probably scan through the slow, repetitive (re: Venli) parts more easily, I still can't make heads or tails of all of those twist endings. Do I need to read other Sanderson series for them to make sense? My book club had the same qualms I do in that regard.
I am a big Sanderson fan who has read all of his non-YA stuff and RoW was the first book of his that I flat out got bored with and only finished due to my investment in the overall story rather than the book itself. The other series are worth reading because they're enjoyable, and they do help you get more out of Stormlight as well, but they don't make RoW any better. Only the next book can do that at this point (maybe).

quote:

Am I wrong though in thinking that it feels like a lot of the Stormlight character arcs get rewound sometimes? I understand that a character can't just decide "okay, my trauma is fixed" but sometimes it feels like the narrative forgets that certain progress was made or character-changing events happened. It feels like there was progress with Shallan at the end of Oathbringer that is completely negated or forgotten by the start of RoW.
You are not wrong. While it's realistic to depict people with mental illness as having setbacks, often repeated, it's not particularly interesting to read about, even when the author gives you the disclaimer that this is exactly what he's up to. The challenge for him is to have these characters regress and then re-progress in ways that keep the reader engaged, and I would argue that it's wearing pretty thin in RoW.

Sab669 posted:

I've been making my way through my first re-read of RoW all year long, just straight up skipping the Eshonai/Venli chapters this time and it still drags.

The Navani chapters just get way too far down into the weeds of it, and I think adding more and more more Nounlights just isn't fun/interesting. I've still got 300 pages to go out of the 1500 e-book pages and I really gotta force myself read a chapter or two a day.
If I ever re-read it, this is my plan as well. My current plan is to just do a plot summary and maybe pick over the last few chapters for the important cliffhanger deets right before book 5 drops. Your experience of the book becoming a chore even on a skimmy re-read is reinforcing this decision.

Anshu
Jan 9, 2019


I really liked the Navani parts.

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Invalid Validation
Jan 13, 2008




It was fine but the whole middle dragged on a lot. It can be fun seeing Kaladin running around doing guerrilla tactics in an occupied tower. But after like 300 pages of nothing really happening, it just needs to pick it up a bit. That was mainly my problem with all the stormlight books. The beginnings and endings were good with little hints of cool poo poo in between. It’s probably more to do with epic fantasy authors, it’s hard to keep a fast pace when you have 10 books to fill. The Mistborn books had the same problem, I think I’m seeing a pattern here.

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