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The Way of Kings will be out in paperback next Tuesday if you've been waiting for a cheaper price. http://www.amazon.com/Way-Kings-Stormlight-Archive/dp/0765365278 Hopefully it won't have the same problems that the WOT paperbacks had.
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# ? May 18, 2011 12:23 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 05:14 |
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Cartoon Man posted:Hopefully it won't have the same problems that the WOT paperbacks had. What problems were those? (apart from the unbelievably lovely cover art)
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# ? May 18, 2011 16:34 |
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The binding always fell apart. Which was a bonus, in a way, because then you no longer had the lovely cover art. It's like the book wanted to be free....
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# ? May 18, 2011 17:57 |
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WoT paperbacks should come with a roll of duct tape.
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# ? May 18, 2011 21:12 |
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God help you if you creased the spine of a WOT paperback, then you were screwed.
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# ? May 19, 2011 00:23 |
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Ah. I'm using my brother's copies of the books, most of which are hardbacks. Now I'm pretty glad for that.
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# ? May 19, 2011 03:34 |
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I finished the Mistborn books the other day, and I have one lingering question. In one of Sazed's pre-chapter blurbs, he mentions that if Elend had waited around for a few minutes after the mist spirit dissipated, he would have seen a guy with black hair and a prominent nose collapse to the ground. Are we supposed to know who that was? It doesn't help that outside of Vin being slim with shoulder-length black hair, Allriande being blond, and Terrismen looking like people from Aeon Flux, Sanderson seems to be allergic to actually describing what characters look like, so I can't recall anyone who would fit such a description.
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# ? May 19, 2011 08:44 |
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That was Preservation's body.
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# ? May 19, 2011 08:57 |
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Haraksha posted:That was Preservation's body.
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# ? May 19, 2011 18:49 |
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Paracelsus posted:Had he appeared anywhere else? By this point Sanderson has conditioned me to assume that if there is a detail, it's important. Unless you really hated Mistborn, this is why re-reading any of Brandon's stuff is fun. I just read Elantris a second time and all kinds of little details popped out at me that I never noticed on the first read through. I don't think he physically appeared anywhere in the books except during that scene. However Preservation had been helping Vin all throughout the three books, especially at the end of the first book when her ear ring was taken out. I just started in on Mistborn again and I can't wait to discover all the "hidden in plain sight" material you don't pay attention to during the first read.
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# ? May 19, 2011 20:20 |
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Haraksha posted:The binding always fell apart. Which was a bonus, in a way, because then you no longer had the lovely cover art. It's like the book wanted to be free.... Ya but after the bindings fell apart, eventually all the pages fell apart. Gave me an excuse to pick up the first couple of books in hardcover to match the rest of my set tho.
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# ? May 19, 2011 20:59 |
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Paracelsus posted:Had he appeared anywhere else? By this point Sanderson has conditioned me to assume that if there is a detail, it's important. He doesn't, but at the very end, Ruin's body is sitting next to Vin and Elend's. I was so sad they put Elend's head back on.
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# ? May 20, 2011 09:00 |
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Haraksha posted:He doesn't, but at the very end, Ruin's body is sitting next to Vin and Elend's. I missed that bit, probably because it was 2 in the morning and I'd been reading about 5 hours straight, as well as still being distracted by "lol gender-neutral pronoun."
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# ? May 20, 2011 20:59 |
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Yeah, that was kind of silly, but several languages have a gender neutral pronoun. English is actually developing one right now with the singular use of "they". Really, we have one already with "it", but that typically refers to something that isn't a person. This is one of those areas where I feel like Sanderson's ability to plot outreaches his ability to write. I don't doubt that Sanderson was really careful when talking about the Hero of Ages throughout the series to make sure he never called it a man or woman, but the lynchpin was that the prophecies were written in old Terris, which we never see. I don't think he actually needed to create a language, but he had a fairly important plot device that was never actually seen in the story. This doesn't seem fair to me.
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# ? May 21, 2011 07:02 |
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Haraksha posted:Yeah, that was kind of silly, but several languages have a gender neutral pronoun. English is actually developing one right now with the singular use of "they". Really, we have one already with "it", but that typically refers to something that isn't a person.
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# ? May 21, 2011 08:11 |
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Just finished Mistborn myself, and I enjoyed it. Sanderson, so far for me, has been kind of an interesting middle ground author as far as fantasy authors go. On one hand, he's not even close to the standards set by the genre heavyweights, like Martin/Erikson/Abercrombie. On the other, he's light years ahead of boring, safe fantasy like Eddings/Feist. He has a lot of great ideas, and aside from the lack of sex, his books are dark enough to feel realistic. I enjoyed is two WoT books more than Mistborn, but I'm not sure those are good judges of his writing style and skills, considering how much of it was already written/not his ideas. I like him enough to read all his stuff, though! Not eight hours passed between finishing Mistborn 3 and buying Warbreaker. I'll probably wait until at least three of the Stormlight books are out, though...I hate having to wait to read the next book in a series. It's hard enough with something like the Malazans/WoT/Martin books, but at least I had two or three of them to plow through before the wait started. As far as Mistborn went, as I said, I enjoyed it. It wasn't spectacular, and there were a lot of places that could have been tightened up, a lot of places where it seemed like he spent too much time on the characters sitting around talking needlessly. That said, I really liked a lot of the characters. I with TenSoon had had more to do at the end...Seemed like his story kind of petered out after lots of buildup. I love Sazed, Vin is fine, Elend was kind of blah. Breeze was one of my favorite characters, but he didn't do much in book 3. There were a lot of things that could use more work in the series, but overall it was good with some great fights. That all said, the thing that kept me coming back was that Sanderson is really good at setting up mysteries that you don't even realize are mysteries, and then throwing ah-HA moments at you. The mist snapping people/her earring/etc...Lots of moments where the reveals make you go "nice!" His big reveals feel natural to the plot and actually add to the stories, and what's nice about them is how well thought out they are. In too many stories, there's some deus ex machina reveal toward the end that feels like the author just shoehorned in some magical fuckery or something to make everything better at the last minute. The BIG REVEALS in Mistborn were actually foreshadowed from the very beginning, so they didn't feel cheap when they came. I really enjoyed wondering what crazy thing he was going to throw at us next, and how it would effect stuff that we thought we already knew. Overall, definitely worth reading. 7.5/10
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# ? May 25, 2011 14:22 |
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A Nice Boy posted:I feel the same way about TenSoon - cool character that seemed like he should have had a bigger role at the end. Also Warbreaker has a lot of the foreshadowing stuff as well, so you should enjoy that. And since it's a single book, it doesn't have the drag feeling that Mistborne occasionally gets.
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# ? May 25, 2011 15:11 |
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I'm about to study abroad in Europe for a month, and the trip involves a bunch times where I'll be sitting around for a few hours, such as the plane ride over and bus rides between cities. Should I go ahead and download (kindle user) the Mistborn books? I already blew through WoK earlier in the year and really enjoyed it.
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# ? May 25, 2011 17:27 |
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Democratic Pirate posted:I'm about to study abroad in Europe for a month, and the trip involves a bunch times where I'll be sitting around for a few hours, such as the plane ride over and bus rides between cities. Should I go ahead and download (kindle user) the Mistborn books? I already blew through WoK earlier in the year and really enjoyed it. Yes and Warbreaker and Elantris.
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# ? May 25, 2011 17:40 |
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Cartoon Man posted:Yes and Warbreaker and Elantris. You might be able to get Warbreaker free from Sanderson's site still, you should check that first. Unless you just want to support Sanderson, in which case buying it probably takes a lot less effort than buying->converting.
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# ? May 25, 2011 20:01 |
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Democratic Pirate posted:I'm about to study abroad in Europe for a month, and the trip involves a bunch times where I'll be sitting around for a few hours, such as the plane ride over and bus rides between cities. Should I go ahead and download (kindle user) the Mistborn books? I already blew through WoK earlier in the year and really enjoyed it. WoK was pretty weak (for Sanderson) standing on its own so yeah go ahead and get everything else.
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# ? May 26, 2011 00:23 |
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IRQ posted:WoK was pretty weak (for Sanderson) standing on its own so yeah go ahead and get everything else. On the other hand, I thought WoK was fantastic, and if I was going to buy only one Brandon Sanderson book it'd be WoK.
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# ? May 26, 2011 00:34 |
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Honestly, if I was gonna buy just one Sanderson book it'd be Warbreaker. Only it and Elantris are stand-alone (for now, I know he's gonna make a sequel for it eventually) and it's pretty much the better of the two.
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# ? May 26, 2011 01:39 |
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A Nice Boy posted:Overall, definitely worth reading. 7.5/10 The only thing I kind of disagree with here is the earring. I saw that coming as soon as they started talking about spikes being linked to ruin. "Oh, Vin always has metal in her ear." I guess my problem is that I know Sanderson too well at this point. He doesn't really throw out any red herrings. Everything has some significance, so since the earring had been mentioned more than once, I was looking for what it could be connected to. Then he started talking about being pierced by metal and I rolled my eyes.
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# ? May 26, 2011 03:48 |
Haraksha posted:He doesn't really throw out any red herrings. Everything has some significance
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# ? May 26, 2011 04:06 |
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Haraksha posted:The only thing I kind of disagree with here is the earring. I saw that coming as soon as they started talking about spikes being linked to ruin. "Oh, Vin always has metal in her ear." I guess my problem is that I know Sanderson too well at this point. He doesn't really throw out any red herrings. Everything has some significance, so since the earring had been mentioned more than once, I was looking for what it could be connected to. Then he started talking about being pierced by metal and I rolled my eyes. Yeah, that was one where I figured I should have seen it coming. However, unlike you, aside from the WoT books this was my first Sanderson, so I didn't realize how laden with meaning and foreshadowing everything was going to be.
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# ? May 26, 2011 20:24 |
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Haraksha posted:He doesn't, but at the very end, Ruin's body is sitting next to Vin and Elend's. Huh? I don't get it. Enlighten this fool, please.
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# ? May 27, 2011 09:56 |
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You have to read Sazed's passages before the chapters more closely. Ruin and Preservation had human bodies. How they came into godhood is never explored, but it's definitely hinted at that they may actually have once been human. After the chapter where Elend talks to the mist spirit, Sazed's intro talks about how the body of a person fell into the ash. That was Preservation. At the end of the book, they find the bodies of Vin and Elend and there's a redheaded dude next to them. That's Ruin's body.
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# ? May 27, 2011 12:46 |
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Here's a better explanation if your curious about the whole mythology that ties all the books together. You have to read The Way of Kings to get a snippet of who Ruin really was. (I've bolded that part below) http://www.17thshard.com/wiki/Adonalsium quote:Adonalsium EDIT: Here's more. http://www.17thshard.com/wiki/Shard quote:Shard Honestly, all of this is why Brandon Sanderson kicks rear end. You can enjoy these books as seperate entities, or you can sperg out about how they all tie together. This is what Stephen King wishes he could have accomplished with his Dark Tower series. Edit #3: This is the blog entry to read if you are curious what books are coming down the pipeline. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/925/Another-Long-and-Rambling-Post-on-Future-Books Here are the Shardworld books that he plans to work on. quote:•The Silence Divine (Shardworld novel, standalone.) Cartoon Man fucked around with this message at 14:50 on May 27, 2011 |
# ? May 27, 2011 14:29 |
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I was looking at that blog you posted for up coming books and noticed this: Steelheart (Superhero apocalypse.) Its under the might come out list, its only partially written but I really want to see this finished.
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# ? May 27, 2011 19:06 |
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I'm almost done with the Mistborn series. It's funny, the first one didn't really grab me 'til I was about halfway through it, and then I read the 2nd half in one sitting. Actually, that's happened with all three so far. I feel a Hero Of Ages marathon coming on. I'm really liking the magic systems, since it gives him room to come up with all sorts of crazy new poo poo to add in, but since the rules are so defined it never turns into some sort of way for the heroes to always win. I did get the sense he thought Atium was too powerful for the protagnists to use and still have tension in the story, though, since I don't think I remember Vin burning it past the end of the first book. I think I'm headed on to Warbreaker next. Is that one as good as Mistborn, or should I pick up a different one?
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# ? May 27, 2011 20:32 |
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Read Warbreaker, Elantris, and Way of Kings in any order you choose. They all own.
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# ? May 27, 2011 20:59 |
Ugly In The Morning posted:I did get the sense he thought Atium was too powerful for the protagnists to use and still have tension in the story, though, since I don't think I remember Vin burning it past the end of the first book. I believe in the annotations Brandon pretty much said he set up the 2nd book that way so that yeah there would be tension and then he could have Vin kick the asses of a bunch of sissy atium-burning Mistborn.
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# ? May 27, 2011 23:27 |
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It'll probably lower my chances of winning, but I can't not share this: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/05/alloy-of-law-arc-sweepstakes
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# ? Jun 1, 2011 00:04 |
A Nice Boy posted:It'll probably lower my chances of winning, but I can't not share this: Thanks man
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# ? Jun 1, 2011 03:31 |
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Quick question: Does this require signing up for anything, or is it just one quick comment and you're done?
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# ? Jun 1, 2011 03:32 |
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No signup required. Just a valid email address so they can mail you if you win. But yeah, on the Tor site you can comment...Enter whatever the hell name you want and throw your email addy on it.
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# ? Jun 1, 2011 06:19 |
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I had dinner with Brandon Sanderson yesterday, and he is a pretty awsome guy. We had a book signing with him earlier in the day, and had I known beforehand that I was going to be working yesterday, I would have asked here if anyone had any questions they wanted me to ask him. I think he has been one of the best authors we've had come sign for us, he took time with every fan and answered their questions while signing, and he ended up being there for 4 hours signing when we had only asked him for 2. He also seemed like a very honest and humble person, in contrast with his success. Not being a big wheel of time fan, I was most interested in what he had to say about his other books, but after a 4 hour signing I didn't want to pester him about it. You all probably know this, but he is making more books in the mistborn universe, but at later timelines. So the next book, alloy of law, will be a steampunk type book, and he will publish a science fiction book(s?) later on. Where the magic system is the same and they have developed new technologies to take better advantage of the magic they have. I think that sounds pretty awsome, and can't wait to pick them up. Anyway, I told him to join SA, and he said he would consider it depending on how much time he has for forums in the future, as he is pretty active on other sites as well.
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# ? Jun 2, 2011 12:56 |
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Awesome. I thought, from interviews and such that I've read, that he seems like a really cool, humble guy. Just finished Warbreaker, and I have to say that it's my favorite of his so far. I like how he was able to fit such a great, self contained world in about 650 pages, and I really liked the characters and plot. There were a few twists that suffered from not having much worldbuilding, like Denth/Vasher/etc turning out to be the really old guys from history. If he'd had more time to establish them in the minds of the everyday person, talk about them a bit more, it would have been way more a "whoa!" moment. As it was, it was merely "oh, that's pretty cool I guess." I really, really loved it...Something about it just flowed better than Mistborn in my opinion. It ends on a cliffhanger. Has he stated anywhere that he's planning on writing more in that universe? Gotta know more about Nightblood! It does some crazy poo poo in those last scenes that's never really explained.
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# ? Jun 2, 2011 22:36 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 05:14 |
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A Nice Boy posted:It ends on a cliffhanger. Has he stated anywhere that he's planning on writing more in that universe? Gotta know more about Nightblood! It does some crazy poo poo in those last scenes that's never really explained. His 'ANTICIPATED SEQUELS' list includes a book in fact called 'Nightblood'. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/62/Another-Long-and-Rambling-Postandtrade-on-Future-Books Don't expect it soon.
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# ? Jun 2, 2011 22:49 |