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pik_d posted:Up to chapter 7 of The Final Empire Enjoy the ride, friendo.
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# ? May 16, 2023 20:34 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 07:27 |
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pik_d posted:Up to chapter 7 of The Final Empire Can I ask if you've read any other Fantasy and how you feel TFE compares to them if you have? It's a fantastic book. Probably will always be my fave Sanderson novel.
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# ? May 16, 2023 20:45 |
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NikkolasKing posted:Can I ask if you've read any other Fantasy and how you feel TFE compares to them if you have? Well I've only read about 7 chapters so far so it's hard to say, but I do really like it and think it'll be right up there with some of the best from below. I really like books/series that have really good world building and this seems to be doing that well. I like the snippets at the beginning of each chapter that I assume are Lord Ruler from 1000 years ago. Most recently I read through the Wheel of Time after watching the 1st season of the show which led straight into Brandon Sanderson's stuff of his own. Towers of Midnight was very powerful. I'll probably forget a few books here and there but this is most of my history: Avatar Kyoshi novels The Expanse series (Sci-fi I know, but honestly there's fantasy stuff goin on there) The Witcher short stories and novels Big gap in college and most of 20s The Riftwar Cycle - this one holds a special spot in my heart because it was the first mega series I completed, despite the author writing a worse case of power scaling than Dragon Ball Z Read a few of Piers Anthony's Xanth novels before, even as a stupid horny teenage boy, some of the characters were gross and turned me off from the whole thing This is the empty space where Harry Potter would be if I didn't bounce off that hard after the following: The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings trilogy Whatever Redwall books my middle/high school library had Animorphs
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# ? May 16, 2023 21:54 |
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pik_d posted:Most recently I read through the Wheel of Time after watching the 1st season of the show which led straight into Brandon Sanderson's stuff of his own. Towers of Midnight was very powerful. That was my introduction to Sanderson also (albeit years and years before the TV show). Knowing what I do now about his approach to magic and world building, he was absolutely the right person to finish Wheel of Time given that Jordan couldn’t. Please keep posting thoughts on Mistborn as you go through it. I don’t care to watch reaction videos, but reading reaction takes of books is a lot of fun.
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# ? May 16, 2023 22:22 |
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pik_d posted:The Expanse series (Sci-fi I know, but honestly there's fantasy stuff goin on there) Honestly the expanse and sando's writing seem about the same level of pulpy
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# ? May 16, 2023 22:25 |
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This is a question I'd like to expand to the rest of the regulars here - What was your gateway to Brandon Sanderson? For me, it was during post-Covid lockdown. I was out of work so I started doing Ubereats deliveries. Instead of just listening to music in my car, I decided to dive into audiobooks. I used to be a voracious reader as a teen but fell off in my late 20s/early 30s and so this felt like a natural way to get back into literature. I picked a book that had been sitting on my bookshelf for nearly a decade - Perdido Street Station. I got a couple hours into the audio book and loving hated it. I'm sure the book is fine but goddamn is it dense with a love of Proper Nouns. Not a book that I felt worked well in audiobook form (or honestly one that I think I would have the patience to read). I'm sure it's a fine book, but I just don't have the patience. So I came to this subforum and asked in the book recommendation thread and someone suggested Mistborn. The rest is history.
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# ? May 16, 2023 22:28 |
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Niceeee, got a shipping notification for Secret Project #2 and thought that was pretty fast shipping compared to SP1 but saw Brandon noted in his weekly update that the first 17,000 Kickstarter backers were shipped SP2 since that's how many books they received, so that's cool. Finished reading The Mote in God's Eye and started Parable of the Sower today and will jump into SP2 once I'm done with that.Mordiceius posted:What was your gateway to Brandon Sanderson? Some close friends and I started doing The Expanse pen and paper campaign in early 2020 and one of them is a big Sanderson fan and mentioned how you can't go wrong with Mistborn or Stormlight, so I decided to try out Mistborn and ended up loving it, so I naturally read the rest of era 1, moved on to Warbreaker, LOVED it, and was all in on the cosmere from then on.
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# ? May 16, 2023 22:54 |
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pik_d posted:Up to chapter 7 of The Final Empire I just did a reread of the Era 1 Mistborns, you're in for an amazing ride. Nearly every question you have will be answered over the next three books, including the ones you might not have realized to ask. If you're willing, would you continue posting your impressions throughout them? Mordiceius posted:
I was working in a call center and there was a Boba Fett thumb drive that had gotten passed around with a massive library of fantasy, scifi and horror ebooks. One of the guys were making a lot of noise about Wheel of Time just finishing and they happened to be in the archive. Tossed them onto my nook, slogged my way through the middle books, just determined to unsink the time costs I'd made, until I hit The Gathering Storm and stuff started happening. The rest of the books felt like breakneck speeds, and a day or two after finishing it, I picked up the Mistborn series in a box set. It seems like it's been a race to just keep up with his writing pace since. pointlessone fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 16, 2023 |
# ? May 16, 2023 22:54 |
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Mordiceius posted:This is a question I'd like to expand to the rest of the regulars here - I posted on a big scifi and fantasy forum for a long time. He came up almost as much as Martin and others and I figured I should give him a try. I think what finally got me to try his work was when I was without internet for a few months in 2018 or so. I needed something to do for that time and it was a perfect choice. I also read some of the Witcher novels but they didn't grab me as much.
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# ? May 16, 2023 23:04 |
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Mordiceius posted:What was your gateway to Brandon Sanderson? I originally learned his name from people joking about him online and from watching his writing lectures, but never really considered trying out his work. In 2021, I saw someone post a fan letter they'd written about how much (stormlight) Kaladin and Adolin being gay meant to them. I thought it was probably fandom nonsense, but I googled it and ended up on Brandon's FAQ page about writing gay characters, and mistakenly thought that that webpage, paired with the fact it was an actual letter to him, meant it must have been true. A few weeks later, I saw a brand new copy of the second Stormlight Archive book at a secondhand shop, and bought it. I remember thinking it would be really interesting to see how Brandon would make the romance work since (stormlight) Shallan had entered the picture and divorce seemed unlikely. I didn't figure out I'd been misled until book four.
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# ? May 16, 2023 23:11 |
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Mordiceius posted:What was your gateway to Brandon Sanderson? I also then re-read the books along with the annotations which is an awesome experience in and of itself and also really got me hooked on the bigger story and magic systems and etc. As much as I understand that it's not a smart use of his limited time any more, he's too busy writing new stuff, etc - I really wish we still got these (e.g., for Stormlight) because it just is a really interesting addition to the experience.
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# ? May 16, 2023 23:16 |
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For myself I finished Malazan and was looking for another author with an expansive world to get into and somewhere on here I heard about Mistborn and it kinda went from there. I've got all the Stormlight Books signed by him, he is a super nice guy and a huge MTG nerd with the nicest kids and a solid writing style.
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# ? May 16, 2023 23:25 |
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I checked out the hardcover of Elantris from my library back in 2005. I can't believe it's almost been 20 years.
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# ? May 16, 2023 23:43 |
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I’d been introduced to The Wheel of Time by a friend of mine, which was up to Knife of Dreams at the time. As I was finishing it up, we heard that some Sanderson person had been tapped to finish the series, and wanted to find out what his writing was like, so I ordered a copy of Mistborn to find out, and many years later here we are.
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# ? May 16, 2023 23:47 |
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Yeah when Brando was announced to finish WoT I checked his stuff out and stuck with it.
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# ? May 17, 2023 00:24 |
I vaguely something like sometime around the second mistborn book coming out Tor had published the first one as an ebook for free which got me into it so 15+ years of reading everything he publishes pretty much day one since then.
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# ? May 17, 2023 00:45 |
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pik_d posted:Well I've only read about 7 chapters so far so it's hard to say, but I do really like it and think it'll be right up there with some of the best from below. I really like books/series that have really good world building and this seems to be doing that well. I like the snippets at the beginning of each chapter that I assume are Lord Ruler from 1000 years ago. Mordiceius posted:What was your gateway to Brandon Sanderson? I loving hated it. I didn't give a single poo poo about anyone or anything happening, I thought it was all tedious-rear end worldbuilding until a relatively good finale that didn't justify the boredom I had to slog through to get it. But the next year, for whatever reason, I thought to myself "gently caress it, why not, at least they're long", and grabbed Words of Radiance. And that one I loved. Devoured Oathbringer and every other Cosmere book, haven't looked back. Incidentally, I still think TWoK is just... not very good. It's the first book in a series all about superpowered knights fighting ancient evils with the cosmos themselves at stake, and loving none of that is in the entire first book! For gently caress's sake, nobody even gets their superpowers until Book 2! Half of the main characters don't even meet each other until Book 2! It's ridiculous! The whole goddamn thing is table-setting, almost none of the actual plot matters in the slightest, it should've been 100 pages max at the start of Words of Radiance to set up the characters and setting before the real loving inciting incidents start happening. And, no, wasn't a tremendous fan of Rhythym of War either, but that moved the plot forward, if incrementally, and at least everyone had cool superpowers to pass the wheel-spinning with. CapnAndy fucked around with this message at 03:31 on May 17, 2023 |
# ? May 17, 2023 02:10 |
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Just as an aside, Perdido Street Station is probably my favorite book ever, but I understand why it might not work for everyone.Mordiceius posted:This is a question I'd like to expand to the rest of the regulars here - I don't think I had ever heard of him before he took over Wheel of Time, but that got me interested in his writing. The first Sanderson book I read was The Rithmatist, I know many people are really snobbish about YA books, but it's a really cool concept. I look forward to Sanderson re-writing it as he is planning to.
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# ? May 17, 2023 03:58 |
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Oasx posted:Just as an aside, Perdido Street Station is probably my favorite book ever, but I understand why it might not work for everyone. It seems like a book that would be good to just sit and read on a lazy Sunday where you could just read uninterrupted for a few hours uninterrupted. Not so much via an audiobook in a car where you’re having to pause every 10-15 minutes. And to just be able to see the words. There were so many times where I was like “wait wtf did he just say?” and have to rewind.
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# ? May 17, 2023 06:56 |
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Grundulum posted:Please keep posting thoughts on Mistborn as you go through it. I don’t care to watch reaction videos, but reading reaction takes of books is a lot of fun. pointlessone posted:I just did a reread of the Era 1 Mistborns, you're in for an amazing ride. Nearly every question you have will be answered over the next three books, including the ones you might not have realized to ask. If you're willing, would you continue posting your impressions throughout them? I'll definitely keep posting them. Sanderson is definitely giving me just enough information to tempt me into trying to extrapolate things, but not enough to definitely get it right. I read chapters 8 and 9 last night which finally game some concrete information about Mistwraiths. They exist, the young ones are big dumb piles of specter bones that won't actually attack living creatures. The older ones are more intelligent based on how Kelsier answered Vin's question, but are they human levels of intelligence? I have no idea. Could a mature one be posing as Lord Renoux? Maybe! But I've got my doubts. Sazed and Kelsier agreed that Vin is a bit of a prodigy so that answered a question I had about whether or not all Mistborn/Mistings were equally powerful and relied on having more metal at their disposal. Sazed gives me strong WoT Aiel vibes. Very bummed out I didn't find out more about the high metals. I assume Vin learned about them during the time skip between these two chapters.
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# ? May 17, 2023 16:59 |
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My intro was hearing how good Stormlight was from people and the internet in general, but I had kind of stopped reading fantasy in my teens. Eventually my best friend, who is a huge Sanderson nerd with hardcovers of everything, convinced me to try out Mistborn in late 2020 and then I just demolished the entire rest of the Cosmere over the next year. Still have to do the Lost Metal, but I've done everything else. Haven't done any of Reckoners (which she recommended), but I have read most of the Cytoverse. I actually ended up getting her the hardcovers as a pledge add-on as a birthday present, since I backed the KS for the full year.
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# ? May 17, 2023 17:51 |
Echophonic posted:My intro was hearing how good Stormlight was from people and the internet in general, but I had kind of stopped reading fantasy in my teens. Eventually my best friend, who is a huge Sanderson nerd with hardcovers of everything, convinced me to try out Mistborn in late 2020 and then I just demolished the entire rest of the Cosmere over the next year. Still have to do the Lost Metal, but I've done everything else. Haven't done any of Reckoners (which she recommended), but I have read most of the Cytoverse. I genuinely love the first Reckoners novel. The other two are fun, but the first one lands for me in a way the other two don't.
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# ? May 17, 2023 18:09 |
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ConfusedUs posted:I genuinely love the first Reckoners novel. The other two are fun, but the first one lands for me in a way the other two don't. Reckoners 2 and 3 felt a bit like "Well great, now how am I going to explain everything that happened?" Not that it was a bad thing, but it just didn't quite have that same punch. That said, I would absolutely love to see them turned into a show. They're complete, self contained, and fast paced enough to fit nicely into 3 seasons on a streaming service.
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# ? May 17, 2023 23:28 |
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pik_d posted:I'll definitely keep posting them. Sanderson is definitely giving me just enough information to tempt me into trying to extrapolate things, but not enough to definitely get it right.
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# ? May 18, 2023 02:59 |
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Mordiceius posted:
I saw a paperback copy of Elantris in a bookstore back in 2006 or something like that, was looking for a new fantasy novel, and thought the blurb on the back was interesting. What was most interesting to me, however, was the idea that there was this new fantasy novel that was NOT part of a giant series. It was standalone! A single story, self contained, and I didn't feel like I was locking myself into a Jordan or Martin situation with the Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones series. Jokes on me, I guess.
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# ? May 18, 2023 15:01 |
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Mordiceius posted:
I had never heard of him before. I tend to dislike fantasy so he was never on my radar. Sometime around 2017 I was out of books to read and literally just browsing for something on Audible. The Way of Kings came up and it had very strong reviews, and I decided to just try it on a whim. From the start I absolutely loved the world building, but as others mentioned the pacing is quite slow so it didn't progress very fast until maybe halfway or two-thirds through. I remember sitting for like 5 hours just listening in amazed silence through the finale, to this day it's probably the most excitement and wonder I've ever felt while reading (though, the Oathbringer finale comes close). Once I got there I burned through books 1-3 incredibly fast, then very quickly moved onto mistborn, Warbreaker, and everything else. Such a fun journey. Even though I read "out of order" I don't think it undermined the experience, uncovering the Easter eggs on later re-reads was a ton of fun so I don't feel like I missed out on anything at all. It's not until stormlight 4 (which wasn't out when I started) that I feel like you start to actually miss important things if you haven't read the other cosmere books.
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# ? May 18, 2023 17:20 |
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Oh, hello
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# ? May 19, 2023 00:34 |
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Louisgod posted:Oh, hello Oh Steve Argyle did the illustrations, thats cool.
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# ? May 19, 2023 01:06 |
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Mordiceius posted:What was your gateway to Brandon Sanderson? I dunno if I count as a regular, but a couple years ago I was looking for audiobooks to listen to on a long commute and stumbled across *Skyward*. I enjoyed it, but by it's nature it didn't last very long and then I started looking into Sanderson's other work—and the rest is history.
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# ? May 19, 2023 07:05 |
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I had read the last 4 (5?) wheel of time books as they came out, but somehow never thought to read any Sanderson after that. I was visiting my brother in law and he was reading something from Stormlight Archive, so I picked up Way of Kings and got into the Cosmere from there.
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# ? May 19, 2023 22:36 |
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More first time reader reactions, I've read up to The Final Empire chapter 17. The Inquisitors in these books are much scarier than the Star Wars Inquisitors that end up getting punked by kids in the shows and games. Though I suppose these Inquisitors may get destroyed by Vin because I assume she'll get a power up later on. Also they might be immortal, but I'm sure there'll be a way to defeat them. Glad to finally know what Atium does, but it's basically only useful if only you have it so that's slightly underwhelming. Still don't know anything about the 9th metal or 11th metals though. Please tell me Brandon. I'm guessing Lord Elend will end up actually being Mistborn, I actually thought it was gonna be him saving Vin from the Inquisitor before the Sazed reveal happened. Speaking of Sazed, now there's another magic system to deal with? He uses metal to store information, but used up an entire metalmind to make the trip between cities so fast? So he can use metal for "powers"?
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# ? May 21, 2023 02:15 |
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You're making me want to read this series again because I can't quite remember when things became clear. I think there were hints towards more power for that character before what you described. But it wasn't shown as clearly on "screen" until then.
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# ? May 21, 2023 03:03 |
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Artonos posted:You're making me want to read this series again because I can't quite remember when things became clear. I think there were hints towards more power for that character before what you described. But it wasn't shown as clearly on "screen" until then. Yeah there was a conversation where he said "The Lord Ruler doesn't like us, we're a different kind of ability than Allomancy." or something like that. That and the fact that he remembers near 600 religions.
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# ? May 21, 2023 03:06 |
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God. Goddamnit. That book is so loving good. It's a perfect novel.
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# ? May 21, 2023 04:23 |
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pik_d posted:More first time reader reactions, I've read up to The Final Empire chapter 17. I'm extra careful to not spoil anything, because The Final Empire really is a masterpiece, and I don't want to take anything away from it. It's great to read your speculation, as always. You're definitely supposed to ask these exact questions, and Brandon will answer them in time.
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# ? May 21, 2023 05:17 |
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I re-read all 7 (7.5?) Mistborn novels this year while waiting for any of the authors I follow to put out new stuff. They are just as good, if not better, the second time around. The finale of Hero of Ages is still the best thing Sanderson has ever written, IMO.
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# ? May 21, 2023 05:38 |
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Mordiceius posted:God. Goddamnit. That book is so loving good. It really is. Mentioned it a few times now but The Final Empire and Oathbringer are my favorite Sanderson novels. But while OB is great, it's so much longer, and comes with the prerequisite of having read WOK and WOR. TFE is a wonderfully standalone book in addition to its own inherent merits as a story.
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# ? May 21, 2023 05:53 |
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Mordiceius posted:God. Goddamnit. That book is so loving good. I'm curious, you started listening to Way of Kings iirc? Are you still listening to it?
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# ? May 21, 2023 10:13 |
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I'm about halfway through Stormlight 4, and this is really becoming a slog. I'll go days without picking it up because I'm just not interested in any of the storylines happening right now. Shallan's dissociative deal and her back-and-forth with Mraize are probably the most interesting, but only vaguely so. :/ I'm thinking of just dropping it for now and switching back to Mistborn to start the second era trilogy. AlternateNu fucked around with this message at 16:44 on May 21, 2023 |
# ? May 21, 2023 16:41 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 07:27 |
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Having just finished Row, I'd say you're not that far from when it starts to pick up. I was listening to it while I work so the slow bits weren't as much of a problem as it would be if I'd been reading it.
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# ? May 21, 2023 17:34 |