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Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

Charlz Guybon posted:

Is that the unnamed urban fantasy he's got 53% done on his blog? He's been working on that for like less than 2 months hasn't he? Guy's an absolute beast!
No, unless I'm mistaken, that's something completely different (a story about a pizza delivery guy with magical powers), meaning he's worked on *two* stories in his "off time".

I wish I had his work ethic.

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Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

Dramatika posted:

I can't wait for the new Mistborn books. I really want to know what the last two metals are.
Looking on wikipedia, seems like the last two metals have already been revealed, not in the books but on a Table of Allomantic Metals poster that Sanderson is/was selling on his site.

Spoilered in case you don't want it ruined for you (though the powers are pretty easy to figure out if you think about it):

Chromium - An Allomancer while burning Chromium is able to destroy another Allomancer's metals, just like Aluminum does to one's self.


Nicrosil - An Allomancer while burning Nicrosil can cause a target Allomancer currently burning metals to burn them in a brief, intense flash. Similar to Duralumin, differing only because Duralumin is an internal metal (targeting the Allomancer burning it), and Nicrosil is an external metal (targeting another Allomancers).


I'm hoping there's more metals still to be revealed, but even if not, I'm excited to see what he does with allomancy in modern and futuristic settings.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

Haraksha posted:

He doesn't really throw out any red herrings. Everything has some significance
I read Warbreaker after all the other books, and by that point I was able to predict a few of the twists (the statues being brought to life, that one god whose name I'm blanking on sacrificing himself by the end of the book, couple of other things). But I still really enjoyed the book because, while I was able to guess on a couple of things that were going to happen, there were so many plot twists that figuring out a couple things didn't ruin it for me at all. It was actually kinda fun trying to figure out how certain things were going to come into play.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

IRQ posted:

Yes there are and they are quite good!

But literally nobody who says a fantasy series should be animated is talking about anything other than anime.
The people behind the DC animated universe usually come to my mind first when somebody mentions "animated series".

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

A Nice Boy posted:

Interesting...Though I don't think Elantris has two. At the end, when they're examining the bone of Hrathen and see the Derethi markings, they're like miniature Aons, and they figure that the Derethi have their own way of tapping into Dor. So it's probably the same shard.

Interesting stuff, though...And crazy ambitious.
It's been a while since I've read it, but wasn't there some foreign guy that had some sort of mystical sword-fighting style that was pretty obviously magic-based? Then again, I don't think Sanderson really went into detail about it at all (other than dropping hints for a possible sequel), so it may be using Dor or whatever as well.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

404GoonNotFound posted:

So this showed up on Sanderson's blog yesterday, surprised nobody's mentioned it. I mean yeah, more :jerkbag: fanwankery, but I gotta say it got the desired reaction out of me.

Well, except for the sheer horror of having that RE fight stand-in for Vin vs. an Inquisitor at the end, which would mean the theoretical movie would have the stink of Paul WS Anderson all over it.
I like it, if only because I have always pictured Vin looking like Ellen Page.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease
Has Sanderson's Moiraine vs Kelsier write-up been posted here yet?
http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2012/03/cage-match-2012-round-4-moiraine-damodred-versus-kelsier.html
It's pretty funny, but filled with spoilers for both Mistborn and Wheel of Time up through Towers of Midnight.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

The Gardenator posted:

Words of Radiance, Szeth
Szeth's death was changed by Sanderson recently:
http://brandonsanderson.com/three-stories-in-new-formats/

My first readthrough of WoR was a while after it was first published and I read the paperback, and I had no idea about the change. So when I went back to read through the thread for discussion, I was really confused why people were getting angry at a certain part that I didn't remember happening at all. I just kept thinking, "What? No, that's not what happened, how are so many people misreading the book!?"

Then that blog-post was posted in the thread (when it was originally written, but I came across it well after that), and only then I realized "OooooooooooOOOOOoooohhhhh, Sanderson changed a major plotpoint between publishings, *thats* why everybody is seemingly getting upset with something I didn't read."

Guess it was good he changed it, since a bunch of people in the thread were complaining about that bit.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

Tunicate posted:

It's more than just that. It's clumsy and keeps breaking up the pace.

Yeah, my problem is the description of the mechanics comes in the middle of an awesome fight scene. And Szeth is really the only POV character that knows the mechanics so explaining them to the reader that early in the book/series isn't really necessary. It's like if they took the opening scene to the Matrix, and paused it every ten seconds to have Trinity doing a voice-over "Being in the Matrix allows me to do this", "Agents are dangerous because such-and-such". It's using a bunch of 'telling' to bog down what 'showing' it's doing.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease
So what's the consensus on the White Sand graphic novel? I'm currently about halfway through reading it, and the pacing is kinda horrible. For example, at one point the main character loses his powers for some reason, but 20 pages later, he randomly gets them back and he's more powerful than before. I'm sure, since it's Sanderson, that there's some explanation for that whole bit, but the returning powers happens in the middle of some conversation. It came out of nowhere and seemed like they were going for a "gently caress yeah!" moment but I ended up just thinking "Wait, what?" That whole bit felt like it was just added in to create some tension. But, again, this is Sanderson, so there's probably some explanation for it at the end.

I'm also not a fan of the artwork at all. It's too sketchy and muddled, some panels I can't even tell what's going on or what I'm looking at. And many of the characters look too much alike. Doesn't help that they're not given much room to be given fleshed-out personalities either, and they all have standard-fantasy-type fake names, so they all end up just blending together in my head and I end up not really caring.

Right now it is by far the weakest thing Sanderson has written that's been published. I wish he had just edited it up a bunch and published it as a novel, either that or get another artist and editor.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease
I finished the White Sand graphic novel, and, yeah, it sucks. Sad to say that about a Sanderson story, but it's not really his fault. The artist and the writer who adapted the story just aren't very good at all.

I just hate the art. There's one scene where a side-character is messing with a locked chest in the background. The conversation is cut off as the chest bursts open, letting out black smoky tendrils, and the side-character shouts and curses. Just as I'm wondering what the gently caress is going on, the next panel has the guy sitting on the ground surrounded by dark lumps, saying "The lock must have broken!" and the lady noble saying "Why do you need such a lock for your ratty clothes anyways?" Turns out those sinister tendrils are supposed to be clothing. Wish I had a picture of the panels, it's ridiculous, part of me still wonders if I misunderstood what's going on.

Then the next couple of pages features a series of brief scenes that seems like it could be amusing in better hands: the lady I previously mentioned with two of her underlings, trying to meet with various leaders and getting turned down. Each panel has the three in the same poses, while the backgrounds change. The problem is, all three look exactly the same in each panel (I'll give them credit, at least it wasn't an actual copy & paste, each panel was drawn), same stiff postures and positions, same expressions. A better artist would have shown increasing disappointment, anger, ANYTHING as the characters are repeatedly turned down. The art on the noble is especially bad, she has a blank, bored expression in each panel (even when the dialogue has her exclaiming things like "Twelve... days?!" and "Two thou--?!"), with her arms sticking stiffly out in front of her as she fiddles with some object (it's later explained she's fixing the lock from earlier, not that you can tell that at all from the artwork). It's just... bad.

I don't know much about illustrations, so maybe somebody with knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm almost certain the artist only used one line thickness (or width or weight or whatever the term is) throughout the whole book, so the drawings have no depth, no emphasis, nothing to help the eye distinguish between all that's going on in the panels. The only thing keeping the art from being complete junk is the coloring (when it's not just a bunch of white guys in white robes surrounded by white sand and white buildings, that is),

And the pacing continues to be horrible, quickly switching between different subplots and introducing more characters that are not fleshed out, up until the book just... ends. There's no climax, no resolutions or surprises, it just stops. I get that this is supposed to be the first in a series, but they made absolutely no effort to make sure the book holds up on its own.

White Sand is a huge disappointment, this is the first time I'd recommend people to just skip a Sanderson story.

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Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease
The Humble Book Bundle has PDF versions of the Mistborn role-playing game in their latest bundle. You get the core rule-book at $8, and supplements for Alloy of Law and Terris at $15 (along with some aSoIaF, Dresden Files, and a couple others).

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/fiction-faves-rpg-book-bundle

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