|
I'm reading Well of Ascension for the first time, about halfway through now. These characters sure have acquired a lot of angst since the first novel. I don't mind soul searching in my characters, but I think I've read about 300 solid pages of WHO AM I.
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2011 22:25
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Sep 13, 2024 21:58 |
|
|
404GoonNotFound posted:It's even worse if you read the annotations and find out that Sanderson had actually toned Sazed down from the earlier drafts. Yes, Breeze's chapters are a breath of fresh air (har har) between Elend being a textbook definition of "good is dumb" and Vin alternating between moping and pining after the bad boy.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2011 22:52
|
|
|
Kelsier: heard about the 11th metal from somewhere, gained mistborn powers somehow, whispers to people after he's dead because.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 22, 2011 02:07
|
|
|
Since we're told in Hero of Ages that those gods are composed of a mind (usually a mortal conscious), a spirit (that seems to manifest as a magic system), and a body mist and atium respectively. I'd guess from this example it'd be a fair guess that the highstorms are one of the god's bodies?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2011 01:54
|
|
|
Most of the "new" names for old characters are pretty straightforward, but "The Lord Mistborn" was giving me fits though. Now I'm almost certain who it was though. He was some sort of great early ruler, he was the last of the mistborn who all the kidnapped people are having their lines traced to, and he named the city Elendel. I had to check the old trilogy, but then I remembered, Spook was made a Mistborn at the very end of the story. His nonsense language appearing at one point in the story as some sort of official language pretty well hammered it home. Overall it was an enjoyable, if brief, read. I felt somehow deprived not having my ridiculous Sanderson confluence of characters and revelations in the last quarter of the book. The villain was a very well written brand of crazy though.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2011 07:23
|
|
|
senae posted:I was assuming they were looking for atium mistings, or possibly mistings for one of the 16 unseen "god-alloys". Either that or something nasty involving hemalurgy. Also the Glossary at the end said there were two God metals. The first is pretty obvious, but what would the second be? Those mist balls that make people in mistborn that Elend ate maybe?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 12, 2011 00:00
|
|
|
Okay speaking of Atium I have a silly question. There was this whole elaborate scheme to gather all the Atium in one place and hide it to deny Ruin power. But then in the end all they did was have allomancers burn the atium away. Why didn't they just do that originally? Like as soon as a piece of atium is mined, Lord Ruler burns it up. Or just do what Kelsier did: flare some Allomancy around and destroy the atium crystals underground. I never really understood that point.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 12, 2011 00:09
|
|
|
Ugly In The Morning posted:But Kandra have a direct link to Sazed through their spikes, and I don't think he'd take kindly to the kind of poo poo he was doing. Sazed also seems the type to really value free will though.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 12, 2011 19:36
|
|
|
I couldn't help but think Wax would be really suited for a crossover adventure with Harry Dresden.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 20, 2011 19:29
|
|
|
Yeah, the Kaladin chapters are a great journey from a hopeless scenario to heroic redemption. Sanderson kind of did the same thing in Elantris, but the payoff is so much better in this one.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 24, 2011 17:57
|
|
|
Decius posted:Also surprising for me: That Shallan owns a shardblade. And killed her father. It does make it a bit odd that she's concerned enough about her family's financial future to attempt to rob from royalty but never considers hawking the priceless sword. It'd be risky sure, but compared to robbing the princess it seems like a decent option to at least consider
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2011 02:52
|
|
|
404GoonNotFound posted:Yeah, there's gotta be something more to Syl not liking them. This part really confused me, because in the flashbacks shardblades were the Knights Radiant's defining weapon. They were bigger back then though. Maybe Syl didn't like that a non-Radiant was holding one? Or maybe they've been corrupted over the years?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2011 22:02
|
|
|
Cartoon Man posted:I could be wrong, but I think that act is going to be huge later on. Remember, we still don't know why the older Knights Radiant all put down there Shardblades and plate and walked away. I'm guessing Odium is involved somehow and I can't wait for the next book. If I had to make a wild guess I'd say the Knights were just psychologically exhausted. They'd spend their entire lives selflessly fighting for humanity, and probably just got repeatedly poo poo on by people who wanted them to conquer their rival neighbors, or thought they were too mysterious. Also I can't imagine that the mass enslaving of the Voidbringers gelled at all with their philosophical beliefs.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2012 18:23
|
|
|
I'm almost positive I've read The Mormon Machine talk about doing sequels for both. They both ended in such a way that there's a lot of the world left to explore and enemies lurking on the horizon.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2012 08:20
|
|
|
I thought his underlying cosmology with certain former humans becoming Gods of new planets had a bit of Mormonism slant to it. Overall I like it when he discusses religion in his books. His religious characters are generally questioning of their faith or trying to reconcile their beliefs with a corrupt religious hierarchy. I get the feeling that he's a pretty tolerant guy willing to consider other people's viewpoints.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2012 23:50
|
|
|
These guys seem to have devoted their lives to unraveling the mystery: http://www.17thshard.com/ The biggest indicator is that a character named Hoid appears in every setting. Apparently there's a God-like being that shattered into 16 shards (with aspects like Preservation and Ruin). These shards were taken up by what we think were mortals, who then became gods of the various settings. The shards also seem to generate the magic systems in the various settings. http://coppermind.17thshard.com/wiki/Adonalsium Subvisual Haze fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Feb 20, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Feb 20, 2012 02:37
|
|
|
I'd say Spook's character arc in book 3 was one of my favorite parts of the trilogy.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2012 19:26
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm a huge Sanderson fan since I've started reading him, and his work does seem to be constantly improving. Elantris had some decent concepts, but many of the characters were very boring to me. Warbreaker also had some great concepts, but it seemed Brandon's writing of a "witty" character could use some fine tuning. Mistborn was epic as all hell in story, but the characters were kind of thin. His most recent books however have been fantastic, and show real growth on his part as an author. Way of Kings, Towers of Midnight, and Alloy of Law were all 5 star books in my mind. I can't wait to see where Brandon goes from here as an author. The fact that he writes these books so quickly, and seems like such a NICE guy in real life are just the icing on the cake.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2012 04:21
|
|
|
IRQ posted:Cut him some slack, the guy is a mormon, and on top of that possibly a robot. And he has been getting better. Absolutely, some of the Lightsong chapters in Warbreaker were actually painful to read.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 5, 2012 22:28
|
|
|
Based on Brandon's write-up of a fight between Vin and Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, I get the feeling even he is willing to pass judgement that Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth is garbage.quote:His eyes opened wide. "COMMUNISTS!" he yelled. Then, incredibly, he climbed up on a stump and began to address those watching. "Hear me, socialists! Your foul ways have no grounding in rational thought, and only seek to divest men of their rights! You will listen, now, as I explain, at length, why capitalism is the only method by which truth can be found and expressed."
|
|
#
¿
Apr 12, 2012 23:29
|
|
|
You've also got to love how the extremely capable female protagonist either gets naked in a public setting or almost-raped like every single book. Also the first book contains a like 40 page sequence where Richard gets bondage tortured by a leather clad dominatrix, but is able to escape...by falling in love with his torturer. Goodkind is a bad man who writes books that are a source of actual evil.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 13, 2012 23:30
|
|
|
Raoden is great as a proto-Kaladin, someone who goes into a depressing hopeless location and heroically turns things around. The rest of Elantris is very blah. Especially that boring family with their "intelligent" children.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 16, 2012 01:23
|
|
|
So you're saying Lightsong was a master of Dad Humor? I can buy into that.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2012 23:55
|
|
|
Can't wait to wrap my head around the unique magical properties of each of the 64 types of vehicles.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 19, 2012 23:36
|
|
|
Elantris suffers a bit from having 3 point of view characters who are all given equal time in the book. One of these characters is just not very interesting, so it can kind of drag when you get to her chapters.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2012 17:08
|
|
|
Cartoon Man posted:Three different goons will give you three different answers as to which it is. People tend to differ on whether Hrathen or Prince Raoden are the best chapters, but I've yet to hear anyone say Sarene was their favorite POV. Personally I thought Hrathen had the most interesting character, Raoden had interesting things happen to or around him, but Sarene's chapters were just a mess of boring politics and that family with their "amusing" children.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2012 23:28
|
|
|
I love the idea that Sanderson comes up with his book endings first, then constructs the rest of the book to reach that point.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2012 23:55
|
|
|
The Glumslinger posted:Hey, I just reread Mistborn a bit back, and something occured to me. How did they know to arrest the Renoux barge? I mean, I highly doubt that they would have made Marsh an Inquisitor if he had admitted to be being a Skaa thief. It seems like the kind of thing that makes sense when you think they killed him, but not in retrospect. Did they get the information from the members of Vin's old gang before they were killed?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2012 22:25
|
|
|
Ulio posted:Alright I thought Lord Ruler being dead his story would be unexplained, its going to be interesting how all that will be explained. Brandon Sanderson writes his books backwards. He thinks up what would be a fantastic ending to a story, and then works backwards to set up all rest of the story to get you there. So rest assured that almost everything will be explained. Subvisual Haze fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Oct 21, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2012 17:36
|
|
|
Tahirovic posted:Sorry for going a bit off topic, but is Iron Druid any good? It's very very like Dresden, in that it has a pop culture wisecracking magic user who has a hottie apprentice, intelligent dog, and scary/sexy goddess pulling his strings. Almost a bit too much like Dresden in parts, but it is very entertaining. My main concern is that the protagonist doesn't seem to act and feel like one would expect a 2000 year old to act (I know how silly that sounds), he feels like a 20-something American nerd who just so happens to make occasional passing references to events from 2000 years ago. Also the setting felt highly "borrowed" from American Gods, where all the old gods are just sort of kicking around Wherever, USA acting like mortals, but that could just be me. So yeah it's a lot fun, but it makes almost makes Dresden seem serious and complex in comparison.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2012 23:33
|
|
|
Cartoon Man posted:Imagine how many other tiny minor things we are missing that will all come back to play major roles in book 10. Hell, the last 2-3 books should be a sustained avalanche!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2012 02:50
|
|
|
The Gunslinger posted:I'm about halfway through the second book now and it's...not great. The first book was pretty consistent so this is a bit disappointing, I'm just not enjoying it very much. Maybe the first book coasted on the Kelsier character too much, I don't know but it's really boring with the focus being mostly on Vin and her character isn't anywhere near as interesting this time. I hope this gets better, avalanche or not. I didn't really enjoy the second book much either. Elend is a moron, Zane is a brooding asshat, and Lord Venture isn't a great antagonist either. It does have a good ending though, and the third book is nonstop amazing. So I'd recommend sticking it out.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2013 23:55
|
|
|
Ethiser posted:Spoilers I guess. Are Kaladin and Szeth part of the same order of the Knights Radiant or do they have slightly different powers? Kaladin and Szeth have the same group of powers, gravity and air pressure, which are the powers of the Windrunner order of Knights Radiant. Technically Kaladin isn't a true KR yet, and who knows what horrible thing Szeth did to an honorspren to get his abilities, so neither is really is Knights Radiant member.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2013 05:32
|
|
|
Grouchy Fish posted:Syl's reaction confused me, in Dalinar's visions the Knights Radiant wore shard plate and used shard blades. I'm really curious what happened. If I had to guess, the Knights earned their shard blades, just as they presumably earned their powers by binding to a spren. Current shard blades are won through killing of previous owners. Maybe all that murdering and backstabbing has tainted the nature of the shard blades.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2013 17:58
|
|
|
Stormlight usage and mistborn powers are probably Brandon's most similar magic systems in that they're both pretty physics based (forces pushing and pulling on things). His other magic systems are quite different though, although they still follow his pattern that they are bound by defined rules (although these rules generally are not 100% known by the people using these magic systems. Trying to figure out the rules of the magic system and how they can be exploited by characters in the future is part of the fun in reading these books.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2013 19:47
|
|
|
One of the favorite crazy theories I've heard is that forgetting all memories of his wife was Dalinar's wish, not the adverse effect of another wish.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 20, 2013 18:04
|
|
|
She also said that they were happy together, which unlike her name he was able to understand. Which is pretty vague, but maybe other people can fill in Dalinar's old memories of her to a certain extent?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2013 22:58
|
|
|
I like how Steelheart almost seems custom written for people who thought his magic systems were too scientifically based or well defined before. In this book people have superpowers, don't try to understand how they work scientifically or your brain will explode.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2013 12:41
|
|
|
snooman posted:How would that work with Conflux constantly powering Newcago's electrical grid? Maybe the gift is to an inanimate object but that's unlikely, the fuel cell for the gauss rifle had limited charges. Also, Nightwielder maintained constant darkness somehow. Conflux was forced into gifting his electricity making powers to normal people and they in turn powered the city. Conflux wasn't personally using his power at all.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2013 23:59
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Sep 13, 2024 21:58 |
|
|
Democratic Pirate posted:I need to go back and do a reread of at least the ending, because I'm still a little confused about the Megan = Firefight connection. From what it looks like she isn't even bad, but she was working with Steelheart the whole time? She was probably being honest when she was giving her reasons for not wanting the team to focus on assassinating Steelheart. Steelheart was evil, but at least he brought a degree of stability and civilization to the region compared to some of the nonstop Epic war zones in other regions.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2013 17:44
|
|