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Newest full-length (non-WoT) book: Mistborn: The Alloy of Law - A Victorian-tech Mistborn sequel set a few centuries after the original trilogy. It will probably have Allomantic battles with guns. But here's what Tor has to say (spoiled for spoilers in the original trilogy): Tor.com posted:Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds. Read the prologue and chapter 1 on Tor's site. Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Brandon Sanderson's Twitter account posted:Another week of working on the Alloy of Law revision. I think you guys are going to enjoy this book--very fun. So, who's this Brandon Sanderson guy? A robot pretending to be a #1 NYT bestselling fantasy author. Seriously, this guy is a writing machine. He cranks out at least one new book every year and writes during his time off. If you like fast-paced high fantasy with rules-based magic systems, you'd probably like his books. Each one (on average) has one new magic system, too, so you're always getting something new. If you want a good introduction to his work, you can try Warbreaker, which he has as a free download on his web site. If you like that, I'd suggest checking out the Mistborn series next, which is a trilogy that covers the downfall of a tyrant who ignored his calling to save the world, choosing to enslave it instead, and the subsequent fallout. Wait, isn't he the guy who finished up the Wheel of Time? Why, yes. Yes, he is, and he did a fantastic job of it. The Wheel of Time is different than his other books, though. He tends to focus mostly on the world and the plot and his books tend to be very backloaded with lots of buildup to awesome endings, which actually made him a very good choice to finally tie up the series. Links and stuff Brandon Sanderson's site Brandon Sanderson's Livejournal Brandon Sanderson's Twitter Older books:  The Way of Kings, Book 1 of the Stormlight Archives What's this "Stormlight Archives" thing? This is Brandon Sanderson's (planned) ten-book series that he's been trying to get written for years, even since before his first book was published. Yes, it's going to be huge. Even the first book is going to be a long one. However, he's had enough practice that he's probably going to be able to pull it off, especially since he's finishing up the Wheel of Time. He's getting a lot of practice tying off 12,473 different plot threads, so I'm just going to assume he's going to keep things a bit more straightforward here. So, what's it about? Honestly, the best way to find out would be to read the chapters one through three followed by four through six for free on tor.com (use BugMeNot if you don't want to register). Nine and eleven are also available, but seven, eight, and ten seem to have been skipped for some reason. If you don't want to read through the first 10% of the book or so, the description on Barnes and Noble's site can describe it better than I ever could. Is it worth reading? If you like Brandon Sanderson's other books, if you like the extensive thought put into worldbuilding in Patrick Rothfuss's books, or if you like fantasy books where the magic systems actually have concrete rules behind them, then yes, you probably will like it. I was fortunate enough to end up with an ARC of the book that I just finished about an hour ago and I can honestly say that I can't wait to read the next one. Way of Kings links Prologue and chapters 1-3 on Tor.com Chapters 4-6 on Tor.com Chapters 9 and 11 on Tor.com The Way of Kings on Wikipedia Other books  Elantris This being Brandon's first published book, it is noticeably rougher than some of his later works, but still worth reading. For many years, the citizens of Elantris were treated as gods, being granted the power to use Aons to do things no normal person can. Recently, however, Elantris has fallen under a curse and has been turned into a prison rather than a paradise. Its magic has failed and the citizens themselves have changed. Their bodies don't wear out, but they also don't heal if they're injured and they still feel pain and hunger. Some go insane from this. Others stay hidden unless they spot food somewhere and hope they don't take too much of a beating in getting it. This magic system is Aons. Think magical glyphs. This is probably the loosest of Sanderson's magic systems in his published books, since there are hundreds of these things.  The Mistborn Trilogy Ever wonder what would have happened in the Lord of the Rings if Frodo had kept the ring? This is kind of like that. The prophesied hero kept what he shouldn't have and now, a thousand years later, rules with an iron fist. Just a fair warning, the first book is something of a heist movie in book form, but the other two are drastically different. (Small spoiler for books 2 and three) With the Lord Ruler dead at the end of book 1, the other two are about what to do in a power vacuum. The magic systems for this series are (book 1) Allomancy, a system where people swallow and then "burn" them for specific effects like pulling on a metal object or suppressing someone's emotions based on what metal is burned, (book 2) Feruchemy, a system where people wear metals and store a specific attribute such as speed or wakefulness in them over time and then draw them out for use later, and (book 3) Hemalurgy, a system that steals Allomantic or Feruchemical powers through human sacrifice.  Warbreaker (free PDF version available on Brandon's site) In this book, the dead occasionally come back to life with unusual powers. Most countries shun them and wait for them to die again in a week, but one country worships them as gods and goes to great efforts to prolong their unlives. This book deals with the politics of this country and how they relate to a neighboring country whose princess was promised to their god-king. Honestly, I'm not really sure how to explain this one, but fortunately it's available for free, so take a look at the PDF or the Warbreaker portal on Brandon's site for more information. This magic system is BioChromatic Breath. Everybody is born with one Breath, which is essentially a sense of life. It's possible to voluntarily give up one's Breath to somebody else, in order to give that person more power. Breath is essentially magic points that can be reclaimed when whatever they're used for is no longer needed, however having more Breath also confers certain effects on the holder. This can be anything from being able to recognize how much Breath somebody holds to being able to give life to inanimate objects. Other stuff about Brandon Yes, he's goony (though in a good way). Twitter posted:Sweet. Liberi Fatali just came on Pandora for me. I'd never checked any Uematsu. Have now. No, he's not a goon. Twitter posted:Just got a fan mail that asked only one question: Do I have stairs in my house. Uh...should that question creep me out? Twitter posted:Also, I'm told the stairs thing is from Something Awful. I've been by before, but wouldn't say I'm a goon. Not enough time. He is, however, very personable and a really nice guy. The people who have actually met him in person can probably say more than I can, but I haven't heard of anybody who hasn't said he's an awesome guy to hang out with at conventions or signings. Kreeblah fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Jan 19, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2010 05:40
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Dramatika posted:And his other current project, WoT book 13 - Towers of Midnight, comes out within a month of this. Um, you sure on that? The date I've got for ToM is in November. Xyrael posted:Also it should be noted that Sanderson is a machine and this series will definitely be completed in a timely fashion, barring an act of God. This is true. I seriously don't know how he manages to write as much as he does.
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Aug 2, 2010 22:15
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Rahlalala posted:I'll be picking this up too and having him sign my copy at Dragon*Con that next weekend. Yeah, I don't have any sources handy (I think it's probably buried in his blog somewhere), but I know he's said he's planning on writing two more trilogies. One's going to be with a modern-day equivalent society and one's going to be in a futuristic setting. Allomancy in space is going to be interesting, to say the least.
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Aug 3, 2010 03:48
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ElMudo posted:I've read the same thing. I've found the best place to read for tantalizing tidbits about Sanderson's planned works is here. There are a number of mentions of the future books he has planned in the Mistborn world. Be careful clicking around, though, as there are a ton of spoilers on those forums. Brandon himself posts there occasionally. I've poked around there occasionally, which is how I found about about Hoid. I'm really wondering whether he's just going to leave it as a metaplotline or actually develop it directly at some point. Edit: Chapters nine and eleven are up on Tor.com, but they seem to have skipped seven, eight, and ten for some reason. More importantly, there's a giveaway for an advance reading copy through August 6th. They're only giving one away, though. I've added these to the OP. Edit 2: I forgot Goodreads is doing an ARC giveaway, too. This one has 200 copies available, so people who enter are going to have a better chance then people who enter the Tor giveaway. Kreeblah fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Aug 4, 2010 |
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Aug 3, 2010 19:59
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Streebs posted:Links Don't forget http://twitter.com/hoidsdiary (also, spoilers)
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Aug 3, 2010 21:36
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ConfusedUs posted:Warbreaker is available on his site in pdf format, free. If you've a kindle, it's easy to read in its native format. There's that, or there's a Mobipocket (the actual Kindle format) version of the revision just before the one that was sent for publication. I'm not sure exactly what the differences are, but they're supposedly pretty minor. I just find PDFs to still be a bit of a pain on my Kindle. They do work, but something with reflowable text is really a far better experience.
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Aug 5, 2010 22:45
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Ornamented Death posted:I went to preorder this based on the sample chapters and Amazon recommended I also get this. I had honestly given up hope that Rothfuss would finish that series. He's had a lot going on in his life (parents dying, etc.), so I figured it'd be a while. I'm not counting on that date just yet, though, since I haven't heard anything official. Amazon sometimes puts release dates up that are really no better than flat-out guesses.
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Aug 11, 2010 18:44
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Dramatika posted:http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2010/04/i-said-id-tell-you-when-i-knew/ Yeah, I've been reading his blog, but I forgot he posted about that. Here's looking forward to March, I guess.
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Aug 11, 2010 23:51
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Yep. I absolutely love strictly-defined magic systems. They give stories a larger-than-life feel while still forcing the characters to be clever.
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Aug 30, 2010 05:10
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I don't think he said this was going to be any longer or shorter than any of the other ones, so they could be. If he keeps that up for all ten books or whatever, we might well end up with a series that's longer (wordcount-wise) than the Wheel of Time.
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Sep 1, 2010 16:37
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j3rkstore posted:Did I miss this as well? If I'm remembering right, just before she melts her lamp via soulcasting, she considers pulling it out.
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Sep 6, 2010 17:15
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I'm not going to spoil anything, but yes. Yes, they do. Keep in mind while you're reading this that it's the start of a series that's planned at ten books. If you're used to stand-alone books or trilogies, it's going to feel slower, but if you can work with that, it's a lot of fun.
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Sep 9, 2010 03:14
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Neep posted:That the death of the Lord Ruler was a bit too easy after all that build up about how super-powerful he was. I agree, in that it does seem weird after the first book, but it makes a lot more sense if you read the other two. Besides, the Lord Ruler becomes a significantly more interesting character in the other books, even though he's already dead. Neep posted:I started Warbreaker, which isn't bad so far, but I really do see now how Sanderson is in LOVE with magic systems. Especially, comparing Mistborn/Warbreaker/Way of Kings I can see it. I'm not sure about the Alcatraz series, but for the rest of them, there has been at least one magic system created or investigated with each book. Aons for Elantris, Allomancy, feruchemy, and hemalurgy for the Mistborn books, BioChromatic Breath for Warbreaker, and the Stormlight stuff for the Way of Kings. This is a little more interesting, though, when you find out that (multi-series spoiler) all of these settings are linked. There's a character, Hoid, that shows up in each of those books (not just a similar character, but the same actual guy) who's apparently going to get his own book at some point to explain what he's doing. I imagine he'll probably also go into what happened with Adonalsium (the dead god whose fragments are creating all these magic systems), since that's the other big meta-plot thing right now.
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Oct 5, 2010 23:57
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Uh, bad news, guys. It looks like the Sanderson writing machine is going to be slowing down for the foreseeable future. 
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Oct 13, 2010 06:13
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Cartoon Man posted:Has the book been out long enough to still need spoilers in the thread? It's been out for almost two months, so I don't personally have a problem with dropping spoiler tags once the thread hits the next page so people aren't accidentally spoiled on this one. I don't know how that sort of thing usually works around here, though.
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Oct 28, 2010 17:43
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cheese posted:A friend of mine who likes a lot of the same books just finished and said he had mixed feelings. The action and word building was good, but he said it read sort of like a humorless Malazan Book of the Fallen. I love me an epic fantasy series but is it really that devoid of light hearted scenes? One of the best things about Malazan is that while some of the humor was a little on the corny 'he talks funny' side, it was amusing and timely enough to break up otherwise heavy storylines. Is that not the case here and if so, how do you see that impacting the series? Even Joel Ambercrombies First Law series, some of the darkest fantasy I've read, had the odd humorous exchange written in. I don't think I can do 8k pages devoid of comic relief. Well, this book actually makes sense by itself, so I dunno where he got the Malazan comparison from.  Seriously, though, I would consider the First Law to be significantly darker than this, so if you were OK with that, you'll probably be OK with this. The suggestion to read the Mistborn series first is a good one, though, if you're still on the fence. Keep in mind, though, that this book is the first in a planned 10-book series, so while it does have its own story arc and a lot of things do happen in it, it's basically a long prologue.
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Nov 16, 2010 07:28
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Gamesguy posted:I don't generally read much fiction, but I loved this book and the Name of the Wind by Rothfuss. I think I like the downtrodden youth rises to greatness genre(my favorite character in this book was the spear guy). Have you read Mistborn? It also has the "downtrodden youth rises to greatness" thing going on and Elantris kinda does, too. For other authors, you might like Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy, though it does get a bit dark in parts (it's a series about assassinations; go figure). If that doesn't bother you or if you can get past it, it's a fun read.
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Nov 28, 2010 09:05
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IRQ posted:Is that the dude acting like Gurm but actually being up front ab out having crippling depression writer's block? (for which I would completely excuse Gurm) More or less. Anxiety, too, and he's apparently on meds now. The first book ties things up pretty reasonably on its own, though, and it's better than the second one anyway, so I've been recommending people just read that and pretend it's a standalone book for the time being.
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Nov 28, 2010 20:58
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Sonisi posted:Also on another note what is with the American cover art on so many fantasy/sci-fi novels looking like it just came out of the 80s? You can have perfectly good modern cover art on fantasy books. So, there's this thing about cover art in the US. It hasn't really changed much since the 80s for sci-fi and fantasy, so that is modern cover art here.
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Dec 3, 2010 22:36
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ConfusedUs posted:This really does need to be the Brandon Sanderson thread instead of just for Stormlight. Yeah, I just sent a PM to LooseChanj to try to get the thread title changed. I've already got some general info about Sanderson in the OP, but I'll just keep adding new books and such as they come out.
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Jan 26, 2011 05:23
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BananaNutkins posted:Conversely, I would have never picked up the Wheel of Time. I read the first book and thought it was too derivative of Tolkien to have any value. I remember being fifteen and tossing it across the room when the merry band of 4 farm kids gets on a ferry while being chased by orc-like creatures. Somewhere around book 5 is when Robert Jordan switched from having the series be about the story to being about the world. I'm personally OK with that, but if you're not interested in the world, it's going to be a very long, boring slog through the next four books. It picks up again with 11 and then Sanderson took over starting with 12.
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Jan 27, 2011 07:32
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Dickeye posted:The audiobook of WoK is crippling, especially the beginning, when you have a dude explaining lashing to you. That reminds me. Has anybody bought any of the GraphicAudio adaptations of Sanderson's books? The idea of turning them into radio dramas sounds like a lot of fun, but I can think of a lot of ways they could go wrong.
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Jan 27, 2011 18:23
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Rootbeer Baron posted:Someone else said it on the boards recently (don't remember where, all of the fantasy threads bleed together) but I felt like the first Mistborn book did itself a disservice by being such a complete story that reading books two and three felt unnecessary. I went onto Sanderson's commentaries and read about books 2/3 rather than reading them flat out, and I don't feel that I missed out.. It was more of a feeling of 'oh he did that? that's cool i guess', but nothing more. I'm considering reading some of his other stuff since I've only read the first Mistborn but after my crack at the second Mistborn I'm not sure which books would hold my interest. Try Warbreaker. It's self-contained, pretty well-written, and, best of all, you can read the whole thing for free. Sanderson's got a PDF of it posted on his site in the Warbreaker section.
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Jan 29, 2011 06:12
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Decius posted:I wasn't really surprised to read in his excellent Annotations that he is a religious man, the lack of curse words and sex and the musings on faith were a pretty strong giveaway. Doesn't matter for me, even if I have completely opposite views, since he doesn't come off as preachy or fundamentalist (Even if the most faithful man in the book ends up as god. At the same time, though, (major Mistborn spoilers) Sazed realized his entire faith was a lie, perverted by Ruin over the course of centuries. That says to me that he's not going to be the sort of author who will try to use his books to convert people to his faith. I personally really appreciate that since the authors who do try to promote their views through their writing usually end up either annoying me because I disagree with them or bore me to tears because I already hold the same viewpoint and want them to just get on with the story.
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Apr 26, 2011 07:33
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It is quite fitting for Sazed after all.
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Cartoon Man posted:Somebody get this to the WTF D&D crew for review. I just preordered this. I have to go to work, so I don't have time to read the primer I downloaded, but it looks like there are going to be rules for allomancy, feruchemy, hemalurgy, and Kandra mimicry.
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Aug 4, 2011 15:56
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Huh. He's beating out Karen Gillan, too ($200 vs. $150). I'd have figured there would be more lonely Doctor Who nerds around.
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Aug 23, 2011 08:31
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Charlz Guybon posted:Sanderson's set up a new forum. I can't believe I was able to register as Kaladin! Yeah, that must be brand new. I got in as Vin.
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Aug 26, 2011 06:38
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Umph posted:Just loving tore up the mistborn trilogy, felt hollow inside when it ended, palm slammed Way of Kings in like a week, fistpumping at the ending, and now I realy don't know what to do. What I usually tell people is that while you shouldn't read Elantris first (because it's noticeably rougher than anything else he's published), it's worth a go after you've gotten used to his writing style. And Warbreaker is just fantastic.
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Oct 8, 2011 08:05
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Omnomnomnivore posted:On the other hand I think I understand where goofy-clown-Mat from The Gathering Storm came from, he'd have fit right in Kelsier's crew. According to Harriet, Robert Jordan actually wrote that scene. I thought it was Sanderson, too (as did pretty much everybody else), but it was apparently supposed to be Mat getting jumpy over having just gotten married.
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Oct 18, 2011 06:44
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Sounds like I'll be running it Paranoia-style.
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Oct 21, 2011 17:01
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The Kindle books I've ordered have usually been delivered a minute or two after midnight (Pacific time) on release day.
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Nov 7, 2011 04:19
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I just got an e-mail letting me know my Kindle preorder's available. I guess I'm starting this tonight. 
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Nov 8, 2011 06:26
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Xenix posted:My understanding was that Sanderson wanted to write multiple trilogies in that world during different time periods, so this doesn't surprise me at all. Well, he intended for the second trilogy to be a modern-day thing, but I guess we're getting extra books on the way. Anyway, I just finished and having read the bit at the end, I'm intrigued by the Feruchemists' nicrosil power. It seems that Investiture relates to the various Adonalsium shard powers, so being able to store that in a metalmind could make for some interesting results. Maybe somebody from Scadriel who jumped to Sel could store Aon-writing and then use it elsewhere?
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Nov 8, 2011 23:48
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Wolpertinger posted:How would that really work, though - metalminds store something already inside you, leaving you without it, and then allows you to draw upon an excess of it later - To become one of those people that can use the Aon Dor (I forget the name of that transformation, haven't read Elantris in ages) you need to be born somewhere nearby - it's genetic, like Allomancy. Well, maybe we'll see Marsh with 256 spikes or whatever at some point. I have to think that if Hemalurgy becomes a thing later on (which the bit at the end did seem to imply), he'd probably be the best position to make use of it. Other than him, there may not actually be anybody left on Scadriel that knows Hemalurgy exists, let alone anything more, given how secretive the Steel Inquisitors were about it.
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Nov 9, 2011 07:54
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Democratic Pirate posted:^^ Yeah, I'm thinking Hoid is the one who wrote all the analysis at the end of the book as well Sliver = Sliver of Infinity = Lord Ruler. It was one of his titles in the first trilogy.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:34
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keiran_helcyan posted:Most of the "new" names for old characters are pretty straightforward, but "The Lord Mistborn" was giving me fits though. Now I'm almost certain who it was though. He was some sort of great early ruler, he was the last of the mistborn who all the kidnapped people are having their lines traced to, and he named the city Elendel. I had to check the old trilogy, but then I remembered, Spook was made a Mistborn at the very end of the story. His nonsense language appearing at one point in the story as some sort of official language pretty well hammered it home. Oooh. Good catch. I was wondering about that, too. I completely forgot that Sazed made him a full Mistborn at the end.
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Nov 11, 2011 07:26
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I haven't started reading it yet, but there's a new Mistborn novella that will be available for free until Monday to promote the RPG (and, of course, the publisher just put everybody on the "to" line in the announcement e-mail instead of sending individual e-mails or BCCing people). I'm unclear as to whether Brandon actually wrote it, though. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=96935&affiliate_id=71282
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Nov 23, 2011 04:40
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mystes posted:From that page it looks like it's actually a collection of stories by different authors, despite the fact that they keep using the word "novella". Ah, that would explain why it's kind of terrible so far.
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Nov 23, 2011 04:59
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Apparently I somehow missed this. Here, have a broadsheet.
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Nov 29, 2011 10:10
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fordan posted:And it makes it so much more fun on your next reread to try and catch all the foreshadowing of the reveal and that character's actions. It really does. I'm (slowly, as I have time) doing my first re-read since that happened in preparation for A Memory of Light, and I love noticing things I missed in each new read-through.
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Dec 1, 2011 07:09
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