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Wearing a Szeth shirt like a boss. God I cannot wait for the sequel to Way of Kings. I'm gonna try to get Steelheart and Emperor's Soul in the meantime.
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Sep 18, 2013 01:51
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Having just finished Steelheart and liked it ok, I am surprisingly excited about this. Also burned through Alloy of Law and that was great. Looking forward to buying Rithmatist and The Emperor's Soul at some point. Super Steelheart spoilers: I figured that Prof was an epic pretty early, and I was vacillating between Megan being either a spy or an unawakened Epic, but I totally didn't anticipate her being Firefight. I had been spoiled by Sanderson's description of his inspiration for the story, so I was really tuned into whenever the characters showed a personality change. Really missed Steelheart's weakness too, I was thinking the crossfire idea until that was shot down by Sanderson mentioning it. I had originally thought about the "bullet hits Epic then hurts Steelheart," but the description makes it clear that Deathpoint is sneaking up behind Steelheart and the bullet nicks him before hitting Deathpoint. What I'm really curious about now are what Prof's and Firefight's weaknesses are. Also, where the hell did the Epic-readers come from? Prof obviously isn't an inventor, so what's that about? Some new Epic tech? Also, whoever had the idea that Calamity is an alien/super that is Gifting all their powers I think is probably right on. I imagine the motivation is much like with Prof, by spreading it out he becomes more sane, at the expense of the recipients. I also saw a lot of parallels with The Final Empire: I bet they find out that Steelheart was flawed but still trying to do right by people, much like the Emperor. I expect the city to go to hell and David and the gang getting guilt trips as they realize Steelheart was trying to protect them but forced to kill people so he'd be feared, and that he was so paranoid because as long as nobody had the chance to try to kill him, he didn't need to use his powers and was relatively sane. gently caress "Sparks!" and "Newcago." "Slontze" was kinda funny, and weird enough as an insult I was willing to buy it. Whoa that's a lot. Anyway, I guess I'm a Sanderson fanboy now. Words of Radiance just cannot come soon enough. E: Also I always thought Shallan had black hair and slightly darker skin for some reason, no idea why.
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Jan 8, 2014 03:55
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Finally could get back to the thread! Shallan is greatly redeemed in my eyes, even though I apparently liked her more than most here. (Her jokes are still terrible and insufferable... thanks thread for making me aware of it.) Sanderson also did a good job making Kaladin insufferable again in a different way. I told my friend that Words of Radiance is definitely a better book than Way of Kings: better pacing, better characterization, less rulebooking. However, I'm not sure it's a more entertaining book for me, I need to reread it to catch all the stuff I missed. I know WoK was even better on the reread, so I'll have to see that comparison to make sure it's on an even footing.
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Mar 17, 2014 01:28
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Hopeford posted:
 ) less intense.It's an interesting trade, I guess.
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Mar 17, 2014 02:54
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The only anime thing that really bugged me was (not a big one) Kaladin landing with puffs of ice that formed glyphs - it was just so weird to conveniently make those shapes. I'd have preferred something more like what formed the Dawn Cities. Also, any bets on the Parshendi being the Dawnsingers? They don't seem innately evil, just susceptible to voidspren, which from the Thrill we know also affects humans. We also know their singing can influence the world, i.e. the Everstorm, so shaping cities (and then obliterating them like Natan) should be in their purview.
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Mar 17, 2014 16:40
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I vaguely remember a parshman or Parshendi being described as mostly white marbled with red, but I can't tell you where I saw it. In any case, considering how much of his work involves not judging by appearances and working together and diversity being a strength, I really don't see implicit racism in having some dark marbley dudes be (for the present) the "bad guys". Besides, there's the dark-skinned Makabaki, and they're just people too, though to be fair we haven't seen much of them. On the subject of authorial intent, did anyone else interpret Shallan's description of her drawing as a reference to writing realistic characters? The whole thing about contrast, using dark and light so the sketch wasn't boring and had depth, etc.?
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Mar 18, 2014 21:18
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AllTerrineVehicle posted:I agree with you about the bad jokes (even though I love puns) and the accent thing.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:11
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I just finished Warbreaker, and wow that was pretty good. I kept thinking I had things figured out, and then I would either read it spelled out like it was perfectly obvious all along or discover that I was terribly, gloriously wrong. And this was even after accidentally reading some spoilers from this thread.
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Apr 13, 2014 13:57
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My favorite interaction from that particular spoiler from Warbreaker (paraphrasing): Nightblood: "You see those guys over there? They look evil. We should kill them. Let's go kill them!" (Vasher tosses the sword at them instead) NB's receding voice: "Okay well I guess this works too!"
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Apr 15, 2014 23:35
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Foxfire_ posted:WoR: Szeth coming back right after dying isn't great, but not dying at all has its own problems. He can't really start his job working for the pedantically lawful villain by abandoning his Truthless-ness, even if he was right. Dying and coming back gets him out of it while technically not breaking any of his people's rules. E: Unless your objection is the fact that people can be brought back from certainly-fatal wounds, which is still silly but what fantasy isn't?
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Apr 27, 2014 19:27
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He's definitely in the vein of the hard-bitten, chain-smoking, whiskey-swigging detectives (though he only drinks the occasional *craft* beer and only smokes when he's literally on fire, which happens a lot) taking cases for hard-on-their-luck "dames" and getting shot at constantly. There's lots of internal monologue similar to that genre as well. Dresden's also a huge goon that plays D&D, wears trenchcoats, and literally lives in a basement with swords. Despite the covers, he actually is never said to wear a hat (so no fedora for the bingo) but I think he wore cut-off shorts in one book. Jim Butcher has no qualms making fun of his character. It's a pretty fun series, though Dresden has a weird attitude about women; author-wise, female characters are generally capable and some are terrifying. E: I'm told that the cut-offs were actually boxers with duckies on them.
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May 31, 2014 16:27
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Emperor's Soul is an amazing piece of literature, let alone fantasy. It's just well-paced, -structured, and -characterized all around.
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Jun 2, 2014 21:06
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I'm pretty sure Sanderson has cursed in some of his books, though they're rare and pretty mild, just the occasional "drat" and possibly a "poo poo" or "crap" once . I remember thinking, "Wow, I thought he was a Mormon and never cursed."
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Jul 18, 2014 22:01
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Yeah, if anything it's probably realistic for Kal to keep going through these cycles of depression. I'm definitely getting a manic-depressive vibe for him, and it's not like you magically get better from mental illness.
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Sep 30, 2014 22:57
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Karnegal posted:On my other point (and I think we're on the same page here)- I might be reading too much into it, but the possibility is there, and Sanderson has shown that he likes reevaluating and redefining characters after they've been established.
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Oct 23, 2014 16:49
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I agree. While I won't put it past Sanderson to impress me, I'm afraid it'll be the same old mopey angst cycle book after book. While I've said in the past I find Kaladin's cycles of emotional turmoil to be refreshing and interesting, I want him to be learning from his experiences and growing with how to deal with it. After a while, I think it would be much more interesting to see him struggling with his new authority and power, realize he's getting into a funk, and figuring out how to deal with it productively. From a narrative standpoint, it can be balanced by his enemies becoming more competent and trying to exploit those weaknesses.
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Oct 27, 2014 23:06
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Yarrbossa posted:Sort of general cosmos spoiler: Plus doesn't Galladon make an appearance in Stormlight Archives in an interlude?
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Oct 30, 2014 17:27
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It's the heritage of having a linguist like Tolkien writing the genre-defining book. He started by writing the history of the various languages before even writing the history of the world, just to make sure his characters communicated realistically enough for him. Everyone else tried to mimic him, even if they didn't have a background in languages. That said, cologne can be jarring. What if a writer used "Parisian" as an adjective, or talked about Parmesan cheese? Some things are closely tied to the cities that created them, so referring to them necessarily reminds readers of those earth cities and can ruin the suspension of disbelief.
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Nov 1, 2014 15:59
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Evil Fluffy posted:Maybe there's a Shin village called cologne.
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Nov 2, 2014 17:34
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Rumda posted:I think the fact that Ruin and Preservation are so opposed they cancel each other out in that regard.
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Jan 1, 2015 22:09
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Just finished Firefight, and I'm disappointed at the things I predicted and pleased at the things that surprised me. Super-spoilers follow. Way back I predicted that Calamity was a Super-Epic that was gifting its powers, so I was a little let down when that happened. It was also painfully obvious when Firefight was around, and helping David, with the bathroom door swinging and such, though I think that was supposed to be obvious. I had thought that Mizzie was actually an illusion of Firefight's, all to set up a love triangle dramabomb, but thankfully neither of those happened. I was also glad to learn that Steelheart was just a bully, and his whole city wasn't some altruistic thing and he tried to avoid using his powers. As for the fear = weakness, I think it's more what's in your nightmares, and it's facing that terror and breaking through it that makes the difference. How that relates to Fortuity's powers is a challenge, but I wonder if maybe they were wrong about them, or else that it's rejection from pretty women that does it rather than pretty women themselves. I agree with the comments that the book feels a little disjoint, like there were several plot lines that were put together or changed direction a lot. It wasn't bad, just not as cohesive as I'm used to seeing from Sanderson.
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Feb 26, 2015 00:39
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mewse posted:Now I've started on the Reckoners books, though they seem more young adult than his other stuff.
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Mar 22, 2015 22:05
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LASER BEAM DREAM posted:Holy poo poo, I just read this. A Sanderson book with nudity? And ready world cursing? And an awesome blend of something I can't even talk about because it would spoil stuff? This is going to rival Emporer's Soul as my favorite novella of his. I am now really interested in this Perfect State book. How many more Sanderson series can I follow?! 
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Apr 1, 2015 22:14
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Not A Hydroxyl Ion posted:I ended up staying up really late last night reading Perfect State and drat, was it worth it. I feel like Sanderson has come so far since Elantris. Fake edit: Sanderson obviously excels at the novella form, it seems all his best work is in that format. He really knows how to write a short, punchy, concise story and pack it with intrigue and action.
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Apr 4, 2015 16:09
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Torrannor posted:I feel compelled to link again to tor.com (I'm not paid by them, I swear!), because they try to reason out how to use Allomancy to create FTL travel:
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Jul 8, 2015 01:32
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Cartoon Man posted:I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread that Elantris is getting cleaned up and re-released for its ten year anniversary. Who knows what it will be fixing though, maybe not much. I like the book even though it can be rough around the edges. Hrthen is still one of my favorite Sanderson charecters and his story arc in the book is pretty badass.
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Jul 12, 2015 22:12
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Evil Fluffy posted:Elantris is the one that Sanderson wrote early on and is a really rough read right? That and Emperor's Soul might be the only Cosmere stuff I haven't read yet. I don't fault people for not reading it (especially because he's making a revised edition, right?) but I enjoyed it even with its warts. Plus, seeing where things fail helped me see how good writing is constructed by contrast. Reading along with his website annotations is great too.
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Aug 29, 2015 15:17
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Evil Fluffy posted:Next Stormlight book probably not until 2017? 
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Dec 20, 2015 01:18
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Finished Calamity and Bands of Mourning recently. Both gave me a vibe of Sanderson owning critiques of his work. For example, in Calamity someone says to David essentially, "You have brilliant ideas sometimes, but your execution is crap." He also lampshaded his weird curses and contrasted it with real world slang. In Bands, it felt like he was pushing his Mormonism limits by the inclusion of alcohol, making fun of soda (and having a character down a bunch of it), having risqué interactions between characters including some talk of body parts and sex, cursing, and a few other things so it wasn't the squeaky clean comfort zone he's had in the past. I love how Steris has grown as a person, though I agree it seemed to come at the cost of Marasi. I also liked the interaction of Wax and Harmony post-death and why Harmony did what he did to Wax, and how Wax agreed but still thought it was bullshit. MeLaan was great as well.
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Apr 6, 2016 04:05
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Yeah he's definitely at the point where he can say "This is what the character would say" now, but having seen his writing develop I know there was a time where he wouldn't have been able to write those conversations, or if he did they would have been transparently awkward and just wrong. Not that his dialogue doesn't still have problems, but he can have his characters say these things now because he's pushed himself in the past, and these examples themselves are chances to push himself further.
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Apr 10, 2016 15:42
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Legion is another one of the books that's hard to find in print.
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Apr 20, 2016 23:21
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What about Perfect State?
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Dec 11, 2016 22:52
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OAquinas posted:Don't forget the spanking, an important plot point in at least 3 of the books! And as always, it's important to put Jordan in historical context. If WoT was written today? Yeah, incredibly sexist. But by the standards of 80-90s fantasy, it was downright progressive. E: To be clear I'm not saying it was the most progressive thing ever for that time, but it was significant that it was that popular and also took fantasy a step in the right direction.
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Dec 14, 2016 19:37
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Thank you so much for posting your thoughts. I will say you're way closer in some respects than I was. Also you have a lot to look forward to in book 3, and more in the Wax & Wayne books.
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Mar 10, 2017 03:16
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I like some of the concepts more than the final product. Everything just seems so static. At least in the concepts you had motion in the poses, or Jasnah actually facing the giant. Also the "growing metal" idea really didn't translate for me in the imagery. Neat concept though.
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Mar 16, 2017 20:01
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Atlas Hugged posted:Some of the flashback stuff was interesting. When it came to like the 20th ladder run though I was completely out of patience and then in book 2 he's Mr. Mopey-pants and no thank you. His mopeyness is definitely annoying but I considered it a deliberate point on Sanderson's behalf: Kaladin is half clinically depressed, half addict coming down from a bender. It made him less of a Mary-Sue character because he has serious flaws, just like his suspicions of Dalinar (even though Dalinar is totally dreamy  )
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May 10, 2017 17:01
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seaborgium posted:Elantris really does suffer from the Sanderson plot dump that happens in the last bit of the book. I thought it was worth it, but if you don't feel like slogging through it do what Potato Salad said and just read a plot summary, or the entry for it on the 17th Shard. It suffers from him being a new author and doesn't have the benefit of all the work he's done to improve his craft. He uses interstitial chapters as a crutch, killing the story's natural momentum, and his characters and their voices (with one fantastic exception) are clunky and a bit unnatural. All that said, it has a great avalanche at the end. I haven't reread it (unlike most books) but I'm glad I read it at least once.
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Jun 22, 2017 19:20
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bewilderment posted:If you like Sanderson and want other authors I actually recommend Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, since it's all that doorstopper worldbuilding business except the 'world' in this case is real world history in the 17th and 18th centuries with some historical people replaced with the fictional main characters. Also has some little fantasy bits in it. Where Sanderson seems to have inspired endings to his books, to the point I'm halfway sure he writes the ending first and then tries to figure out how to get all his characters there, Stephenson's endings just... don't. I read Cryptonomicon and loved it, despite its weird ending that just sort of trailed off where I didn't expect it. I then read Anathem, which again I really enjoyed but I didn't feel really resolved anything right at the end. The Boroque Cycle books, Seveneves, and some other books of his all do the same thing. Maybe I don't understand them or misinterpret his writing, but it's like he doesn't know how to write a satisfying conclusion or refuses to on some general principle. His plots also tend to meander all over the place and don't seem to have clear resolution or explanation why they followed the track they did, which often span the globe in several continent-hopping jumps. His writing is very technical and does tend to hold to some kind of "reality" even if it's a fantastical one, but I really don't see much similarity between him and Sanderson. I've obviously read a lot of his books, but at the end of them I'm not even sure if I've enjoyed them. I usually feel like I learned something though, which is why I keep doing it.
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Jun 28, 2017 03:26
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Perfect State isn't a cosmere book, much like the Rithmatist and Reckoners series.
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Aug 12, 2017 04:12
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Regarding Nohadon/Dalinar Weren't there references to Dalinar thinking "Wasn't that what I told Nohadon the first time I had a vision?" or something like that? I wouldn't be surprised if there was some time loop interaction fuckery involved somewhere.
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Jan 22, 2018 22:20
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