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Torrannor posted:Some characters in Sandersons books die, but it's to fit their character arc or for story purposes, it's never done to shock you. I wouldn’t say never, but mostly. I can think of at least one instance of a woman being suddenly fridged.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:09
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stramit posted:Maybe this is factually wrong but to me it felt like Sanderson had his initial rise to popularity when the markets were getting over saturated with dark fantasy like grrm. It was a great contrast and really needed. and GRRM rose to prominence because of Robert Jordan, and RJ rose to prominence because of people tired of tolkien knockoffs. Which is hilarious, because the first book is "What if Gandalf a woman?!"
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Apr 26, 2024 16:39
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stramit posted:Maybe this is factually wrong but to me it felt like Sanderson had his initial rise to popularity when the markets were getting over saturated with dark fantasy like grrm. It was a great contrast and really needed. I mean Mistborn era 1 was what really shot him into popularity and id consider that the most grim dark or his main series.
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Apr 26, 2024 17:50
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socialsecurity posted:I mean Mistborn era 1 was what really shot him into popularity and id consider that the most grim dark or his main series. The thing I really liked about Mistborn era 1 was the lack of sexual violence. When I was a teenager/early 20something, I had, unfortunately, read the Sword of Truth series. They loved to talk about rape. Maybe not to the degree of GRRM but still they loved to talk about "oh this kingdom was taken, look at all these dead women tied to the beds. they were raped before their throats were slit" gently caress Terry Goodkind. Glad that rear end in a top hat is dead.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:00
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space uncle posted:I just finished my first Sanderson book, The Way of Kings. Whoop Whoop. Welcome to the Sando craziness. I would suggest you read Warbreaker before Word of Radiance. Please post your thoughts FOR EVERY CHAPTER while you read every Brandon Sanderson book. We eat those thoughts, opinions, and feelings up. Ask any questions as well. Welcome aboard!
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Apr 26, 2024 18:03
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Mordiceius posted:gently caress Terry Goodkind. Glad that rear end in a top hat is dead.  Also, remember that banning guns is the same as banning fire, also communism is bad, and also, mass war crimes are good if they are done by the right people. Also also, the Clintons are extras super duper bad, which is why the Clinton stand-ins die from an incurable STD, in addition to all the other bad things that happened to them in the end. Objectivism is the only correct way to think, and being vegan is evil. Also also, being a pacifist is evil. I can hardly believe I read all this crap as a teenager.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:04
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Mordiceius posted:The thing I really liked about Mistborn era 1 was the lack of sexual violence. When I was a teenager/early 20something, I had, unfortunately, read the Sword of Truth series. They loved to talk about rape. Maybe not to the degree of GRRM but still they loved to talk about "oh this kingdom was taken, look at all these dead women tied to the beds. they were raped before their throats were slit" Oh absolutely, even reading something like Dresden makes me feel slimy where the main character describes every teenagers tits. He's gotten better in recent years but people used to complain about his Mormonism making things too sexless, I prefer that to the rapefest that is many other fantasy series.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:09
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Grundulum posted:Sanderson isn’t Martin. He has his own tendencies that you might notice, but he doesn’t seek to write the same kind of fantasy stories Martin does. I never read any Goodkind, from the reactions it sounds like I dodged a bullet. I did finish the first Robert Jordan novel but didn’t really care for it. I think hearing that Sanderson was tied into finishing the series (even though I always heard it in the context of praise) put me off trying his books. I enjoyed Rothfuss, I enjoyed Dresden files, also enjoyed Joe Abercrombie. I read all of the Game of Thrones books and found the latter two fairly weak but wanted to know what was going to happen. I’m not sure if it’s just hitting a point in my life where I’m too old or too stressed out or too strapped for time - but I no longer want to read a Martin-style book where every page is grimmer and darker than the last. I’m sure there’s even more depressing non fiction and people reading that would tease me for avoiding uncomfortable fantasy novels, but whatever. Ok but back to TSA:TWOK thoughts per your excellent book club prompts. Spoilers for the The Way of Kings only: Guesses for what is going to happen further in the series: We need to get the band back together. There’s that very first opening scene with 10 dudes giving up 10 swords (Knights Radiant? dawnbringers? Surgebinders? All of the above). Void bringers / Desolation / Odium will come back. Once the band is back together they can help fight them. If the Desolations are cyclical then we will need to go one step further beyond just fighting the bad guys and break the cycle, which apparently has never happened. Ghostbloods got mentioned at the very end so they gotta figure out what those guys deal is, no idea whose side they are on. I think the the “Unite them” is referring to bringing the humans and the Parshendi/parshmen together. I know the big reveal at the end is that the Parshmen are voidbringers but they seem like reasonable dudes for the most part so I doubt they get set up to be straight up otherworldly evil shadow demons. Important stuff - need to resolve the assassination mission of Szeth against Dalinar and also figure out what the gently caress Taravangian is doing with all these assassinations. Kaladin needs to have a moment of respite and not be on the verge of death / nervous collapse / guilt driven suicide for one thousand straight pages. Renarin needs to do more stuff, not sure what his deal is. Looking forward to Sadeas’s comeuppance which I did unfortunately spoil for myself (I just wanted to see if Dalinar and Adolin were gonna live OK) Shallan started out as irritating when she was an adorkable spoiled child being carried around a city by slaves and pirates. She definitely grew on me with her love of reading and drawing. If she eats any more loving bread or jam I will roll my eyes so hard though. Please diversify your diet lady. I liked her sections with Jasnah, I like learning more about the world through them. The Soulcaster fake caught me totally by surprise. She also mentioned killing her dad which was never explained? Interesting. Marble world (Shadesmar) has been kind of whelming so far but could get cool later.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:41
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space uncle posted:Looking forward to Sadeas’s comeuppance which I did unfortunately spoil for myself (I just wanted to see if Dalinar and Adolin were gonna live OK) Never self-spoil yourself with Brandon Sanderson's books because spoilers last multiple books, and that sucks the fun out of reading them. You have some good guesses but you'll need to read and find out. However, I will repeat myself, and say you should read Warbreaker before Words of Radiance. All books are connected for a reason 
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Apr 26, 2024 18:48
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Also for avoidjng spoilers. The coppermind wiki does have a time machine mode (where you set it to the wiki as of the day before a book was released), but it only really works well for like, oathbringer and on when they had a decently built wiki
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Apr 26, 2024 18:52
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The first 10 chapters of the Dragonsteel Prime audiobook just got posted on Brandon's YouTube https://youtu.be/NxITmA3tads?si=Htjmrl0CaspHQ4xl
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Apr 26, 2024 18:58
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Speaking of lovely grimdark fantasy, I've been listening to Way of Kings Prime on my commute and I'm super glad the final book didn't include the Shallan rape and multiple forced child marriages.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:04
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space uncle posted:I never read any Goodkind, from the reactions it sounds like I dodged a bullet. Goodkind is a cross between Robert Jordan and GRRM but taking the worst elements of both of them. He died a couple years ago to "undisclosed causes" - I am willing to put money down that he died to covid and was a covid denier. He was 72 years old and it was Sept. 2020. Get hosed, shithead.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:30
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taco_fox posted:Speaking of lovely grimdark fantasy, I've been listening to Way of Kings Prime on my commute and I'm super glad the final book didn't include the Shallan rape and multiple forced child marriages. ew, thanks for the warning, cross that one off my list
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Apr 26, 2024 20:50
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eke out posted:ew, thanks for the warning, cross that one off my list
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Apr 26, 2024 20:54
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yeah i frankly don't have a lot of interest in a "i wrote a whole book but i needed to throw it out and rewrite it completely" deal like twok prime dragonsteel at least will have some hints at what the heck is going on in the rest of his universe he's still cagey about
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Apr 26, 2024 21:12
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eke out posted:yeah i frankly don't have a lot of interest in a "i wrote a whole book but i needed to throw it out and rewrite it completely" deal like twok prime I'm of the mind that, generally speaking, if an author says "This was bad, that's why I didn't publish it" then I have zero interest in even looking. Because if it's worse than Elantris, then it must be really bad.
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Apr 26, 2024 21:13
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Mordiceius posted:I'm of the mind that, generally speaking, if an author says "This was bad, that's why I didn't publish it" then I have zero interest in even looking. Because if it's worse than Elantris, then it must be really bad. Same, TWoK Prime has no interest for me Like if some other people find some archaeological points of interest I'd find that fascinating but I'm not going to dig into a malformed product
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Apr 27, 2024 02:36
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Chapter 82 of Oathbringer (The Girl Who Stood Up) might be my favorite individual chapter of any Brandon book.
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Apr 27, 2024 23:24
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taco_fox posted:Speaking of lovely grimdark fantasy, I've been listening to Way of Kings Prime on my commute and I'm super glad the final book didn't include the Shallan rape and multiple forced child marriages. the what now
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Apr 29, 2024 17:31
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So uhh.... Oathbringer part 3. That was a thing.
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Apr 29, 2024 18:29
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Mordiceius posted:So uhh.... Oathbringer part 3. That was a thing. Yeah, some real brutal stuff in there, I assume you'll write up more detailed thoughts later? I'm curious how they compare to my own from that point.
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Apr 29, 2024 18:45
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:the what now
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Apr 29, 2024 18:46
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Yeahhh I'm glad Sanderson scrapped that, it's just so unfitting for the series' tone.
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Apr 29, 2024 19:02
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He's talked in the past that early in his career he was being pushed to be more like GRRM, so that's possibly why the tone was so off in TWoKP
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Apr 29, 2024 19:58
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pik_d posted:Yeah, some real brutal stuff in there, I assume you'll write up more detailed thoughts later? I'm curious how they compare to my own from that point. OATHBRINGER PART 3 Wow. TLDR: I liked this a lot. I know Brandon often talks about how he feels like each Stormlight book is three books in one. Maybe I'm taking his words too literally, but often times it doesn't feel that clean. Most of his books don't feel like they have three unique arcs or anything like that. Nor do they necessarily feel like three books woven together across the duration. Oathbringer Part 3 is the first time I've kind of felt that. Honestly, I felt like Part 2 of Oathbringer ended up being a little meandering (maybe my opinion will change by events that happen later). Oathbringer Part 3 is my favorite section, thus far, of The Stormlight Archive. Let's get into it: First off, I'll say that one of the main reasons that I find Part 3 so strong is that it is almost entirely about the Kholinar situation. After the little bit toward the beginning with Dalinar in Theylan City and Azimir, we're almost exclusively spending time in Kholinar. Let's start by addressing Dalinar - both in present and flashbacks. Present Dalinar - I love his sudden realization about his gently caress-ups in diplomacy. How he immediately leaps into "I NEED TO DUEL THIS MAN!!!!" Yeah, he's cool. Yeah, he's a badass. But that's not good enough. The humbling of Dalinar is absolutely fantastic. Seeing him work to build bonds is so exciting that it feel electric. He's finally becoming a leader that can inspire via his deeds to help others vs someone who leads due to control and fear . Flashback Dalinar - What a dick. I love how much the flashbacks earlier in the book essentially started with "Haha what a funny barbarian man" and then transition to "Look at this abusive monster." He's a terrible husband and father. I love the Dalinar flashbacks. The Dalinar flashbacks also make me incredibly uncomfortable. It is such a fun contrast to the present version of him. I think it was smart to hold them back until the 3rd book because we get two books of Dalinar just being a cool dude before the reveal of "Oh actually, he's one of history's greatest monsters and it makes sense why every other monarch loving hates him." I had assumed Dalinar would murder Evi, but I wouldn't have expected it to go like that. I like the way it was handled - with her death being indirectly caused by him instead of him being overcome with The Thrill and swinging his sword to strike her down, like I had assumed would happen. The stuff at The Rift was... rough. Kholinar - I feel like Shallan and Wit are the stars here. I love every interaction with them. The unraveling of Shallan was fantastic - her becoming more and more unhinged with her personas. The death of Grund was surprising and a great shock to things. This all lead to chapter 82 (The Girl Who Stood Up) with Wit and Shallan talking in the room. Despite it being a 30 minute chapter of the two of them talking, it is probably my favorite chapter across any Brandon book. There is just so much heart there. When Wit tells Shallan to not ignore the pain inflicted upon her but at the same time recognize that she didn't deserve it - gently caress, man! That chapter was "Wit talks about surviving trauma." Incredibly emotional and effective. Azure - Clearly Vivenna. It's cool seeing her being a complete badass. She's clearly been thorugh some poo poo since the end of Warbreaker. I wonder where she got the scars on her face. I assume her time on Roshar will take place before the Warbreaker sequels? The timeline on how all of these series intersect is fuzzy at best. Kaladin - Goddamn. That was rough. I did like when Kaladin showed up to the tailor shop with the army and Adolin though "Goddamn, only a few days with these guys and Kaladin already became their leader." That got a good laugh out of me. We finally get payoff for Kaladin's time with the "free" Listeners - and it was a bad time for all. The chapter with just everyone dying and Kaladin seeing the true horrors of war is another one of the best things Brandon has written. It did not feel good at all. I'm sure Kaladin will be super depressed after this and it is completely justified. Adolin - is Adolin and he's fantastic. I did like that he was terrified when they flew to Kholinar. I love Adolin as the POV character for the transition into Shadesmar. It's great seeing a "common" person's reaction to that space. ADDICTION - I feel like a reoccuring theme in this book is addiction. We've seen Teft addicted to firemoss. Shallan is addicted to using her personas. Dalinar was addicted to The Thrill. The Heart of the Revel feeds off peoples addiction to excess. I'm not a smart enough man to write any deeper thoughts than that, but while trauma seems to be the general theme of The Stormlight Archive, addiction feels like the theme of Oathbringer. It was good and I can't believe that there's almost exactly 1/3 of the book remaining. If this is what we're getting right now, I feel like the next 18 hours of audiobook are going to be non-fuckin-stop.
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Apr 29, 2024 20:50
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Jose Valasquez posted:He's talked in the past that early in his career he was being pushed to be more like GRRM, so that's possibly why the tone was so off in TWoKP
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Apr 29, 2024 23:01
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Mordiceius posted:OATHBRINGER PART 3 Yeah, Part 3 is pretty crazy and you're also right that the rest of the book is not going to slow down. It is such an action packed book, the most of any of the big Stormlight books. Kaladin (OB Part 3) must suffer.
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Apr 30, 2024 01:20
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Mordiceius posted:shallan stuff Re: Shallan - RoW spoilers (don't read yet Mordiceius) The first time I read OB I felt pretty much how you do, it's a fantastically written chapter and the characterizations are wonderful. But on reread I find it really, really frustrating. Shallan has like 5 separate epiphanies in OB about how her split personas are a total fiction and that she isn't actually those people and doesn't have the experience she pretends they have, and they all culminate in this chapter. By itself that would be... fine, people often realize their flaws without acting to fix them for a long time. But this is a story, and it needs arcs that resolve - for example Kaladin has chronic depression and it flares up a lot, but you can see the points in the books where he crosses a threshold and does a lot better, and it requires a big inciting incident (like that battle) to kick it back up into high gear. This should have been that turning point for Shallan - not that she suddenly gets better and resolves her DID of course, but true realization that she has a problem she needs to work on addressing. But what actually happens is that she keeps getting worse, no matter how many epiphanies she has about how destructive her disorder is, she continues to lean into it harder and harder, it's an unbelievable chore to read her chapters in RoW because of this. There's an element of realism here, disorders like this can often be lifelong struggles (even though her DID is definitely more magic than reality), but in a story it feels super unsatisfying and frustrating to read the character make the same mistakes over, and over, and over - not without introspection, but without acting on the introspective moments that she does have. She knows it's a problem and just does nothing about it! If her DID had taken a turning point here and she started trying to reign her split personalities in it would have been a much, much more satisfying arc. Instead we get all the tedious Shallan chapters where she gets so deep into her DID that she literally sees her different personalities as entirely different people, rather than versions of herself created to deal with trauma. I recently finished a re-read of OB (I'll do a full re-read review at some point probably), and this is by far the biggest flaw in the book, which is a real shame because the rest of the book is so drat good, by far my favorite of his (though WoK will always have a special place for me)
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Apr 30, 2024 08:46
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I feel like Oathbringer has been a loving tour de force of what Brandon can do (and I still have a third of it left!!) Even the first chapter of Part 4 (Voices) - a Dalinar flashback where he is looking for some alcohol to quiet the voices. He talks early in the chapter about how old Gavilar looks and how Dalinar is going to be a good brother and take his brother on an adventure and so on. It makes it seem like Dalinar has his poo poo together, just coping with life, loss, and trauma. Sure, he needs a little drink here or there, but it's just to take the edge off. Then you get to him hearing the conversation at the end between Gavilar, Adolin, and Elhokar where it is clear Dalinar does not have his poo poo together and he is a barely functional alcoholic. It recontextualizes the rest of the chapter as clearly Dalinar is not a reliable source of how he appears to those around him.
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Apr 30, 2024 17:55
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Mordiceius posted:OATHBRINGER PART 3 No additional spoilers reply: And that's why all that time spent world-building and character building pays off. Almost every magical session I've had in the RPG campaigns I've run over the decades has involved a group of well-established characters in a well-established world and a challenging situation, having a conversation, whether about what to do or what it all means or how they should even approach the situation theoretically. The stakes in a combat scene are easy to detect and understand, and don't necessarily take a lot of time or development (although they can benefit from that). But a meaningful conversation can be dramatic and revealing and significant and change the course of a story, all without a single sword being swung. Sanderson is better at the dramatic and revealing action scenes than the conversations, I think, but he's really good at both and he's improving, too.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:14
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Taffer posted:Re: Shallan - RoW spoilers (don't read yet Mordiceius) The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Brandon Sanderson: Spoilers (don't read yet Mordiceius)
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Apr 30, 2024 19:26
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theysayheygreg posted:The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Brandon Sanderson: Spoilers (don't read yet Mordiceius) I read it.  Dalinar is my favorite character, but Shallan is the character I get most excited for, if that makes sense. Narsham posted:Sanderson is better at the dramatic and revealing action scenes than the conversations, I think, but he's really good at both and he's improving, too. I agree. His dramatic action and reveals are always top notch. So when he nails the "two characters sitting and talking" scenes, they land that much harder. That chapter literally had me in tears by the end. Every time I think back to it, it makes me emotional. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Apr 30, 2024 |
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Apr 30, 2024 20:45
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Taffer posted:Re: Shallan - RoW spoilers (don't read yet Mordiceius) Technically this covers RoW, but no plot spoilers, just further discussion about Shallan's and Kaladin's particular mental illnesses: I feel like this is the same complaint as people who are angry that Kaladin always ends up in a depressive funk, yet again. Also, I have the privilege of being entangled with a person with DID. I've spent god knows how many hours deep down that well with those afflicted, and let me tell you: It's extremely common for this to happen at some point on their journey: "she gets so deep into her DID that she literally sees her different personalities as entirely different people, rather than versions of herself created to deal with trauma". It's the single most realistic thing about her DID. The magical part is that for Shallan, they actually exist (or can be projected).
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Apr 30, 2024 21:38
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Light WoR/OB character spoiler: That's fair enough. Kaladin resonates with me because I and many others in my life have dealt with depression, but I've never known anyone with DID. I'm glad it works well for those who've dealt with it. ... But I do still feel like she needs more moments of clarity or respite. Kaladins depressive episodes can be hard to read sometimes, but he has lots of chapters where he very intentionally overcomes and resists it (which mirrors my own experiences), I feel that the same isn't true for Shallan, but maybe that is more accurate to reality than I realize. Taffer fucked around with this message at 05:29 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 05:25
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So it sounds like Dragonsteel Con is getting a name change. Current alternative is Nexus https://youtu.be/eP8GtUHrJ4Q?si=ECdSKSGJ8q7xRh3z
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May 1, 2024 06:03
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The line between realism + treating a real medial issue with necessary care vs. Having satisfying resolutions to plot arcs is a tough one that Sanderson is trying to work through.
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May 1, 2024 10:13
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M_Gargantua posted:The line between realism + treating a real medial issue with necessary care vs. Having satisfying resolutions to plot arcs is a tough one that Sanderson is trying to work through. Yeah Children's stories often have "just-so" resolutions because that's the level of sophistication they have; bad guys are obviously mean and ugly and get their just desserts at the end. It's satisfying but simplistic. As people get older they realize things aren't that simple, and the media they consume reflects that. Enemies can be hidden behind pleasant faces, allies and friends can look scary until you get to know them, people can switch sides, but ultimately there's still good and evil. More complicated stories deal with even more nuance; everyone is well-intentioned and also lovely sometimes, bad things happen because of their actions that nobody wanted, sometimes people do terrible things for no apparent reason. What these stories lack in moral clarity they exchanged for realistic depictions of the human condition. With Sanderson, he's clearly at the latter end of the scale but with the complication that he's depicting real-world issues and illnesses but with magic involved. It gets into the issue of depicting things like rape, genocide, torture, and other horrid real-life things in your fantasy novel - those things don't have to exist in your world, so if you include them there should be a good reason and it should be respectful of the people who endured them in real life. How is Shallan's magical DID different from the real thing? Having a magical resolution to it can be narratively satisfying but unrealistic to real-world sufferers and those who know them, but depicting it realistically can be unsatisfying because sometimes there's not a happy ending to these diseases. I do not envy Sanderson's task but he's at least approaching it with sensitivity, so even if he fails I think he gets a lot of leeway
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May 1, 2024 15:36
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Just got an email that this is the last day to "pre-order" anything from the recent leatherbound campaign. I missed out on snagging the new secret project ebook during the actual campaign, but was able to grab it from this pre-order shop, so if you're in a similar boat this is your last day to get it figured out.
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May 2, 2024 18:49
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As much as Sanderson likes to beat you over the head with repeated exposition it actually works when it comes to mental illness because that poo poo does not go away.
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May 2, 2024 20:01
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