|
I tried to read Mistborn and I got as far as the smug nobleman in the beginning making some bullshit promise to a vaguely described peasant before flouncing off. I gave up at that point because it was clearly not well written.
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2018 22:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 18:48 |
|
|
I've said before that Sanderson isn't a competent writer, he's a competent puzzle maker. Everything he introduces in his books is plot relevant and a necessary piece to solving the conflict. He was a natural choice to finish Wheel of Time because he had the work ethic to go off of thorough notes and churn out the last three volumes. His natural talents let him fill in gaps where they existed, but he was operating within a well defined framework. It was basically his wheelhouse. But he doesn't make any sense to finish ASoIaF or King Killer because there won't be extensive directions for him to follow and he won't be inventing the mysteries from the beginning like in his own works. And where Wheel of Time had a scene missing here and there that his puzzlebox brain could extrapolate, King Killer is missing core concepts that he'd have wanted to insert in the first hundred pages.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2018 00:19
|
|
|
This is some of the funniest NotW fanart: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qVQRa If only he had hair like that in the adaptions. Sadly most of the covers depict long flowing locks and much less chin. Ccs fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Feb 6, 2018 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2018 03:32
|
|
|
Ccs posted:This is some of the funniest NotW fanart: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qVQRa Aw, poo poo. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2018 05:23
|
|
|
Nakar posted:I always wonder how that works, as there are more than a few such books in the genre. Is it one of the participants just straight up ripping off their friends by repackaging the story they created together and taking all the credit for it as "author?" This seems like something that could make for a really interesting lawsuit. Yeah and there are situations like how the Riftwar guy ripped off an RPG called Empire of the Petal Throne for the bad guys that invaded his stock medieval setting but he claims he didn't realize it because it was based on a game he was a player in. This is despite working in the RPG industry before he became an author and purposely changing the names of things
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2018 08:01
|
|
|
Nakar posted:I always wonder how that works, as there are more than a few such books in the genre. Is it one of the participants just straight up ripping off their friends by repackaging the story they created together and taking all the credit for it as "author?" This seems like something that could make for a really interesting lawsuit. Pffft, easy. Create an LLC to act as your holding company with equal ownership and publish under a pen name.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2018 02:10
|
|
|
Rather than start Rothfuss' Kingkiller-whatever I'm reading The Black Company. I don't know if/when I'll start Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear or Book 3.
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2018 19:44
|
|
|
Good decision. Black Company is just ok.
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2018 22:22
|
|
|
BananaNutkins posted:Good decision. Black Company is just ok. Ftfy it's a good series and much more readable than the inexplicably beloved Malazan Book of the Homebrew D&D campaign, although admittedly it's not great if you care for the sorcery part of swords & sorcery most.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 00:02
|
|
|
Captain Hotbutt posted:I don't know if/when I'll start Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear or Book 3. Never is always a good time for this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 14:10
|
|
|
Judging from this thread I'm sure everyone here would appreciate the irony of this nugget I found in an old interview (I am bored at work): "I can sell anything to anyone. That is actually my superpower. I am really good at negotiating and persuading. If I were to fall into a vat of nuclear waste and one of my talents were to rear up above the others that would probably be the one. I find great joy in making a deal. Honestly, it’s a little dangerous and a power like that has the tendency to throw you into the supervillian camp, and so I try to point those things toward my charity."
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 16:07
|
|
|
Captain Hotbutt posted:Rather than start Rothfuss' Kingkiller-whatever I'm reading The Black Company.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 17:34
|
|
|
I picked up the Lies of Locke Lamora because I was touristing, kinda remembered the name but not the context, and it was cheap. Got a little over halfway through it when my roommate saw it and asked me what I thought about it; he'd kinda remembered enjoying the audio book. I replied that it was all right so far but I didn't think it would hold up to scrutiny. He went out, I reheated some lunch, and I sat down to read. Except my stupid brain cells got activated and instead of reading I ended up writing a page of notes about why the book was bad. Now I'm not sure I can finish it, and I wanted some comfort-food reading. I blame this thread for that. Bravest of the Lamps in particular.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 19:01
|
|
|
Hammer Bro. posted:I picked up the Lies of Locke Lamora because I was touristing, kinda remembered the name but not the context, and it was cheap. Much like parades, no book is truly good.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 19:06
|
|
|
Hammer Bro. posted:I picked up the Lies of Locke Lamora because I was touristing, kinda remembered the name but not the context, and it was cheap. Good news for you (and me) then, BotL hopefully will never be back since he got banned.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 19:39
|
|
|
latinotwink1997 posted:Good news for you (and me) then, BotL hopefully will never be back since he got banned. Now if it would just happen to SMG...
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 20:06
|
|
|
Hammer Bro. posted:I picked up the Lies of Locke Lamora because I was touristing, kinda remembered the name but not the context, and it was cheap. gently caress, man. Smoke a joint and relax.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 20:07
|
|
I ended up writing a page of notes about why the book was bad
|
I want to see that page of notes.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 23:28
|
|
|
Does it have something to do with how often Locke gets beaten to within an inch of his life but still survives with no long-term consequences?
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 23:39
|
|
|
eXXon posted:Does it have something to do with how often Locke gets beaten to within an inch of his life but still survives with no long-term consequences? No consequences? He does progressively dumber poo poo as the series progresses. Clear signs of CTE
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2018 23:49
|
|
|
latinotwink1997 posted:Good news for you (and me) then, BotL hopefully will never be back since he got banned. Awwwww.... he was annoying as hell, but I hate it when entertaining messes get banned.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 00:09
|
|
|
BravestOfTheLamps is one of the best posters on the forums, and his refusal to couch his statements in redundant, mealy-mouthed hedges like "In my opinion..." is the best thing about him. He is a huge rear end in a top hat, but the way people care so much when he calls their favorite fantasy books bad without going out of his way to explicitly acknowledge their tastes is only a mark of their own insecurity. Also, he isn't banned. He paid the  long ago; he's just waiting for his probation to wind down.
Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 14, 2018 |
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 02:01
|
|
|
it's badass that a guy wrote very long posts explaining exactly why the bad books were bad and now people on this forum are seized with the chill of death when they try to read the bad books and remember his posts
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 04:18
|
|
|
I enjoyed his critique of Rothfuss, even though I got into an argument at the D&D table with a guy wearing an Eolian T-shirt. People were explaining to me that Felurian stuff wasn't that bad because it was only 50 pages. Maybe if we cut those 50 pages we could have had 50 pages about the actual plot and the Chandrian.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 05:02
|
|
|
Haha 50 loving pages. Geezus. I forgot it was that long.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 05:41
|
|
|
Wasn't sex ninjas like 200.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 06:16
|
|
|
Solice Kirsk posted:Wasn't sex ninjas like 200. 250 pages of gently caress goddesses and sex ninjas. That's roughly 1/3 of a really lovely book.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 06:50
|
|
|
I am the one who enjoys Bad™ literature.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 06:53
|
|
|
M_Gargantua posted:I am the one who enjoys Bad™ literature. that scene in spartacus but its a huge crowd of book barn posters standing up and saying this
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 07:01
|
|
|
Habibi posted:Now if it would just happen to SMG... I thought SMG entered into the forum code and couldn't be purged without finally killing this dead comedy forum? That would explain why he hasn't seen any new film in the last few years. Not that it ever stops him from trying to give his sophomore year analysis of whatever is on theatres. Edit: Isn't it just a new iteration of the Bevets bot from Fark?
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 07:07
|
|
|
Can anyone explain the actual plot of Wise Man's Fear? Like, what happened and why do we care? As far as I remember: -Kvothe is super smart but too stupid to understand the concept of a subconscious mind -Kvothe pisses off Ambrose because he's an impulsive dumbass -He gets hired by the Mayor, mysteriously stops the poisoning, and that qualifies him to murder bandits in the woods -He murders all the bandits - who have a Chandrian with them, wtf? - and finds a sex faerie -He bangs her a lot -Now that he is a god of sex he bangs some ninjas -Then he returns to the university having evolved from loser-nerd to magic stud man Note that the original conflict of the Chandrian killing his parents is in no way resolved and they only appear as random bandits in the woods.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 07:36
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:Can anyone explain the actual plot of Wise Man's Fear? Like, what happened and why do we care? As far as I remember:
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 08:13
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:Can anyone explain the actual plot of Wise Man's Fear? Like, what happened and why do we care? As far as I remember: I mean, I can give a summary of what happened and what it supposedly does: Section I - The University (Again) - We pick back up at he University with another loop of Kvothe tuition woes because Rothfus is in the too famous for an editor pantheon of Fantasy Sci-FI writers. Ambrose poisons him wrecking his admissions exam which a.) reiterates that he's an arbitrarily spiteful piece of poo poo we're supposed to hate and b.) allows Rothfus to rewrite the Kvothe needs money story for the 20th time. We also have a scene where drugged Kvothe makes it very clear that he wouldn't rape Fela, so we clearly know his a good dude and strong feminist and sets us up to be so impressed with all the cool sex he'll have later in the book because he's a Nice Guy (TM). - Elodin allows Kvothe into his naming class which is the set up for Kvothe learning real big "M" Magic (as though sympathy wasn't magic). He also get's Kvothe's library privileges reinstated which seems like it should advance the Chandrian plot but doesn't as a.) he already had a way into the library, and b.) he doesn't find poo poo. This is actually pretty relevant to the central purpose of this book which I'd argue is to see Kvothe accumulating all the powers and abilities that make him a huge - Denna reveals a bad past relationship with Ambrose because HEY GUYS AMBROSE IS A BAD GUY! Kvothe stupidly goes to get her ring back in order to impress her but manages to leave some blood behind which Ambrose uses to do magic attacks on him. I suppose the goal here is to show the escalation of hostilities between the two of them, but Ambrose literally sent assassins after him in the last book, so I don't know why this is necessary. Rothfus uses this section to say "whore" a lot. - He goes after Devi since she had a vial of his blood. He does this in an incredibly stupid way that is contrived solely to create a new plot hook where he loses his source of loans and we get to do Kvothe needs money again. I want to take an aside here to say that if you read a fantasy novel and realize that the author probably has an excel doc of their main character's finances, it's probably going to be a garbage book because they're just writing a romanticized version of their D&D character. - Kvothe and pals execute a Saturday morning cartoon level plot to get Ambrose back which succeeds. This is pretty much the thrust of the whole first section of the book: Ambrose is a bad guy. Kvothe defeats Ambrose because he is smart and good and Ambrose is a meany. - As if to drive this home, we get Ambrose bringing up Kvothe on civil charges for his naming the wind attack at the end of the previous book. Kvothe is cleared of charges, but the school thinks it's bad publicity so Kvothe is asked to take a leave of absence (but he has no money you see, so this is a problem!). This is functionally an excuse to move the story on beyond the University and get Kvothe out into the world. This trial is also apparently a famous part of Kvothe's legend, so it provides Rothfus an opportunity to have Chronicler set Kvothe up to jerk off about how legends and reality don't match up. - Here we wrap up the university segment which really should have been done in the end of the previous book, but we're working on the stock fantasy series formula of write one really big book and cut it apart at arbitrary points for publication. Section 2 - Vintas - So, Kvothe's pal the Count tells Kvothe that his friend the Maer of Vintas needs help from a studly young man to help him seduce a woman he likes. Now, up to this point, one of Kvothe's vanishingly few weaknesses is a self-professed inability to "get" women (please ignore the fact that every attractive woman he has met either offers him sex, is strongly implied as wanting to gently caress him, or is a horribly evil bitch). - - This section includes Kvothe playing court politics like a seasoned pro, uncovering a plot against the Maer (to firmly establish him as the smartest), and succeed in helping the Maer who turns out to be in love with the Lackless heiress (who is not so subtly indicated to be Kvothe's aunt). This section is largely about re-establishing that Kvothe is clever in a non-magical setting. - For some inexplicable reason the Maer decides that because Kvothe helped him woo Lackless and uncover the plot against him, he's really qualified to lead up a band of mercenaries to take out some bandits that are stealing his taxes. The real reason Rothfus is doing this is because he needs a reason to be able to send Kvothe away to acquire martial combat skills because the warrior mage is a stock power fantasy, and to this point Kvothe has been ineffectual in a stand-up fight. - The mercenaries include Tempi who (aside from sounding like an idiot) is an Adem. Adem are cliche fantasy society with a martial-arts based economy. They have a special fighting technique that essentially means that they never lose. Of course Tempi immediately takes a massive liking to Kvothe and decides to teach him their secrets even though that's essentially his culture's biggest taboo. - They find the bandits, but Kvothe isn't trained in punchmans yet, so he uses magic to kill the bandits with lightning. This is one of those places (like a lot of this book) where Rothfus seems to forget that his point in the first book was showing how the mythic feats ascribed to Kvothe are actually more mundane but interesting than what people say he did. But in this case, he really does just use wizard magic to kill a bunch of dudes in spectacular fashion. The Chandrian make an appearance to remind us that they're supposed to he the villains in these books. Section 3 - Time to gently caress - Keeping up this Kvothe just really did do the crazy poo poo that people say he did pattern we run into Felurian. Felurian is an ancient goddess of sex and death - the stock succubus/siren figure whose sexual potency is so great that she kills the men she fucks. Kvothe fucks her. In fact he fucks her real well. How well? Well, so well that this ancient being whose entire identity is loving dudes to death cannot believe he's a virgin. Why does this happen? Well, again the real point of this book is wish fulfillment for nerds, so he gets to gently caress a hot older lady and be really good at it. - Felurian decides to train Kvothe in loving. So he goes with her to faery. This again, is part of the Kvothe collects a bunch of impressive skills plot of this book. - While in faery, Kvothe meets a magic evil tree. The tree is serious business because it knows everything and is entirely malevolent, which sounds cool for about ten seconds until you think about the actual implications. The tree knows everything and it's evil, so why hasn't it just ruined the world at this point? Like, the first interaction it had with a human should have been the end of humanity. Anyway this bit serves to set up a bunch of prophecies for Rothfus to capitalize on later. Section 4 - Sex Ninjas - Kvothe goes back to the real world to gently caress like a champ. He and his bro, Tempi run into some other Adem who are understandably upset that Tempi has violated their cultural rules by teaching magic martial arts to Kvothe. Kvothe goes with Tempi back to his home ostensibly to defend him from prosecution but really so that he can have sex with hot ninjas and finish learning to be a fighting god. - Kvothe is immediately initiated into the society because since it is illegal to train someone in the lethani he must already be of the lethani, so no crime was committed. He is shown to be inferior to them in fighting ways, but this is sort of a handwavey authorial trick to disguise what Rothfus is doing here. He's making Kvothe a fighter who is better than anyone he's likely to encounter other then the people who trained him (who disappear from the book when he leaves). - I just want to add that this whole section is a really cliche white man goes to noble savage warrior culture is initiated into their secrets, but never really understands or seriously tries to get their culture and suffers not at all for it. I mean, he gets a 2000 year old sword (let's assume that it's magic because swords don't hold up for 2000 years) and the immediately renames it with a "clever" music joke. Like, how loving insulting can you be? Section 5 - The Trip Home - So, leveled up on sex and fighting Kvothe begins his trip home. - He runs into a troop of Edema Ruh who turn out to be criminals. Instead of having a nuanced view of the Ruh, we're told that they're fake Ruh and Kvothe immediately goes about murdering them though he feels really bad about killing the women specifically because they're women and women aren't evil like men (which is both patronizing and again goes to show he learned nothing from his time with the Adem who are a matriarchal warrior culture). - Kvothe makes it back to Vintas where the Maer has since married. We get a look at the McGuffin for the next book (lol) in the Lackless locked chest. Kvothe insults Lady Lackless and is summarily dismissed from the Maer's service and even though we have all the same information he has and he's a super genius, his mighty brain stops working for a few pages so that he doesn't connect the very giant dots that would tell him that she's his aunt. - The Maer does feel bad about booting Kvothe out, so he essentially covers his tuition and expenses in perpetuity. It looks like his financial woes are finally over and we won't be revisting that plot point ag- hahaha we['re doing this loop again! Section 6 - The University (wait, really?) - While Kvothe was gone he somehow already became famous for the things he did while away. This is Rothfus remembering that he wants to do the myths and legends thing even if he seems to fundamentally misunderstand how legends are formed. - Kvothe goes to Tarbean wich again, mainly serves to show his spreading legend and move the Denna plot laterally. Section 7 - Present Day - Sad man Kote ties up some loose ends and tries to fight some bad dudes but gets his rear end kicked. We're supposed to see how far he's fallen since his prime as this whole book was about establishing his badass credentials. - Bast murderhouses the guys who beat up Kote. So essentially the plot of the book was about powering Kvothe up (Naming Magic, martial arts, sex having) so that he could be contrasted to current day Kote (If Rothfus had a sense of humor I would have expected a joke about how Kote can't get it up anymore, but I guess his awesomeness at sex is just too intrinsic to him. Rothfus sprinkles in a few plot hooks (evil tree, the door of stone, and the locked chest) that might show up in the third book he's not going to write. Why do we care? Well , we don't. The target demographic of the book cares about this because it is a few hundred pages of male power fantasy (being an awesome warrior-mage) and sexual fantasy (loving all the ladies with no consequences and being really good at it). Karnegal fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Feb 14, 2018 |
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 09:28
|
|
|
Once I read a review that said they loved Name of the Wind for all of the vibrant and compelling side characters and I laughed out loud. Does Kvothe ever do anything to help his friends at university or show any interest whatsoever in their lives?
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 14:42
|
|
|
eNeMeE posted:He's ended his tuition problems by scamming his former employer. Wasn't scamming completely unnecessary, too? Like, his employer gives him a full ride to college and Kvothe has multiple sources of income, but still decides to scam him? eXXon posted:Once I read a review that said they loved Name of the Wind for all of the vibrant and compelling side characters and I laughed out loud. The only time I can think of is when one of the lady characters is temporarily turned into a damsel in distress and Kvothe rescues her, then goes on a rant on how, no, its really quite feminist.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 15:22
|
|
|
Karnegal posted:- He goes after Devi since she had a vial of his blood. He does this in an incredibly stupid way that is contrived solely to create a new plot hook where he loses his source of loans and we get to do Kvothe needs money again. I want to take an aside here to say that if you read a fantasy novel and realize that the author probably has an excel doc of their main character's finances, it's probably going to be a garbage book because they're just writing a romanticized version of their D&D character. This is really the only thing I remember from that book outside of the third of it that I had to skim through because it was flowery descriptions of excellent loving. This is honestly where my opinion of it started to shift into the negative after liking the first book, because the whole thing with Devi is easily the stupidest thing he does for the most contrived reason, and then it's basically hand-waved away within a chapter. He tries to boil a woman alive from the inside using sinister magic, on the flimsiest of premises, and the only reason she didn't get boiled is because she's a better magician than him. Then someone puts in a good word for him, and Devi is just like "Oh, well then, you were being bullied by Ambrose, it makes sense that you would try to boil my blood if that's the case. Let me help you in your wacky caper." Devi was my favorite character basically right up until that point, where even an idiot like me could start to see real flaws in this dumb fuckin' story. The story just basically started to unravel for me after that, and then the rest of the book was dedicated to loving.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 15:56
|
|
|
Dienes posted:Wasn't scamming completely unnecessary, too? Like, his employer gives him a full ride to college and Kvothe has multiple sources of income, but still decides to scam him? I mean, narratively? yes? The real reason he does it is because he's an entitled piece of poo poo. Essentially, Kvothe spends two books telling the reader that he is poor. In fact, he's likely in the top 25%+ of people in his world. He plays music at a virtuoso level, and even after loving things up by being a prick he still gets room, board, and tips for a couple hours of "work" a few nights a week. In addition he makes magical loving devices for sale. Kvothe is a middle to uppermiddle class guy who happens to be friends with a bunch of upper class folks. He's trying to get extra spending money because he feels like he deserves it because he's Kvothe. In a modern setting he's the guy whose parents are propping up his education with out-of-pocket money and a couple student loans in their name, but they expect him to get a part-time job to pay for food and rent. And instead of realizing that relative to most people he has it pretty good, he's just pissed off that he can't go to Cancun for spring break with his rich bros (even though they'd pay for him to go if he'd get over his loving pride). Given that it took Rothfuss 9 years to complete undergrad during which time he worked a bunch of side jobs, I have a hard time not seeing this as Gary Stu moment where Rothfuss is re-writing his own college experience in a way that he gets what he deserves and people recognize his brilliance.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 16:27
|
|
|
Karnegal posted:I mean, narratively? yes?
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 19:42
|
|
|
e: ^^^^ Rothfuss also knows gently caress-all about music and it shows, repeatedly, when he writes about it. People gripe about Sanderson's bad writing in regards to things like sex or alcohol but Rothfuss's musician poo poo with Kvothe is infinitely worse. I think in one scene Kvothe hears music and can't play so he runs out of the room in distress because that's what real musicians do. Only it isn't. Literally nobody but a broke-brained as gently caress person does this. World class musicians don't do this. If anything, they're far more likely to tap along and note when the performer fucks up. TheGreatEvilKing posted:Can anyone explain the actual plot of Wise Man's Fear? Like, what happened and why do we care? As far as I remember: The poisoning thing is probably the only part that made any sense in that section. Kvothe is talking to the alchemist (or whatever they're called) who makes the guy's medicine and sees it's being prepared with a lead (or pewter?) mortar and pestle which makes him realize that the mayor's being poisoned. Though it'd have turned out to be far, far better if the guy making the medicine was just a colossal moron who was making proper medicine and didn't realize that metals like lead in and of themselves are extremely bad to use for making medicine and not Generic Evil Guy Poisoning Mayor Because Reasons. Evil Fluffy fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Feb 14, 2018 |
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 20:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 18:48 |
|
|
Evil Fluffy posted:
Thank you! I was still riding the exultant praise that this book received from one of my flings. The first book was passable but well narrated. I really thought that the big reveal was going to be exactly as you said, this doctor was a pretender much like Kvothe and the difficulty would be stopping the poisoning, saving the face of his doctor, and playing them both to gain favor. Instead it was the most bog standard "being poisoned by an advisor and only I am smart enough to catch it" thing. If it hadn't been for four hours of commuting a day I'd have deleted the audio book then. In hindsight I wish I had.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2018 20:51
|
|