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rndmnmbr posted:I understand you're listening to the audiobook, but it's still bugging me. Ah! Thank you. I've avoided searching up any of the names since I got that Kelsier spoiler. I would have never guess that's how Sazed is spelt after how it is presented in the audiobook. I think the only qualm I have with the audiobook is that the narrator Sazed's dialog with an accent mimicking something like a Tibetan Monk. While not completely inappropriate based on what his character is, it just feels slightly culturally problematic. Though I do love Dockson having something approaching an Irish accent. The narrator, Michael Kramer, is very good.
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Nov 10, 2020 21:56
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The thing I like most about the novel is that everything feels like it's built to give the most satisfying moments possible in an action movie sort of way, if that makes sense. I never think "drat, it would have been cooler if this character did <this> instead." because they're already doing the coolest dramatic poo poo at any moment. I still think my favorite, most hype moment of the novel was the showdown with Shan. I was hootin. I was hollerin. It was escalated to be perfectly hype. I feel like Sanderson didn't miss any opportunities for poo poo to be cool.
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Nov 10, 2020 22:48
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:The Stormlight Archives is like that but even more so, so if that's where you're headed next ... So I see people mention the Cosmere - that's like Sanderson's loosely connected universe, right? The Sanderverse? Obviously as an obsessive dork, I'm going to have to read everything. Should I go in release order (in which case I already missed Elantris) or just series order? I was thinking of doing Mistborn 1-3, then going to Elantris, then Wax and Wayne, then Stormlight.
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Nov 10, 2020 23:01
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Yeah, I plan on tackling all of these through audiobooks (at least for the ones that are available). From how I did with Mistborn, I figure I can churn through about 12 or so hours of audiobook per week. So the next two Mistborn books should take just over two weeks each. The Stormlight books seem much longer and will probably take me at least a month each. Either way, I'm pleased to have drat near a year of audiobooks ahead of me.
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Nov 10, 2020 23:43
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The OreSeur/Vin relationship is so weird at the beginning of Well of Ascension. And I feel like Vin comes off like a bit of a dick with this. I wonder how much that tension between them is in this book. I hope it gets resolved sooner than later. Because right now it just feels like she abuses him since he is “under contract” and then he just is snarky in response. Other than that, I’m excited to see where this book goes. Definitely a slooooooooow start. EDIT: Overall, I feel like Vin is a little harsh and cruel at the start of this book (also, Vin confirmed to be okay with killing dogs). If this book ends up being more about her processing her trauma and guilt, then I'll be a little more accepting of this side of her. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Nov 12, 2020 |
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Nov 12, 2020 18:14
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Sab669 posted:How would you be if this thing ate your first real friend and mentor? As Elend said Kelsier was dead. A corpse. OreSeur didn't eat Kelsier. He ate Kelsier's corpse. Not only that, it was all according to Kelsier's wishes.
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Nov 12, 2020 18:55
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I mean if this was just Sanderson's way of saying "I wanted to give Vin a talking dog." then, I get it. I just hope that the hostilities between Vin and OreSeur don't last all book, because that could be tiresome.
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Nov 12, 2020 19:02
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Part 1 of Well of Ascension done. Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooy does this novel start out slow. I feel like the novel kind of suffers from everyone being scattered at the start. We're only given little tastes of each person's story. I assume Marsh and Sazed are going to undercover the "true threat" of the story, but we've only had such limited time with them and in the meantime it just feels like the story is spinning its wheels. Part 1 ends with the reveal that a Kandra has infiltrated their group and very likely one of their band is actually dead (I swear to god if it is Ham, I will loving fight someone). Hopefully this goes somewhere because right now I kind of find Kandra to be boring. I mean, in concept they are cool, but OreSeur is basically a personality-void and personality-void characters are not interesting characters. I'm sure there's an interset While, I'm not necessarily going to be upset if the threat of Straf's army is present until the end of the book, I'd still rather that gets dealt with sooner rather than later so we can move on to more interesting things. All-in-all, I don't really have much to say beyond that as there really isn't too much to talk about. There's a bunch of little details out there - the Watcher, the parliament's obstructionism, the brewings of class warfare, the mist shadows. But each one has only been given such little time that I don't really have much opinion. The Watcher is just Shadow Kelsier, isn't he? Getting "Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones" vibes. I also dislike how extra paranoid Vin is now. She was so strong and bold at the end of The Last Empire and she starts this one being so paranoid about anything bad happening. She's still strong and does cool poo poo, but she feels more brooding than she did at the end of book 1.
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Nov 13, 2020 03:45
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Tindwil Is awesome and is single-handedly saving this book.
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Nov 13, 2020 22:41
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I think I know what makes Well of Ascension feel so weak to start - We spend so much time in the beginning as readers knowing that there must be some bigger threat than the armies outside Luthadel, but the characters don’t yet. So it feels like we are waiting for everyone else to catch up and that part of the plot to finally kick in. Meanwhile, in the first book, we knew from fairly early on that it would inevitably end up in a showdown with the Lord Ruler.
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Nov 14, 2020 03:25
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So does Sanderson do those chapter interstitials in every one of his books? I've found them to be absolutely delightful in The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension.
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Nov 15, 2020 02:33
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KKKLIP ART posted:I wish that more fandom wikis had buttons or checkboxes that you could click that would adjust the amount of spoilers accordingly. Yeah. I really wish all wikis would keep the base pages pretty spoiler free and then break the spoilers down by book. Like you shouldn't start out a wiki page with "Kelsier was the leader of the skaa rebellion until he was killed by the Lord Ruler."
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Nov 15, 2020 20:34
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The Gardenator posted:Stay away from those wiki pages, a wiki on kelsier would spoil a lot of books for you. Totally. That’s why I’m just staying in this thread (and am constantly bombarding it with thoughts and questions). Wiki pages should be just a general description of a person/place/item/concept with breakout sections for each book where it is important/referenced. It drives me crazy when the very first sentence is massive spoilers. This also happens a lot when some characters are referred to in present tense and others are in past tense.
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Nov 15, 2020 21:01
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Well of Ascension chapters 17/18 At first it seemed like Zane wanted to gently caress Vin (maybe he does) but then just lol at the start of 18 “Zane was Elend’s brother” just dropping that casually out of nowhere. I appreciate Zane’s character already because I’ve been wondering why Mistborn were so willing to be followers. Why hasn’t one tried to lead a nation themselves? Seems better than a normal man. Also, I appreciate that Sanderson didn’t drag out that reveal. I felt like I only had a little more patience left with “mysterious watcher” character. It was the perfect time for the reveals.
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Nov 15, 2020 22:32
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The Well of Ascension might be a bit weaker than The Final Empire but there are two things I look forward to: 1 - Straf getting loving wrecked. He is such an amazing "I love to hate him" villain. I don't know how he'll die (I assume he'll die by the end of the book) but holy gently caress will it be satisfying. gently caress that guy. I love every moment he's in the story. gently caress him. 2 - Jastes getting hosed up by the koloss. Dude is clearly a tremendous loving moron and completely in over his head. I hope he's torn apart. Only other alternative is it ending with him begging Elend to save/protect him and becoming a loving joke to everyone. I'd rather he die. Jastes feels like he is basically: 
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Nov 16, 2020 05:50
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Everyone needs to abandon ship from this thread so that it can just become my personal thread for live posting my reactions to the original Mistborn trilogy.
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Nov 16, 2020 20:13
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I changed my mind. I don’t like Zane. He is doing exactly what I feared Reen would do in the first book and it suuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
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Nov 17, 2020 21:43
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I am now done with Part 2 of Well of Ascension My biggest problem with this book is it feels like everyone just became incredibly stupid between the end of the last book and the start of this one. Everyone was smacked a few times with a stupid stick and just makes bad decisions. Not to say they didn't make bad decisions in The Final Empire, but boooooooooooooy is this another level. Also you have the character regression. Vin can't decide whether she belongs with Elend or this mysterious stranger Zane (lol @ him being Elend's brother). The entire book feels like someone read The Final Empire and then wrote a "the after years" fan fiction. Zane is the loving biggest example of this. He's Mistborn. He's Elend's secret brother. He's too cool to wear a mistcloak and just wears all black. He hears voices because he's edgy. Zane is the Kai Leng of Mistborn. When is he going to break into someone's house and eat their cereal? (Only the real ones will get this reference.) My biggest complaint is that I'm 40% through this book and everyone is just waiting. And that's it. And it's the case where we as readers know there is something more there (with regard to The Deepness) and we're waiting for the characters to catch up. I assume that The Deepness will be the big threat for the final book (it is titled Hero of Ages, after all) so I would also assume that the characters won't actually piece together it is a threat until 80-90% of the way through this book since the siege is taking their attention. Give me back the endless balls from the first book. It's hard to care about Straf or Set or Jastes because we know the Deepness (or something related to it) is a bigger threat. Strat still owns though and I can't wait for his death. Wonder if he'll go out like Saruman with Zane as his Wormtongue. But yeah, overall, this book reads like someone's fanfiction trying to emulate Sanderson without actually being as skilled as him. It's a good thing this was not the first book in the series. I'm sure there are going to be a multitude of other stupid decisions these characters are going to make. socialsecurity posted:Everything about Zane is bad and dumb, end of book spoilers Zane related He's not in the next book at least which is why it's way better. I read this spoiler because I assumed this would be the case and I'm happy to know it is.
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Nov 18, 2020 02:33
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Tunicate posted:One thing that makes the zane scenes slightly less bad is that he's using the emotional metals on vin whenever he gets a chance, the problem is it never gets pointed out in the narrative and just comes across as weird out-of-character moments I'd argue that makes things even worse!!
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Nov 18, 2020 02:43
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Sab669 posted:What'd you think about Duralumin though? It hasn’t been used to any great effect yet. I just can’t stop thinking of Zane as Kai Leng.
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Nov 18, 2020 03:12
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rndmnmbr posted:Wait for it. My speculation for the rest of the book: Vin does something stupid and abandons the group because she has brain worms in this book and listens to Zane. But she spends time with Zane her doing show softens him and she is to Zane what Kelsier was to Vin. In the end, Zane sacrifices his life to save Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Nov 18, 2020 |
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Nov 18, 2020 04:32
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Elend needs to learn to shut gently caress up and stop telling on himself. I feel like this book is all about making the reader annoyed as gently caress with Elend. Elend has big “lawful good” energy and it loving sucks! Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Nov 18, 2020 |
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Nov 18, 2020 22:47
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Thanks to having to make a long drive today, in just a single day I was able to burn through all of part 3 of Well of Ascension. Really not much to talk about here. This part can be summed up as "Elend is a dumbass and Penrod is now king." That's pretty much all that happens. Elend is so infuriatingly stupid in this part and I hope that something good comes of it because if this whole book is just "lets dumpster Elend's character" then that sucks. Oh yeah, Vin making a dude's head explode was pretty cool.
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Nov 19, 2020 06:54
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Well of Ascension question - does Elend ever stop being a dumbass/annoyingly lawful good in this book? Or does something good ever come out of his dumbassery? I’m starting part 4 today and pretty much everything with Elend has been “I’m a mastermind! OH NO!!!” and it has been getting exhausting.
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Nov 19, 2020 20:17
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Elend Zane  No, I will not be taking questions.
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Nov 20, 2020 04:07
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Goddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd Part 4 of Well of Ascension is so good it almost makes up for parts 1-3 being so boring.
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Nov 21, 2020 00:50
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Here are my thoughts on Part 4 of Well of Ascension It feels like a completely different person wrote this part. Like, Sanderson took the pen away from the person writing the fanfiction of the first 3 parts and got the story back on track. Stuff happened! It was good! Great even! Elend murdered a Koloss. That was loving cool as hell. Vin went full Sephiroth on Keep Hasting. Very good and cool. Get the gently caress out of here Cett. Zane died!! WOOO. Hell yeah. Zane died as he lived - sucking. So the voice in his head is totally something important though right? Was the voice in his head... The Deepness? Or something greater? I know there's this whole greater Cosmere that y'all are talking about. I assume this relates to that in a way. Either way, gently caress Zane. He sucked. He basically added nothing to the story. Just like Kai Leng, he actively made the story worse and we're better off now with him removed from the story. The chapter with the old crew sitting around talking about getting Elend and Vin out of the city while they get prepared to die was very good. Just a solemn "Yup, we're all gonna die. Suicide mission time." will always get me on board. I still find Dockson to be very obnoxious in the this book. He feels like a completely different character from book 1. New Dockson sucks. I hope he finds some peace and becomes less lovely. Finally the relationship drama is put to loving bed. It was incredibly exhausting and incredibly boring. "Will they/won't they" bullshit is obnoxious in sitcoms and it's obnoxious in books too. The answer is almost always "yes, they will get together in the end" so the drama just lame and doesn't really add much to the story. It's a false tension because we know Vin and Elend are going to end up together. The loving twist with OreSere/TenSoon twist was so loving good and literally had me shout out "OH poo poo!!" as I was driving. Seems that Vin & Elend are leaving to Terris? Which.... seems weird? We've spent the entire story holed up in Luthadel and they're leaving with 20% of the book left? I assume something stops them. Another thing I notice - Marsh still needs to make his dramatic return. Will Marsh show up in the 11th hour, like he did in the first book? Who is to say. At some point - I think it was in part 3 or maybe even 2, someone mentioned "A guard reported seeing an Inquisitor in the city around Kredik Shaw." I assume this is Marsh. Needless to say, I'm actually looking forward to the final two parts of the story. I won't say that the goodness of Part 4 makes up for Part 1/2/3 being complete dumpster garbage, but it certainly reminded me of what I liked about the first book. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 01:21
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eke out posted:yeah you are now in the cool zone of book two, once the awful zane plot is over I will say that one of the only good things from parts 1-3 in WoA is Straf being a complete loving nervous spaz about the threat of Vin (and Zane).
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Nov 21, 2020 01:35
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Well of Ascension question (having finished part 4 of the book) - The voice that Zane heard - is that something directly tied to this trilogy or is it a greater Cosmere thing? I assumed it was The Deepness, but I wasn't sure if it was just a greater Cosmere thing.
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Nov 21, 2020 08:08
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So I've only got like 3 hours left of Well of Ascension and this sure is good (finally, thank gently caress). Three things that have stood out as especially awesome - Straf continuing to deteriorate. Straf is legit one of the characters I enjoy the most in this book. He's a completely irredeemable prick and so you don't have to ever feel bad when something awful happens to him. Seeing him cower in fear of Vin owned so hard. Finding out that his herbalist mistress was the one poisoning him and now Zane was loving great. He's a goddamn mess and it's the fuckin best. Elend meeting Jastes again. My assumption was that Jastes would end up Koloss food. This was even better. As soon as he showed up, I was shouting "KILL HIM!!!" so needless to say I was hootin and hollerin when Elend beheaded him. It was such a good loving moment. Zero hesitation. This is the Elend I've been wanting all book long. Luthadel being the location of the Well of Ascension is loving brilliant and I'm so mad that I never connected that previously. Even when Vin felt the drum beat softer, I didn't connect it. For the first 2/3rds of this book, I was thinking "goddamn, this book is titled 'Well of Ascension' but we aren't even really talking about it much!!" and when Vin/Elend left Luthadel I thought it was wild how the "journey to the Well" was starting at 80% of the way through the book. You fuckin got me, Brandon!!!  Speculation for the final 10% of this book: During the first book, the book makes it fairly clear that The Deepness wasn't properly defeated, despite what the characters think. I speculated that the relationship between the Lord Ruler and The Deepness was Diablo 2-style "man tried to absorb/contain evil and became evil because of it" or Futurama Slurm-style "We're milking this thing for its juices." The thing that comes up again and again in this book is "The Lord Ruler's Atium" and I had a suspicion very early on that it was connected to The Deepness. When the Diablo 2 theory went out, I leaned more toward the Slurm theory. At this point, my assumption is that the Lord Ruler was using the Atium as a way to imprison or reinforce the prison of The Deepness. Perhaps The Deepness is trapped within the Well of Ascension and the Atrum keeps it trapped. Hence why there is no secret stash of Atium and why the influence of The Deepness has increased. I've had this theory about the Atium-Deepness link since very very very early on in this book so it makes me even more mad that I didn't connect that Luthadel is the home of the Well of Ascension. OF COURSE IT WOULD BE. I'm so mad that I didn't figure that out. By my theory - since The Deepness is trapped within the Well, I assume this book ends with Vin thinking she's activating the Well's power but actually she releases The Deepness's full power - to be dealt with in Book 3. Yo - Mistborn feels like a Final Fantasy plot and I could not be happier about that.
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Nov 24, 2020 04:24
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TheMadMilkman posted:You are going to love book 3. I know people talk poo poo about video game plots or anime plots, and especially anime video game plots, but I love that poo poo. And you can tell that Brandon Sanderson is a gamer just by the way things are in these books. It's the most video game poo poo and I'm loving here for it.
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Nov 24, 2020 06:03
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Well that was an interesting ending. I have many thoughts.
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Nov 25, 2020 02:16
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Okay, I'm finally home and not phoneposting so here are my thoughts on the final 10% as well as the overall story of Well of Ascension. Let's start with the final 10% - The deaths - Clubs dying was sad, but I kind of felt like it was coming. The scene with Sazed talking religions and giving him the wooden disk felt like a big lampshade of "THIS CHARACTER IS GOING TO DIE NOW." Dockson's death surprised me, though I'm kind of glad he's gone, as lovely as that is to say. Dockson was great in book 1 but he barely had any presence in this book. And whenever he was around he just complained all the time and was argumentative. Tindwyl's death crushed me. loving devastating. I hope Breeze is okay. I really really like Breeze. The last time we see him, he's in massive shock and borderline comatose. There's no update on him post-battle. Marsh being evil now sucks.  I liked Marsh, but I guess becoming a steel inquisitor just means you're going to get corrupted over time. I assume we'll see a gently caress ton of steel inquisitors next book.Well, the Well trapped the greater evil, like I thought. Very video gamey but I loved it still. ELEND IS MISTBORN NOW THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER. Looking forward to double Mistborn adventures in the next book! Now Vin gets to be the Kelsier. Okay - as for the book as a whole - I think one of the things that hurt this book is that it just felt like there was lack of coherent structure. The first book very clearly followed the "heist story" blueprint, but this one just felt meandering at times. I feel like it just needed a stronger backbone for the the meat of the story to stick to. Here lies Zane - he never scored. Zane sucked. Added nothing to the book. Accomplished nothing. Truly the Kai Leng of this story. What ever happened to that merchant? Phylin? He was propped up as a significant force early in the book and then just disappears from the story. One thing I appreciate about both this book and the first one is that deaths are loving quick. Clubs is there, then he is dead. Dockson, the same. Same with Kelsier. Straf too! (Straf's death owned. A moment of terror, then death.) There's no "I'm laying here dying.... here is my 5 minute monologue as I die..... remember me......" Nah. Sword is here. You dead. The end. This, however, also makes it that if a character is in a prolonged battle (such as Sazed and Marsh at the end of the book), I'm not worried about Sazed dying as much because the more the story talks about death creeping in, the less likely the character is to die. Deaths are fast, brutal, and often unexpected. The interstitials from Quan in this book.... were bad. But also that was kind of the point? But also that doesn't make it better. I do like that the very first lines "Anything not written in steel cannot be trusted" was important at the end... but that was like... it? 90% of the Quan interstitials were absolutely nothing statements and often very very short. They basically added nothing to the story. I liked the "Lord Ruler's Journal" interstitials in book 1 because from those I was able to figure out that Rashik was the Lord Ruler. The Quan writings... give nothing. I totally get that there's a lot of misinformation because this evil presence was loving with reality, but it's like when you're playing a game and you get an escort quest and the character keeps making comments like "Boy escort quests sure do suck!" like that makes it okay. I am confused by the Mist Spirit. All this time, I thought it was a manifestation of The Deepness/the thing in the well. But I guess that's not the case? Very confusing. Overall, I agree with everyone that this was a tremendously weak followup to the first book. Not to say that I didn't enjoy it by the end. The first 2/3 were definitely a slog and could have been cut in half with little lost. Hell, the first 90% of the book is "These characters continue to fail/fuckup and everything gets worse." The only victory in that time is Zane dying, but that didn't feel like much because gently caress Zane. Instead of the plot being a rollercoaster of ups and downs, it was just continually going down and that's just fatiguing. I think that's about all my thoughts? Looking forward to starting the next book tomorrow. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Nov 25, 2020 |
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Nov 25, 2020 03:15
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Evil Fluffy posted:As far as scifi Cosmere stuff, Sanderson has already written a story that takes place in the far future of the Cosmere. I hope that Hero of Ages isn't filled with a lot of Vin being mopey about her actions. I assume she'll be mopey for a while, but hopefully not more than like 20-30% of the book because mopey Vin is boooooooooooooring.
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Nov 25, 2020 04:08
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Hero of Ages certainly starts strong. I like smaller, briefer chapters. It makes things feel like they flow faster. Plus it means more interstitials. Sort of confused by the interstitials so far. Dropping massive lore bombs from the start but I have no idea whose voice they’re coming from.
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Nov 25, 2020 23:06
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Torrannor posted:I'm sitting here, basically biting my tongue not to write anything that might spoil you. You will so enjoy the book and the reveals. Yeah, I'm only on chapter 5 right now and I've had to stop myself looking up a couple things as I'm sure they'll get explained and I'm so wary of spoilers after always falling into the trap of finding a spoiler when looking up very not spoiler things. I like the evolution of the Steel Inquisitors so far. Again, it feels very video gamey in a great way.
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Nov 26, 2020 01:09
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So I am still very very early on in Hero of Ages. As for the epigraphs - Before starting the book, I assumed they would be from Rashik. As we had Elendi’s journal in book 1 and Quan’s testament in book 2. Felt natural to end it with Rashik. But after going five chapters in, they reference Rashik, so it can’t be him. I’m convinced it but me Sazed as it is in his style of speech (“here is my statement, I think”). But I don’t know how this comes to be. I’m excited though because Sazed deserves some good stuff. Would have never expected him to become the Hero of Ages, but I’m excited for it.
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Nov 27, 2020 19:58
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RC Cola posted:I am reading Well Of Ascension again, and I must have forgotten how bad Zane was. I knew he sucked, but it's so much worse than I remember. Then again I was in high school when I read it. It's so weird because he really doesn't add much of anything to the book. He accomplishes next to nothing. He injects some artificial drama that amounts to nothing.
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Nov 28, 2020 18:57
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Wow, I do not like this "The Citizen" guy.
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Nov 29, 2020 00:23
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Hero of Ages - Uhhhh why did Kelsier’s ghost appear in flames to talk to Spook? What the gently caress is going on?
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Nov 30, 2020 21:05
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