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Barreft posted:Oathbringer owns. ROW is boringly bad. Mistborn is the best. Dawnshard is really good. And Warbreaker rules. 
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May 8, 2022 04:54
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Being in the middle of my second read-through of Oathbreaker: 1) I repeat that all this poo poo makes so much more sense now. 2) I think this might just be me, but I tend to find 90% of the "regular" non-infused action sequences deeeeeeply boring. Oh, you slashed another dude? Did his eyes burn? Huh, how bout that. Wake me up when the battle's over. Even the big battle at Thaylen Field felt really scattered and hard to follow the first time around because I kept zoning out on the descriptions of whatever cool flips and poo poo people were doing, obscuring the actual important developments. 3) It's also possible that I don't have a ton of patience with Sanderson's writing about someone who is as broadly emotionally incompetent as pre-assassination Dalinar despite that journey being kind of key to the books. Oh, you don't like your perfectly nice wife who loves you, but you won't bother to figure out why? Gee, the only thing you like is murdering people on a grand scale? Yawn. I know it's important in terms of understanding where he came from and how much he's changed by the time the books happen (on top of the plot-relevant stuff), I know that it's the character backstories and details that really make Stormlight what they are, but it just drags for me. Once his wife is gone it gets a little more interesting seeing how Adolin and Renarin take care of him, but up until then he's just being pushed along by Gavilar from point to point, not making any decisions. I get impatient, it's a me problem. Counterpoint is that I am laser-focused when this person's present-day stuff is going on 4) I am grateful for more Navani. There is never enough Navani. Overall the ending does indeed rule though, I'm really looking forward to being able to comprehend the details on this pass.
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May 8, 2022 05:27
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CK07 posted:4) I am grateful for more Navani. There is never enough Navani. Huh. Then RoW might be the perfect book for you. She even gets her own chapter icon!
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May 8, 2022 05:50
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Torrannor posted:Huh. Then RoW might be the perfect book for you. She even gets her own chapter icon! Oh, I've read all the books through once already and am looking forward to that aspect again!
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May 8, 2022 07:22
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I will say that reading Oathbringer after having sat with the previous books I feel comfortable saying Oathbringer was one of my all time favorite fantasy novels. It doesn't work just loose from context but drat it blows so many other fantasy novels out of the water.
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May 8, 2022 08:00
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TGG posted:I will say that reading Oathbringer after having sat with the previous books I feel comfortable saying Oathbringer was one of my all time favorite fantasy novels. It doesn't work just loose from context but drat it blows so many other fantasy novels out of the water. If you liked the premise of Oathbringer, Hyperion by Dan Simmons has a similar "journey of a person from mysterious beginnings to mysterious present". Seven persons, actually! It's one of my favorite novels. The sequels are pretty good too but get weird and I don't recommend them as strongly
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May 8, 2022 20:57
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I'll check it out, thanks for the suggestion! I've been on a Zelazny kick lately and everyone tells me I need to read Red Rising but Dan Simmons is going on the list.
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May 9, 2022 02:28
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I finished Mistborn: Secret History last night. Didn't enjoy it. I've read everything Sanderson and love the guy, but this book was definitely only for super fans. It's the weakest thing I've read from him by far. Absolutely nothing landed for me. It just felt like unnecessary fan fiction. Also, I hate it when people die, but don't, even if it's someone I thought was cool.
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May 9, 2022 02:33
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Hyperion is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi novels ever written. It is completely and utterly fantastic. Each sequel is slightly worse than the one before it, but when you start so high even four steps down it’s still pretty drat good
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May 9, 2022 04:58
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Hyperion is amazing, it's head and shoulders above almost every other scifi book. The world building, the story, the absolutely gorgeous prose and descriptive writing, all absolutely top-notch. It's not without flaws though. Simmons really sucks at female characters, they are stilted and run on extremely gendered motivations. And the sex scenes.... Very bad, and very weird. Books having characters who are human and have sexual motivations is good, but I don't need the play by play of every move. If that's what I wanted I'd read anther genre. But if you can get past those, which are thankfully not huge parts of the books, then you're in for a treat. One of the biggest weaknesses of Sanderson IMO is pretty bland descriptive writing, like it gets the job done but it isn't beautiful in itself, but that is an area that Simmons shines. There's a particular part, in the third book I believe, that is a solid 7 or 8 pages of description of a particular scene; no dialog, no story, no action, just the most incredible detail of a gorgeous view that has lived rent-free in my head for 15 odd years. Also Hyperion has the best cold open of any book I've ever read, bar-none.
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May 9, 2022 08:16
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BananaNutkins posted:I finished Mistborn: Secret History last night. Didn't enjoy it. I've read everything Sanderson and love the guy, but this book was definitely only for super fans. It's the weakest thing I've read from him by far. Absolutely nothing landed for me. It just felt like unnecessary fan fiction. Also, I hate it when people die, but don't, even if it's someone I thought was cool. I think it's an unpopular opinion but I mostly agree. The glimpses into other realms and bigger reveals of Shards, worldhoppers etc is really cool, and the backstage look at a lot of other events in the books is fun, but I think it undermined a lot of what made Kelsier such a cool character in the first book. You always knew he was a bit of a dick (or a sociopath) beneath the bravado, but he had the noble villain thing going on that worked in his favor. Secret History undermined a lot of that I feel. And yeah, characters dying but not really dying really robs the emotional intensity of the death and makes deaths of other characters feel way less consequential. His participation in the finale felt really lame to me too. Would have been better without it, probably. I guess his survival is ultimately setup due broader cosmere stuff but it feels kinda weak, the only cool "oh poo poo" part of it was the end of Bands of Mourning, but I feel like the role he plays might have been better served with a different or totally new character. I guess we'll see as the plot develops in upcoming books.
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May 9, 2022 08:28
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Taffer posted:I think it's an unpopular opinion but I mostly agree. The glimpses into other realms and bigger reveals of Shards, worldhoppers etc is really cool, and the backstage look at a lot of other events in the books is fun, but I think it undermined a lot of what made Kelsier such a cool character in the first book. You always knew he was a bit of a dick (or a sociopath) beneath the bravado, but he had the noble villain thing going on that worked in his favor. Secret History undermined a lot of that I feel. And yeah, characters dying but not really dying really robs the emotional intensity of the death and makes deaths of other characters feel way less consequential. His participation in the finale felt really lame to me too. Would have been better without it, probably. I guess his survival is ultimately setup due broader cosmere stuff but it feels kinda weak, the only cool "oh poo poo" part of it was the end of Bands of Mourning, but I feel like the role he plays might have been better served with a different or totally new character. I guess we'll see as the plot develops in upcoming books. Given that he apparently leads what I assume to be one of the prime antagonist factions in Stormlight Archive, I think it made a lot of sense to use him specifically for this role. He was a noble villain, but now that he achieved that particular noble goal, he's defaulting to being a villain. I know some people get bothered by resurrections, especially because it cheapens other deaths for them. I don't feel the same, but I understand where you come from. That said, I think Brandon has pretty well established by now under which circumstances characters can "survive" death. They need to be highly invested otherwise they won't linger in the cognitive realm. And then an outside force needs to intervene. It was either Odium for all Fused, Preservation for Kelsier, or Nalan for Szeth. The "highly invested" bit is probably not so much of a limited factor going forward, but the outside help will be the limiting factor. Nale is not likely to grant this favor to any of our protagonists, I'm not sure whether Odium's special resurrection mechanic would even work for non-Listeners, and Preservation is dead. I could maybe see Harmony doing something similar for Wax, but he also seemed willing to let him die in BoM. So I think you can generally be quite confident that a character who died on-screen really remains dead.
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May 9, 2022 09:25
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Secret history/RoW spoilers. Aren't we stuck with Venli because people got mad about Kelsier and Jasnah's fakeout deaths? I know at some point he said yeah, no more false death's because it's a lovely crutch when overused, looking at you comics industry. Ehlokar's death gutted me though, he really grew on me as a character.
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May 9, 2022 19:40
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I feel like some of this touches on my disappointments with Bands of Mourning. Some cool stuff happened in that book with Investiture and Identity and airships and such. But then I felt like every major character moment got immediately undercut. Marasi gets shot. Is immediately healed by MeLaan. Wax dies. Harmony brings him back. Wayne shoots Wax’s sister in the loving face. But it doesn’t really count because she was able to immediately heal and escape anyway.
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May 9, 2022 19:50
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Mordiceius posted:I feel like some of this touches on my disappointments with Bands of Mourning. Some cool stuff happened in that book with Investiture and Identity and airships and such. But then I felt like every major character moment got immediately undercut. I thought he got her in the back but didn't actually shoot her face off, but I haven't read the second trilogy in a minute so I might be misremembering.
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May 9, 2022 23:14
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Speaking of, I just finished Bands of Mourning this morning and am moving on to Secret History today, then I think I'm caught up on just about all the main cosmere books. Gonna take a break from Sanderson for a bit and buy Hyperion based on how many here love it. I need to dive into something new and would love suggestions on some absolutely stellar, universally praised books that are fantasty/sci-fi related. Basically any book you wish you could wipe your memory of to experience it anew again.
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May 9, 2022 23:20
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Louisgod posted:Basically any book you wish you could wipe your memory of to experience it anew again. Patricia C Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons comes to mind. It’s young adult, and would be perfect to share with any kids between the ages of 7 and 11 in your life. (Depending on their reading skills they might even read it to you.) Also, Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination. And if you’re looking for a long term commitment, the Wheel of Time. Edit: that last one probably doesn’t count as a break from Sanderson. Grundulum fucked around with this message at 00:17 on May 10, 2022 |
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May 9, 2022 23:58
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Louisgod posted:Speaking of, I just finished Bands of Mourning this morning and am moving on to Secret History today, then I think I'm caught up on just about all the main cosmere books. Gonna take a break from Sanderson for a bit and buy Hyperion based on how many here love it. I need to dive into something new and would love suggestions on some absolutely stellar, universally praised books that are fantasty/sci-fi related. Basically any book you wish you could wipe your memory of to experience it anew again. The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman.
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May 10, 2022 00:17
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Eminent Domain posted:I thought he got her in the back but didn't actually shoot her face off, but I haven't read the second trilogy in a minute so I might be misremembering. "He lowered the barrel to her face and fired." But later Wayne says "Oh I figured she could heal. So I didn't actually kill her with the gun." Which, again, undermines the whole thing. I feel like all three of the major character moments in Bands of Mourning get undone or undermined almost immediately. It's not that I don't like that book, but it feels like the least consequential of any of his books.
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May 10, 2022 00:21
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Grundulum posted:Patricia C Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons comes to mind. It’s young adult, and would be perfect to share with any kids between the ages of 7 and 11 in your life. (Depending on their reading skills they might even read it to you.) Also, Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination. And if you’re looking for a long term commitment, the Wheel of Time. BananaNutkins posted:The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman. Thank you! Added them to my list of books to buy. Already have WoT on my list though it’ll probably be a long while before I get to them.
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May 10, 2022 00:24
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BananaNutkins posted:The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman. Yo. Pretty drat good book.
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May 10, 2022 02:54
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I really enjoy Children of Time. It's almost purely worldbuilding and a "alternate history" type of thought experiment though, there is very little plot and character. But it's super creative and really interesting, if you like that type of thing.
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May 10, 2022 05:42
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Can someone in this thread who has read all of Wheel of Time spoil something for me, please? I'm on book 6 and every time the taint of the male half of the true source is mentioned, it annoys me because I convinced myself early on that that's obviously going to be fixed at some point in the series for reasons. I can't really explain why it's annoying me but if someone could tell me if that does happen, and if so what book it happens in I'd appreciate it. Don't wanna venture into the WoT thread for fear of other spoilers.
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May 10, 2022 11:33
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101 posted:Can someone in this thread who has read all of Wheel of Time spoil something for me, please? It happens in book 9.
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May 10, 2022 11:38
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Torrannor posted:It happens in book 9. Cheers
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May 10, 2022 11:53
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Torrannor posted:It happens in book 9. and also book 10… lol
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May 10, 2022 11:53
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About 60% through Warbreaker. I feel like Denth being evil, or at least hiding sinister motives, is a little bit obvious at this point. When Vasher attacked the one Returned’s palace, he didn’t kill anyone. Then one of the priests tells Lightsong “someone was murdered with a dueling blade!!!” And then the very next scene, we see Denth murder a crime lord’s bodyguard with a dueling blade. Then two scenes later, Lightsong learns that another man showed up after Vasher. It feels too obvious at this point. Or maybe it just particularly stood out to me. I think the most impressive thing about this book is how compelling Susebron is. He went from being a character I didn’t give a poo poo about to a precious cinnamon roll that I would defend with my life. If we don’t get to see him unleash some awesome and terrible power, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.
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May 10, 2022 15:39
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Warbreaker has a great ending. Looking forward to hearing your review of it.
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May 10, 2022 18:41
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Welp. And there is the Denth and Tonk Fah heel turn. Maybe it’s just because I listen to the audiobooks for Sanderson books first, but I feel like his writing tends to be very cinematic, in a way. There is a brisk and frenetic energy to his writing, especially the action scenes that makes it feel more cinematic. It’s not to say that his writing isn’t detailed. I just feel like he writes with enough detail to paint a scene and then gets the scene moving. I never feel bogged down in description. One of my favorite books ever is Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose but dude spends 10 pages describing a stained glass window at one point. You gotta be in a certain mood to handle that.
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May 10, 2022 19:43
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Sometimes I get the impression that Sanderson's secretly trying to queue up the action scenes to eventually be adopted into a tv series or movie, and including as much vigor and detail as possible during the action sequences will make them less ambiguous or confusing come script writing time. I do kinda find it hard to visualize some of the allomantic fights though, they tend to get a bit jarring specific to knowing how they're pulling off specific moves but you just gotta roll with it.
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May 10, 2022 19:52
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A ton of his poo poo has been optioned for movie/TV projects. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Media_rights
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May 10, 2022 21:25
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Louisgod posted:Sometimes I get the impression that Sanderson's secretly trying to queue up the action scenes to eventually be adopted into a tv series or movie, and including as much vigor and detail as possible during the action sequences will make them less ambiguous or confusing come script writing time. Also at this point, if you listen/watch him talk about it, you can tell he sees a TV/film adaptation as a certainty on the horizon. See recent interview with Daniel Greene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02vvaHjMzTA&t=63s Note how he says "I thought it would take until I had films and television shows". This is gonna happen. He's already done the treatment for Mistborn, I think it's with a screenwriter to do the script. Calling it now: if Sanderson can't find a studio willing to give the green light to the stuff they've optioned, he's gonna start producing indie films under Dragonsteel Entertainment and if they're short on production funds, they'll Kickstarter whatever he doesn't want/can't afford to put in himself. Dude is a smart business person who is looking into launching his own bookstore (he has talked about this on livestreams). He's been stepping up the investment in logistics and merchandising for a while and if the swag subscription stuff from the last Kickstarter pays off, that will continue. We might even see a Dragonsteel Books brick-and-mortar store in Utah soon. Like...possibly as soon as one or two years, if he can make the cash flow work. And I will be FASCINATED if he can, because physical retail is a whole different beast to online retail.
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May 10, 2022 23:43
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Like Jaxyon said, he's been shopping the options for... quite a few years now. And he's only gotten bigger and bigger and bigger every year. I think it practically is guaranteed
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May 10, 2022 23:55
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I talked to him once at a Con about videogames, he really wanted a Mistborn game but Kingdoms of Amalur crashing scared off many publishers.
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May 11, 2022 00:13
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I like Brandon but he's ruined the word tempest for me
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May 11, 2022 00:18
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Leng posted:Also at this point, if you listen/watch him talk about it, you can tell he sees a TV/film adaptation as a certainty on the horizon. See recent interview with Daniel Greene: Yeah he's spoken about it quite a bit in lots of his livestreams and I know he's tried to make it happen or at least slowly put the gears in motion. It's just interesting to think that even with Mistborn written in 2006 and him still being up and coming that it feels like he wrote things out in a way to be translatable to a tv or movie series. It's become more apparent in his later writing, Wax and Wayne especially, in my opinion. I feel all of Mistborn would do very well as something like an HBO miniseries and don't see it doing well as a movie. You can get the pacing and storytelling right with a miniseries.
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May 11, 2022 01:01
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I feel like the original Mistborn trilogy would work better as a TV series with 6-8 episodes per book. Wax & Wayne would work better as films. Hell, the second Wax & Wayne book takes place over like 24 hours.
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May 11, 2022 02:25
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Mistborn Era 1 by the studio that did Arcane would be the dream
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May 11, 2022 05:12
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The opening scene of The Way of Kings could not have been more expressly written as a sizzle reel unless it was formatted as a script. It's a fantasy Matrix fight scene, and - even though I complain about his action scenes at times - one of the best I've read. Dude knows what he wants out of this.
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May 11, 2022 06:23
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In that video Leng posted he even refers to the scene in Well of Ascension where Vin and Zane storm the castle as like the Matrix lobby scene 
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May 11, 2022 11:29
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