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cheese posted:I can confirm that I dislike this as well and think it was a bad idea. It would have been so much more interesting to have it be ambiguous. This is something that bothers me, as well. There's SO much worldbuilding and cosmology that is released through fucknowswhat gateways, I certainly don't have a clue, which ties all of Sanderson's work together in the most intricate of ways, and it bugs me that I don't know where it's all coming from, and am missing some really significant details in the stories as a result - for instance, I'm pretty sure that all 16 non-God metals from Mistborn have actually been detailed somewhere (at least in what their Allomantic forms do), but it drat sure wasn't on the pages of any of the novels. It's kinda irksome. I know from his podcast how much planning he does, but I'd kinda prefer if he kept it away from the public except when he's releasing it in books.
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Aug 25, 2013 23:00
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Ah, I need to get the RPG then. But really that's just an example (and not a very good one) - the mere existence of the Cosmere as a thing is something you only pick up from outside any of the books AFAIK, not to mention the fact that Hoyd is anything special at all, with all that that specialness implies.
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Aug 26, 2013 08:23
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veekie posted:The Cosmere extends beyond any particular series I think. He had it in mind since before he started his writing career, and the people who know the most about it are his beta readers. Heck, we even saw Hoid in Mistborn, he was one of the informants. Correction: he was ALL of the informants, according to the Wiki; there's one in each book, at roughly the same point in each.
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Aug 28, 2013 20:23
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But the one Kell talked to was Hoid. I'm pretty sure that happened? It's been a while, I'll admit. Certainly the two in the later books, (one of whom Vin never actually talked to) were Hoid according to the wiki. I should read Mistborn again.
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Aug 28, 2013 20:56
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Yep, Firstborn is a book I read and finished in about an hour and a half (75 pages), but I finished and said 'holy poo poo I want Brandon Sanderson to write more Sci Fi.
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Sep 4, 2013 20:56
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Superstring posted:He could probably make it work. The more famous your are the more power you have? I quite like 'the less famous you are, the more power (on the proviso that it takes some special thing to have power at all). Mages who can ONLY work in the shadows...
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Sep 6, 2013 22:54
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SO looking forward to Steelheart. Just got my copy today. Mega-stoked.
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Sep 26, 2013 21:21
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Antti posted:Hint to UK/EU goons who are ebook impaired: I just discovered that The Emperor's Soul and Legion have been put together in an omnibus paperback edition! Yeah, I saw that in Waterstone's myself today. Cool cover, but I'm really not sure those two books actually go together...
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Sep 26, 2013 23:23
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Ithaqua posted:I'm about 2/3rds of the way through Steelheart, and I'm quite enjoying it. I'm pretty sure I figured out what Steelheart's weakness is, although I was pretty sure I had it figured out after reading the first chapter a few months ago, so we'll see if I'm right. I'm fairly sure Sanderson has been looking in that direction for some time. Legion, for instance, was explicitly written with being a TV pilot in mind.
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Sep 27, 2013 18:49
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Gygaxian posted:I remember (or think I remember) that Lord Cett, the angry cripple from the second (and third, I think) book of Mistborn swears a lot. My best recollection is that his swearing is almost always reported rather than printed. I don't think I've seen curse words in any of Sanderson's work. And yeah, I'm finding the not-curse words (sparks and slontze primarily) kinda distracting.
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Sep 30, 2013 08:57
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Well, I finished it (ill today D: it's very distracting attempting to cough your lungs up about once a chapter) and it was very, very good. The minor plot issue that bothers me though, is the Transfersion - wouldn't it have made everyone's clothes and shoes metal too? Heck, their hair should have been affected. Steelheart doesn't seem the type to be kind enough to ship in a city's worth of clothing. I thought his weakness would be someone who thought he was a good guy - that would have been a lot tougher to work. It would have worked well with the propaganda room, too. The more people think he's a total oval office, murdering people for no reason, the fewer who are going to realise that he's actually been pretty good for the city, and start thinking of him as more benevolent. I pegged Prof fairly early on, but looking back, it should have been obvious - he's the only Reckoner who goes by a pseudonym. Completely missed Megan though - with all the stuff about it taking David a while to figure out the Tensors, I figured she just... couldn't work it out. It seems obvious on reflection. But it would have been more so if it had been explicit that neither the harmsway or the jackets worked for her, which wasn't obvious until the book was already climaxing. Can't wait to see where the next one goes. Also, it's fantastic to have basically what amounts to an entire book which correlates, both plot- and pace-wise to the last third of one of Sanderson's epic length books. He's great at the riproaring conclusion, having a whole riproaring book is just cool.
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Sep 30, 2013 11:33
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I must have missed the 'and everything nearby' part - but it can't be that discriminating, it managed to steelify most of a lake, and they're full to brimming with living tissue... Probably just one of those things.
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Sep 30, 2013 13:48
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Xachariah posted:Uh, not to be pedantic or anything but have you finished the book? Mouse over the following only if you have: Steelhearts weakness is being attacked by a person who does not fear him. The anti-propaganda was to make people fear him. It wouldn't surprise me if this was Cosmere, but I'd find it a little odd, given that it's an explicitly alternate-Earth setting. I kind of hope not. But yeah, Calamity being constantly capitalised, and indeed almost personified, does make me wonder. That being said, I wonder if Calamity is actually an uber-Epic...
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Sep 30, 2013 21:11
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Where are you getting the title of book 3 from, just btw?
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Sep 30, 2013 21:41
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Yeah, I won't try to pretend Steelheart is as good at superfic, particularly post-apocalyptic superfic, as Worm - but then, Wildbow has 1.5 million words of superfic under his belt, where Sanderson has 100,000. 100k words into Worm, it wasn't this good. Plus, yeah, the swears got more annoying. I mentally found myself replacing basically every incidence of 'sparks/sparking' with 'gently caress/loving', and the book just worked so much better. Hardbitten military types and horribly oppressed teen factory workers just shouldn't sound that... cutesy.
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Sep 30, 2013 23:19
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TBF, Sanderson's done gritty and disturbing, it just tends to be a bit more off-screen. The scenes from Marsh's PoV once he's a Steel Inquisitor are hosed up. As are the Steel Inquisitors and Haemalurgy in general. Everyone one of those spikes? Came from a magician who was killed with it. Usually by hammering it directly through that magician into the steel inquisitor below. Into their eyes. And spinal columns. By a bunch of people who are essentially enslaved by the spikes, and can choose either to be forced to enjoy what they're doing, or can exert a modicum of control, just enough to KNOW they're being forced to enjoy it, and would otherwise not if not for the spikes. Steel inquisitors are horrific. Not to mention the loving Koloss. It's not like Mistborn in general isn't incredibly dark, too. This is a world teetering on the very brink of apocalypse, and quite a lot of time is essentially spent fiddling whilst Rome burns. Just because it's not (often and on-screen) gory, doesn't mean it's not dark. If anything, it's significantly darker than Abercrombie's world. Just with a more optimistic finish. The setting's nastier, but Sanderson is kinder about the human spirit, basically. Where similar characters exist (looking at, say, Kelsier and Monza, two basically brutal murderers with no compassion in particular for large quantities of the populace. Monza goes about her revenge, gets it, carries on not hugely caring. Kelsier learns to get on with his crew, teaches a kid, and in the end sacrifices himself to the greater good. It's pretty interesting to compare them, actually.
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Oct 3, 2013 23:28
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Indeed. I've just started rereading Alloy of Law, and it's taken me this long (having first read it nigh on two years ago, I think) to notice that the main characters are called Wax and Wa(y)ne
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Oct 13, 2013 18:00
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Dang, I just reread Alloy of Law, and it reaises such interesting questions about Scadrial and its magicians. It is just such a cool world, and I desperately want to see it develop further. Plus, the afterword, presumably intended as an excerpt from Harmony's book on the world and the abilities of the people, really does make for interesting thoughts about the Comere as a whole (rumour has it that Hoyd has a nugget of Lerasium from the Well of Ascension. The metal that makes people into mega-powerful Mistborn...). As does thinking about what other powerful Compounders could be out there. Miles was really, really, stupidly powerful (though I thought right through, the way to kill him would be decapitation, unfortunately we'll never know whether that would have worked), and it got me thinking that the Chromium/Chromium compounder (burn Feruchemical reserves to wildly increase your own luck almost indefinitely) could be hilarious, as could the pewter/pewter (more in the melee beatstick vein, but still. Similarly, a Thug/Bloodmaker would be tough as nails - Wayne is already super-hard to kill and able to go against Thugs on his own... Most of the Feruchemical powers are a bit less useful to be able to burn at hugely increased efficiency though.
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Oct 16, 2013 22:52
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Yeah, regenerating body parts would presumably take a lot out of him, but he has to store very little to get a lot back, I think is the point - and I guess at the stage this is set, he's got years worth stored already, which is enough for tens of years of super-healing. And if he needs to, he could burn it all off at a go. Let's not forget, he voluntarily blew himself up at least once, and voluntarily shot himself in the head to prove how awesome he was to his men, so presumably regenerating large volumes of flesh wouldn't be TOO troubling. I'm not wild on the whole regenerating body parts thing though. I prefer healing factors like this where they simply accelerate normal healing, rather than giving regenerative abilities. but that would make Miles a lot, lot less good as a villain though...
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Oct 16, 2013 23:11
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Except, that's pretty clearly not what's happening. Having the powers doesn't make you a colossal dick, as neatly evidenced by Conflux and Prof, not to mention Firefight, nor does using those powers, as evidence by Prof's 'hypertech' devices. Being an Epic and using your own Epic powers causes a change in your personality
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Oct 20, 2013 18:02
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Basically, I was countering the argument that the power=dick thing is pure human psychology (i.e. absolute power corrupts absolutely because people are natively dicks, they just have too many limits to exercise it) - that's pretty clearly not the case. The powers make the Epics evil when the Epics use them, but not when Gifted to non-Epics (apparently).
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Oct 20, 2013 18:52
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One thing I wonder: what if all Epics are actually Gifters, they're just mostly too selfish to actually try?
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Oct 20, 2013 20:06
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Firstborn was pretty bitching too When he works hard on cutting down wordcounts, he really does improve.
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Oct 22, 2013 21:28
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Tunicate posted:
You'd want it to? I'm not sure I want Mistborn|Eragon.
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Oct 25, 2013 09:39
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omnibobb posted:Can someone explain Compounding to me? Basically, you can allomantically burn feruchemical reserves (if you have the abilities corresponding to the same metal), and their power is significantly increased by doing so. People with compounding abilities presumably still need to spend some time charging up their abilities (c.f. the Lord Ruler needing to spend some time as an old man to store up youth in his atiumminds), but they can charge a relatively small amount of *thing* for a massive return. Presumably you could run Miles out of power, but it would take a long-rear end time, and I'd've assumed ([spoiler]though presumably not since the execution was apparently successful) that he would have embedded some in his body in order to be able to refill and burn them without needing to chug them. Vin was able to sense the reserve of power from Sazed's metalminds, but not to activate it - the power can only be accessed by the person who stores it, as it stands. I'm not absolutely sure Allomancers actually need to have the metals in their stomachs to burn them anyway, I have a feeling in the bloodstream is enough for those that are biocompatible. I love the magic systems in Scadrial. They're definitely Sanderson's best for my money. It's so flexible, and there's just so much more left to explore with it. And it's so clever, so rarely is there any time where you say 'well, why not do x with magic'? And when you do, it's usually just because someone hasn't thought of it yet, and then proceeds to do so (c.f. Vin with the horseshoes). And yeah, theorising about killing gold compounders is all very well (decapitate them with something wide enough that their head is completely separated from their neck by the blade - Kell did it to one of the inquisitors, who have gold compounding powers), but getting into position is a bitch. drat I love these books.
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Oct 25, 2013 22:57
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Tunicate posted:Couple points: Apparently you don't need to spend time charging up your abilities; the Lord Ruler spent time as an old man just because he was tired as hell of ruling the empire. I'm fairly sure they were (or could have been) compunders - they had the ability both to feruchemise and to burn gold - or could have if they were given the latter ability. Maybe they weren't, I'm not sure it's easy to tell the difference between feruchemical gold healing and compound gold healing until one runs out and the other doesn't. I presume you need to charge at least once though - but once you had, you could presumably fill one metalmind whilst burning another, for ever-increasing returns. Normal feruchemists and only go in one direction at a time, but I think compounders work differently.
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Oct 26, 2013 09:56
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Not to mention feruchemical pewter. From the Alloy of Law appendix, probably the answer is aluminium weaponry.
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Oct 26, 2013 15:45
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Possibly - I'm not sure though. The way it's written, it does seem like aluminium just nulls magic, so it would probably cut normally. Of course, the way to do it properly would be to use the pair of metals that does externally what aluminium does internally...
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Oct 26, 2013 21:59
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Hell yes. Iron and steel burners are basically free power. You get a lot of it from a very small amount of resource, and that's discounting what you could potentially do by combining a bunch of lurchers/coinshot and a nicrosil misting. Hell, a skilled coinshot could very easily power his own vehicle, simply by having the right sort of cranking mechanism attached to the axle. This is what I most like about the idea of the Alloy series - we've already seen a few bits and pieces of everyday allomancy (Renette, in particular, and her doors, but also the gun that's keyed so only a coinshot or lurcher can take the safety off, Wax powering bullets with his allomancy etc etc etc), taking it to the next stage sounds awesome.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:43
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Mortanis posted:There's also the fact that (Alloy of Law Spoiler) The guy that Wax runs into at the beginning of the book completely looks to be burning Atium when he somehow manages to perfectly beat the little trick he and his girl had set up. It's just too neatly done and really seems like the guy knew exactly where to move her. Atium. Electrum would do the trick, wouldn't it? It only shows you your futures, not other peoples' but it would allow you to know in which you them the bullet hit you, and in which it hit what you wanted it to hit? Also, I'm not convinced something that happens within the first chapter really counts as spoilers when you consider some of the unspoilered things being discussed on this page. I really must get round to emailing bransan actually - there's a quote from one of the Mistborn books I want to have read at my wedding and it's only polite to ask permission. Goony as gently caress, or goony as gently caress? e: and someone mentioned that Ruin died: he absolutely didn't; Sazed combined the Ruin and Preservation shards to become Harmony.
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Oct 30, 2013 20:37
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Where Sazed talks to Vin about love using the analogy of locks and keys; somewhere in the middle of book 3 IIRC. It fits us really well.
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Oct 30, 2013 21:11
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BananaNutkins posted:He's posted a breakdown on his website before. I think he usually goes through about 6 drafts total. The Warbreaker series of drafts he had on his website was a really cool way to see his process. You went to Out of Excuses? How was it? I've been listening along to the podcasts they recorded there, it sounded fun.
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Dec 13, 2013 22:26
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I'm not, I just like listening to the podcast and dreaming D: (I used to be)
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Dec 14, 2013 11:25
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Red Seas was reasonable, I haven't picked up Republic of Thieves yet. I'll probably wait for the paperback.
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Dec 21, 2013 10:09
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Is the UK cover available yet? I really like the aesthetic of Sanderson's UK editions, and I wanna see the next one!
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Jan 26, 2014 10:43
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The Puppy Bowl posted:The UK cover looks like David Lynch's Dune mixed with medieval armor but still somehow bad. Have to say, I concur that the WoR UK cover isn't as good as most of them. It's gotten less stylised, more realistic, less... flowing. It's good, but it's not great.
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Jan 27, 2014 23:47
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Well, I just finished it, and my main question: has anyone else theorised that, as per Mistborn, there are actually 16 Surges rather than 10, and the remaining 6 will be super-important? The Cosmere really likes that number after all
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Mar 20, 2014 00:56
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uh zip zoom posted:"He had to remember that he was falling. This was not flight, and every second he moved, his speed increased." Yes. But I guess he doesn't know about terminal velocity (it took da Vinci to figure that one out, and no-one believed him for a long-rear end time). Or, I suppose, given that he's Lashing himself multiple times, he's actually falling at several g, so more than 9.8 m/s^2, which is only the gravity of earth.
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Mar 21, 2014 00:24
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Yeah, the secondary characters have a lot more time through the rest of the series (if you've not yet finished the first one, I won't tell you why). But Ham's thing is that he's a philosopher, Breeze's is that he's secretly a nobleman, stuff like that. But yeah, as with any epic fantasy focused on one or two main protagonists, the supporting cast do tend to fade a bit into the background.
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Mar 23, 2014 10:14
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Lift is basically early Vin, did anyone else notice? It's not like Vin didn't turn out cool a book or two later. I quite liked her.
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Mar 27, 2014 23:47
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