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New Yorp New Yorp posted:That's how I felt, and that's how the entire rest of the series is. At no point will there ever be any reader-friendly exposition. I kept thinking it would eventually click if I kept going, which is why I managed to read 9 books of a series and do not have the ability to explain anything about the plot. I can remember a few tidbits, like "there are raptors with sword arms", but I don't remember why or how that was important to the plot. Like, I can get not wanting to have exposition on things, whatever, but if you are gonna do that I at least need a glossary to have some idea what in the hell they are talking about.
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Jan 22, 2019 15:12
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I've heard great stuff about Malazan but there's not a chance in hell I'd be able to keep that straight if there's no exposition whatsoever. Sounds like a cool concept though; just not for me. I'm sure this will get explained in Steelheart, but if the factory keeps all of your wages until 18 how did he spend a decade paying and gathering information for about all these Epics. Knife of Dreams, about 30% through, not much to report on there. Has this thread talked about Ready Player One? I've been re-watching Futurama and I got to the "'What If' machine" episode where Fry wonders what if life were more like a video game. It's basically a better version of RPO 
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Jan 22, 2019 16:07
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Sab669 posted:Has this thread talked about Ready Player One? I've been re-watching Futurama and I got to the "'What If' machine" episode where Fry wonders what if life were more like a video game. It's basically a better version of RPO If you're thinking about reading RPO, why not listen to 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back instead. I haven't read RPO but I can almost guarantee this podcast about it is far more entertaining.
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Jan 22, 2019 16:15
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No, I did read it - I just wasn't sure if any of you goony bastards had discussed it, since this thread is often used for Not Sanderson Fantasy too. It was entertaining but I wouldn't call it good. The literary equivalent of candy. I also saw the movie which I thought was better, solely because you don't have read pages of lists of references. All the references are generally in the background of a shot. Edit: the "Stormlight 4 & 5 Outlining" tracker went from 25 -> 40%! ...Or at least it did according to his Facebook but the website still shows 25% for me?
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Jan 22, 2019 16:26
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Sab669 posted:
It's addressed a little bit, like he catches all the gossip and trade with other kids and so on. He also spent the entire chunk of his independent adult times in full spy mode. Maybe a little thin of an explanation but it's there.
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Jan 22, 2019 16:42
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Just finished Winter's Heart. Follows the template of the last 3-4 books of: - Nothing - Aes Sedai stuff being boring - Nothing - Maybe something, but not much - Nothing - Aes Sedai stuff being boring - Nothing - Something It was alright. I guess it was better than the previous couple books by a bit due to the "something" / Seanchan stuff in the middle. I suppose the gholam stuff was interesting at least. Looking forward to things to finally happen!
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Jan 22, 2019 19:17
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Just finished Winter's Heart. Follows the template of the last 3-4 books of: Didn't you like The bonding of Rand to Elayne, Min, Aviendha? or The Cleansing of Saidin, or Mats abduction of Tuon?
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Jan 23, 2019 07:35
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Sab669 posted:
Confirmed! Website tracker is at 40% for me. Man, that is good progress. On another note, I have been rereading Skyward and I have to honestly say, I really like it. I don't know if it's because I'm a girl and I find Spensa very relatable and similar to myself at that age, and thus her character growth is very satisfying for me, or some other reason. I am sure enjoying it way more than I enjoyed The Reckoners. Or maybe I just find David really annoying?
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Jan 23, 2019 07:35
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th3t00t posted:
The problem is that you can basically just read this spoiler and then skip the books, because that's a summary of everything that happens in them.
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Jan 23, 2019 07:40
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th3t00t posted:You've got an entire book to go before things happen. A lot of book 10 runs parallel to book 9 chronologically, just told from different POVs. 8, 9, 10 are the "slog". But hey, at least books 11-14 are already out and you can just power through 8-10 and then not have to wait 2 years for the next book to come out. Oh great, so like GOT books 4/5.  And yeah, I grouped those last few items in the “something.” Don’t get me wrong, the end of the book was good, I just wish the first 95% of the last 4 books wasn’t mostly boring filler. Everyone keeps saying to just read the chapter summaries and I’m sure I won’t miss much by doing so, but I’m already invested and determined to slog through. I can’t even imagine having to wait a year or two for the next book if I were reading these as they were being written.
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Jan 23, 2019 08:09
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Leng posted:Confirmed! Website tracker is at 40% for me. Man, that is good progress. You're right, it's good progress. But iirc, outlining is the least time consuming step. Then comes actually writing the book, and then three editing phases, I think. So we still have a long way to go.
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Jan 23, 2019 09:04
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I dunno why but the First-Sister ritual thing is one of the creepiest WoT moments I can remember, really wonder why he had to put that in.
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Jan 23, 2019 13:32
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Because it involves a kind of spanking, I guess?
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Jan 23, 2019 13:44
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Leng posted:Confirmed! Website tracker is at 40% for me. Man, that is good progress. I never really understood this whole notion of, "The protagonist is the same gender as I am, therefore more relatable" that seems to be more and more popular in today's world. I wouldn't have found Skyward or Mistborn better if the main character was male  I'm only on Chapter 11 of The Reckoners, David reminds me a little bit of Wade from Ready Player One. To be fair I didn't love Skyward out of the gate, but this hasn't thrilled me with its character(s) either. But by the end of Skyward I was really pleased with it except for 1 minor plot detail, so I'm optimistic The Reckoners will get better  th3t00t posted:You've got an entire book to go before things happen. A lot of book 10 runs parallel to book 9 chronologically, just told from different POVs. 8, 9, 10 are the "slog". But hey, at least books 11-14 are already out and you can just power through 8-10 and then not have to wait 2 years for the next book to come out. 11 isn't terrible but it feels like a little bit of a slog so far, too. There's been a few interesting chapters, which I guess is more than I can say about the past few books by this point through them. As far as your spoilered statement goes: 1. This would be way cooler if being bonded meant anything to me other than 'they have a sense of awareness to one another mentally'. Like being a Warder hasn't resulted in anyone doing anything super cool so who cares. 2. This was super cool when I read it and then it basically has barely come up since then. 3. Not especially. And as I continue to read I find Tuon tremendously annoying. Sab669 fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jan 23, 2019 |
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Jan 23, 2019 13:59
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Sab669 posted:I never really understood this whole notion of, "The protagonist is the same gender as I am, therefore more relatable" that seems to be more and more popular in today's world. I wouldn't have found Skyward or Mistborn better if the main character was male This is not a new thing and you don't notice it because most protagonist are male. If everyone like you was shown to be a 2d character that exists to have babies or die to motivate the main character you'd feel differently.
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Jan 23, 2019 15:42
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Tahirovic posted:I dunno why but the First-Sister ritual thing is one of the creepiest WoT moments I can remember, really wonder why he had to put that in. tbf that was kinda hot
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Jan 23, 2019 17:38
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socialsecurity posted:This is not a new thing and you don't notice it because most protagonist are male. If everyone like you was shown to be a 2d character that exists to have babies or die to motivate the main character you'd feel differently. This. It was so refreshing to get a young adult female protagonist with a strong character growth arc and identity which does not revolve around a romantic relationship. Sure there are hints in text that Jorgen is going to be a love interest in future books in addition to a Word of Brandon that originally that's where he intended to go but Spensa just wasn't having any of it and I am glad that he went with what felt true to the character as opposed to shoehorning something in. The best example was when Kimmalyn, FM and Hurl sneak Spensa into their quarters for the night. Kimmalyn says something like, "oh they think we're sick so we won't be expected to do PT or other training, we can talk all night!" And Spensa sits there, thinking to herself that she doesn't know what girls normally talk about, so she asks, "....like about guys?" And the other girls reply, "scud, no, we're going to talk flight strategies!" When my daughter gets older, Skyward would definitely be something that I'd put on her reading list, both because I think she'd enjoy it and also because the female characters are real. That is something I definitely appreciate about how Sanderson's writing has evolved. Also: Henrik Zetterberg posted:tbf that was kinda hot This kind of reaction. I still don't see what the narrative reasons are for that arrangement, other than fan service. I generally dislike most of the female characters in WoT, especially any time Jordan remotely tries to set up a "strong" female character, he immediately then has to make them also simultaneously arrogant, nagging and/or find sexual enjoyment in private humiliation with often blurred boundaries around whether or not it's consensual, because you know, secretly every strong woman just wants a man to be in charge even if she's saying no a lot. I do not know how his wife was able to also to be his editor, but hey, I guess she didn't find it offensive/annoying. Torrannor posted:You're right, it's good progress. But iirc, outlining is the least time consuming step. Then comes actually writing the book, and then three editing phases, I think. So we still have a long way to go. It's the least time consuming but also the most important, at least if you're an outliner like Sanderson. I am also an outliner and I find it very hard to write quickly if I haven't bedded down where I am going. Once the outline is locked down and I know where I need to get to, the actual writing comes much easier. I suspect it's going quickly because he already had an old outline for Stormlight 4 and 5, and just needs to tie it together with what he moved around for Stormlight 3. Edit: Also I just noticed that a Starsight second draft progress bar has popped up at 5%!
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Jan 23, 2019 18:03
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Oh great, so like GOT books 4/5. Yep, just like Got 4/5. Books 8, 9, 10 set up the dominoes and in 11 they start to get knocked down. But unlike GOT, this series actually has an ending. We can only hope that ASOIF 6 starts to knock down all those dominoes set up in 4 and 5(just kidding, its never coming out). I've read WOT a number of times and besides 8/9/10 I can't seem to stop myself from reading too much. Like I'll tell myself I'm going to read for an hour before bed and suddenly its 3:00AM and I still don't want to stop reading. It's easy to stop after an hour during 8/9/10.
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Jan 24, 2019 02:15
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https://www.tor.com/2019/01/23/the-wheel-of-time-tv-series-adaptation-production-fall-2019/quote:The Wheel of Time TV Series to Start Production in Fall 2019 So it seems as if there really will be a WoT series. Interesting that the focus seems to be on Moiraine somewhat? I'm guessing that's just marketing thing, can't spoil who the Dragon Reborn is in the first episode. Moiraine as main viewpoint character obviously won't work, for several reasons. Including that the party gets split up at for a long stretch of the very first book. Still, I'm looking forward to this. How many episodes will they do per book? How many GoT episode were made for every ASOIAF book?
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Jan 24, 2019 14:33
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Torrannor posted:Still, I'm looking forward to this. How many episodes will they do per book? How many GoT episode were made for every ASOIAF book? Later seasons got fuzzy, but the first few seasons were pretty good at going 10 episodes per book. The chart on this page has a really nice breakdown of which episodes corresponded to which chapters: http://joeltronics.github.io/got-book-show/bookshow.html
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Jan 24, 2019 15:04
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Maybe I should hold judgement until I finish the series, but I suspect I will enjoy the TV show far more than the books since they're going to carve a lot of fat out. Either way, I'm glad that HBO's success with GoT might usher in a new age of high-budget high fantasy programs. I look forward to getting bored of high fantasy when it becomes the new fad like zombies
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Jan 24, 2019 15:18
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Books 8-10: 2 episodes. But seriously, this will be awesome to see on TV and I can't wait. I've been trying to get my 2 older kids to read Eye of the World. Maybe this will motivate them since they love hating movies that were made from books.
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Jan 24, 2019 17:46
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Given that you and I seem to generally be on the same page regarding the series, I'm surprised you're encouraging anyone to give it a shot. Have they already burned through everything Sanderson? edit: oh wait are you punishing them for something? :p Sab669 fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Jan 24, 2019 |
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Jan 24, 2019 17:56
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wizzardstaff posted:Later seasons got fuzzy, but the first few seasons were pretty good at going 10 episodes per book. That chart is super cool, you can actually see the show trying to stretch out the chapters from storm of swords
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Jan 24, 2019 17:57
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Sab669 posted:Maybe I should hold judgement until I finish the series, but I suspect I will enjoy the TV show far more than the books since they're going to carve a lot of fat out. yeah i know Sanderson has said a few times that the chances of himself getting stuff greenlit basically turn on whether Wheel of Time and Kingkiller manage to be profitable, since they're the first big projects hoping to capitalize on GOT
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Jan 24, 2019 18:03
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Sab669 posted:Given that you and I seem to generally be on the same page regarding the series, I'm surprised you're encouraging anyone to give it a shot. Have they already burned through everything Sanderson? Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good story overall, but with major pacing issues. I've been describing the series to my kids as I read it, and I mentioned that there's a few books that are "mostly talking" and my 11yo daughter said "that's cool, I like a lot of talking!" So who knows, maybe she'll enjoy the slog. My 13yo son read the Prologue of EOTW and was like "dude I have no idea what's going on," so I had to tell him that yeah I had no idea either when I first read it, and once you get into the actual chapters/books, it will make more sense. They've read nothing else by Sanderson. wizzardstaff posted:Later seasons got fuzzy, but the first few seasons were pretty good at going 10 episodes per book. This is pretty cool. I think the one thing that annoyed me the most about the timeline of events from the books was the death of Balon Greyjoy, especially after the show showed the 3 blood leeches for 3 kings, and the third didn't die for another 3 seasons.
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Jan 24, 2019 18:07
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eke out posted:yeah i know Sanderson has said a few times that the chances of himself getting stuff greenlit basically turn on whether Wheel of Time and Kingkiller manage to be profitable, since they're the first big projects hoping to capitalize on GOT I mean, he's already optioned the Cosmere to that Chinese company... DMG Entertainment or something? They seemed pretty invested in trying to get stuff going. Who is working on Kingkiller? They'll have to do something like HBO where Rothfuss will just have to tell them the ending and they make up how Kvothe gets there.
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Jan 24, 2019 18:09
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Sab669 posted:I mean, he's already optioned the Cosmere to that Chinese company... DMG Entertainment or something? They seemed pretty invested in trying to get stuff going. That comment was in his recent roundup about all the different properties of his in varying stages of production - none are anywhere close to the point where they're definitely getting made, just a lot of things in varying stages of options, screenplays being written, etc. So the success of another big fantasy series would go a long way to take things from "a company owns the rights" to "this is actually being made" Showtime's doing kingkiller prequel show, apparently, and other people are supposed to be making movies of the books. But I think the TV series is actually in progress and the movies are more theoretical
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Jan 24, 2019 18:27
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Oh, yea just because they have the rights doesn't mean it's a sure thing. But they sure seem to be trying to make it happen
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Jan 24, 2019 19:28
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good story overall, but with major pacing issues. I've been describing the series to my kids as I read it, and I mentioned that there's a few books that are "mostly talking" and my 11yo daughter said "that's cool, I like a lot of talking!" So who knows, maybe she'll enjoy the slog. My 13yo son read the Prologue of EOTW and was like "dude I have no idea what's going on," so I had to tell him that yeah I had no idea either when I first read it, and once you get into the actual chapters/books, it will make more sense. Having a skeptical kid start with the Prologue of Book 1 is kind of a dirty trick because its entire premise is to be a weird confusing flashback that only makes incrementally more sense over the course of five hundred thousand subsequent pages.
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Jan 24, 2019 21:28
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Same thing with Stormlight Archive, right? What the heralds are talking about is confusing and nonsensical as gently caress without context.
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Jan 25, 2019 11:54
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Yea preludes never make sense
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Jan 25, 2019 12:21
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Preludes are world building narrative scope teasers and never fully make sense until you go back and do a reread.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:22
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Honestly I thought the prologue to EotW was one of the best I'd ever read.
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Jan 26, 2019 06:34
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Just a friendly reminder over the excitement of seeing Stormlight 4 progress, The Lost Metal is supposed to be released this year. I can't wait!
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Jan 28, 2019 21:09
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Did you miss the State of the Sanderson? The Lost Metal is delayed, will probably end up getting written when he needs a break from Stormlight. That means probably a publication date next year or the year after instead, assuming he gets to it. Starsight (Skyward 2) will come out late this year though!brandonsanderson posted:My big failure in 2018 was not getting to Wax and Wayne Four. But all is not lost! I am going to do whatever I can to squeeze this in next year. I’m feeling I might need a break in the middle of Stormlight Four, as I sometimes do. If so, I might squeeze this in there. But it will depend on a many factors. So, we’ll have to take a wait-and-see attitude.
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Jan 28, 2019 21:55
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Just gonna squuueeeeze this 500+ page novel in there. Take an international flight or two, piece of cake.
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Jan 28, 2019 22:06
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He probably has the bones all laid out, and its fun to write for him (as evidenced from its ballooning from a one-off to a quadrilogy by its own allure)...so yeah, I can buy it. Unless that was just a "WTF Sanderson Output" comment, in which case...yeah. It's nice to follow a writer who actually treats writing as his job.
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Jan 29, 2019 08:59
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Leng posted:Did you miss the State of the Sanderson? The Lost Metal is delayed, will probably end up getting written when he needs a break from Stormlight. That means probably a publication date next year or the year after instead, assuming he gets to it. Starsight (Skyward 2) will come out late this year though! Oooh  I will be honest, I'd rather read The Lost Metal than Stormlight 4. But oh well, it's Sanderson's decision which books he writes first. Is there any news on the potential title of the next Stormlight book? Book 5 will be Stones Unhallowed, right?
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Jan 29, 2019 09:34
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I read that he's playing around with that Stones Unhallowed name because of its similarity to the 100% written Rothfuss book. That said, I hope the 5th book has an empire strikes back style plot with a major loss for the protagonists and much death.
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Jan 29, 2019 09:43
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