Your Least Favorite Cosmere Story And Why

[What's a Seawolf?]

Didn't realize the feelings for WoA.  Personally I loved it.

Elantris is easily my least favorite work.  There are many factors, one of which is the story structure.  Not the biggest fan of the x-y-z story structure.  But far bigger than that is I cannot in any way stand the Hrathen storyline.  It's the one thing Brandon's written that my eyes just glaze over.  The lead females chapters, forget her name, I also found very boring until about halfway to three quarters of a way through the story.  Raoden's story is fantastic throughout, however.

[Ammanas]

21 minutes ago, What's a Seawolf? said:

  But far bigger than that is I cannot in any way stand the Hrathen storyline.  It's the one thing Brandon's written that my eyes just glaze over.  

It's funny how different parts of his writing speak more strongly to some than others. I really enjoyed Hrathen's storyline. I guess partly bc he reminds me a little of myself and other people that I know.

Edited July 20, 2017 by Ammanas

[Calderis]

9 minutes ago, Ammanas said:

It's funny how different parts of his writing speak more strongly to some than others. I really enjoyed Hrathen's storyline. I guess partly bc he reminds me a little of myself and other people that I know.

Hrathen is how I made it through. Elantris is definitely his weakest book in my opinion. 

The story itself I have no problem with, it well formulated, the world building is great. 

The characters... Hrathen is probably my favorite character that he's written. In Contrast, Raoden and Serene are his weakest, and the reasons I view the book poorly in comparison to all of his others. 

[Ammanas]

11 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Hrathen is how I made it through. Elantris is definitely his weakest book in my opinion. 

He certainly had the most character development. Raoden started out as a optimistic young man and that continued throughout. Serene was a precocious young lady the pushed social norms and that didn't chage. Still love the book though!

[Fatling]

I listened to elantris as an audiobook and Sarene had the most annoyingest voice ever. It was perfect for her personality. So yeah, don't love elantris, especially because I read it after reading a lot of the really good cosmere books. I would point out that the question is about the least favorite story, not book. Because my least favorite book would be white sand, but assuming the graphic novels at least mostly follow the prose story, I like the story, just not book's graphic-novelhood. And I'm trying to like the graphic novel better, though it is kind of hard

[+Extesian]

 I'm amazed noone has said it but I'm often alone on this- shadows for silence in the forests of hell. It is mind numbingly boring in my mind. The magic is boring. Every character is boring. There's no plot. Its the only Brandon book I actually dislike and find very hard to read. I think mostly because of the characters though. 

I mean, that's still by Brandon's standards. But I've been stunned at how many people love it.

[Fezzik]

Hope of elantris. It reads like cheese.

[asterion137]

gotta be Elantris for me although I've never read shadows for silence or sixth of the dusk

Edit: NVM then i guess I have to do a novella or GN so White Sand

Edited July 21, 2017 by asterion137
oh we can do novellas too?

[Brightlord M. Alhstrom]

I actually really like Elantris. But then it was the first Brandon Sanderson book I read, and I was young at the time. As for Raoden and Sarene, I actually related to both of them a lot, (Raoden in his insistence in seeing good in everyone, Sarene is the feeling of being constantly respected but excluded at the same time.) And since then have found some similarities with Hrathen too. So while I can agree that the plot wasn't as good as it could have been, the characters pulled it through for me really well.

As for least favorite story? Definitely "Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania". Finishing it was a grind for me. I just read it because it was one of the only cosmere works I hadn't read, and I already owned it.

[Knight Oblivion]

3 hours ago, Extesian said:

 I'm amazed noone has said it but I'm often alone on this- shadows for silence in the forests of hell. It is mind numbingly boring in my mind. The magic is boring. Every character is boring. There's no plot. Its the only Brandon book I actually dislike and find very hard to read. I think mostly because of the characters though. 

I mean, that's still by Brandon's standards. But I've been stunned at how many people love it.

I agree with this. The Well of Ascension may have had pacing issues and White Sands Vol. 1 may have messed up both visually and dialogue-wise (seriously, all the characters look pissed all the time, Cynder and Acron had a bit of dialogue mix up, and Kenton's defense at the Hall of Justice was a mess/travesty especially after a reread and going through the source prose) but Shadows for Silence was just dull... It was like we were reading the end of an era for a potentially interesting character without much background. I can forgive the faults of the first two books since they're interesting but I cannot forgive dullness.

[Erandeni]

21 hours ago, What's a Seawolf? said:

Didn't realize the feelings for WoA.  Personally I loved it.

Me too.

My least favourite book would be Shadows of self, I don't know why, the whole "we don't know who Bleeder is" got on my nerves a bit and I found it a bit boring until almost the end.

[Taliax]

I really liked Well of Ascension too, though the ending was very different I enjoyed the whole book throughout.  I actually liked it better as a whole probably even than HoA, mostly because I like Vin, TenSoon, and Elend's development in WoA while they mostly remained the same in HoA.

My least favorite book would have to be Elantris, though I love Raoden's storyline inside Elantris, it reminds me a little of what Kaladin did with Bridge 4. I wanted to like Hrathen and Sarene, and I did end up liking Hrathen by the end, but overall I think it was too slow through the beginning and too fast at the end. (On the other hand, Emperor's Soul is great.) Elantris is also the last Cosmere book I've read (still need to read Mistborn Era 2 and then I'll have read them all), so that could have some influence on it.

As far as including short stories, definitely Hope of Elantris.  But that was also written mostly for cheese in the first place, I think. It's hard to find things to legitimately dislike in the Cosmere.

[Andy92]

I personally disliked WoA because the Vin/Zane/Elend plot felt like something I would've expected out of Twilight. Rest of it was okay, just hated the attempt at romantic tensions. 

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Andy92 said:

I personally disliked WoA because the Vin/Zane/Elend plot felt like something I would've expected out of Twilight. Rest of it was okay, just hated the attempt at romantic tensions. 

My least favorite part of the Mistborn series. 

I dislike romance plots to begin with, but I think that specifically is why the Shallan/Kaladin/Adolin situation seriously bothers me. 

[Necessary Eagle]

Another vote for Elantris.

It just felt... rough. Like, it's his first published book, and it shows. Sarene was too boring for me- a bog-standard "unladylike princess". I didn't find the autistic kid very convincing, and his "counts steps" thing felt more like a plot device than an organic part of his character. And how on Sel did his family manage to hide him being an Elantrian, anyway?!?

That being said, there was a lot of penitential in that book; it's just the execution that was off. Sanderson has grown leaps and bounds as a writer since then, and if he ever writes that sequel, I suspect I will really enjoy it.

[Farnsworth]

On ‎7‎/‎20‎/‎2017 at 8:03 PM, Extesian said:

 I'm amazed noone has said it but I'm often alone on this- shadows for silence in the forests of hell. It is mind numbingly boring in my mind. The magic is boring. Every character is boring. There's no plot. Its the only Brandon book I actually dislike and find very hard to read. I think mostly because of the characters though. 

I mean, that's still by Brandon's standards. But I've been stunned at how many people love it.

As a big fan of SfS, I'll say that while the plot and characters are less good than most of Brandon's, I love Threnody. I love the forests. The crazy mysteriousness of it, and that wonderful statement of Silence's about the forest being a predator. I love the vibe. But I can definitely understand why you feel differently, since it is more heavy on the soft magic than most of Brandon's books.

[+Extesian]

1 minute ago, Figberts said:

As a big fan of SfS, I'll say that while the plot and characters are less good than most of Brandon's, I love Threnody. I love the forests. The crazy mysteriousness of it, and that wonderful statement of Silence's about the forest being a predator. I love the vibe. But I can definitely understand why you feel differently, since it is more heavy on the soft magic than most of Brandon's books.

That makes sense. I'm not a visual reader, I don't actually imagine anything visual when I read, not even setting out characters, so I tend to miss that side of things. Same with Mistborn where I never really pictured the grimness of the world. I only really focus on plot, character (through dialog and 3rd person limited) and, certainly as you say, hard magic. I'm never as taken by soft magic systems. 

I could see Threnody being amazing on-screen.

[Kered]

Warbreaker for me. I didn't totally dislike it, just my least favorite so far. I slugged through the Viv chapters, they were really dry to me. I read Warbreaker before I found out about the Shard or Coppermind, so I wasn't privy to any spoilers, and I still skimmed her chapters. I don't usually do that, I think it has to do with me not liking the Vivenna character at all. She wasn't poorly written, I just didn't like the premise of her character and how she fit into the story. 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Kered

[Amaror]

On 21.7.2017 at 8:37 AM, Lord Maelstrom said:

I actually really like Elantris. But then it was the first Brandon Sanderson book I read, and I was young at the time. As for Raoden and Sarene, I actually related to both of them a lot, (Raoden in his insistence in seeing good in everyone, Sarene is the feeling of being constantly respected but excluded at the same time.) And since then have found some similarities with Hrathen too. So while I can agree that the plot wasn't as good as it could have been, the characters pulled it through for me really well.

As for least favorite story? Definitely "Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania". Finishing it was a grind for me. I just read it because it was one of the only cosmere works I hadn't read, and I already owned it.

I found that, to truly enjoy "Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania", you have to read his Servers Annotations in tandem to reading the book itself. Just switch to the annotation anytime it comes up. I found the book boring without them, but when I read it in tandem with the annotations it was one of the most hilarious books I read in a long time. 

[StrikerEZ]

I think my least favorite Cosmere story is either The Emperor's Soul or Well of Ascension.

I know everyone likes TES, but for some reason I was just never able to enjoy this short story. It just felt too boring to me, though it did get a little interesting near the end as Skai escaped and all that. I just felt like the rest of the story was so boring to read, and Skai was a pretty boring character to me. 

WoA wasn't as bad as TES, but I felt like the whole Zane thing was really forced (though I do like romance in my books, but the Zane/Vin/Elend triangle was terrible) and the book definitely dragged a lot. It definitely had its good parts (the ending and basically everything with TenSoon), though the negative stuff really made it boring to read at first. 

Overall, I still think TES was the worst Cosmere story, but I know that lots of people are gonna disagree with me. And of course, this is all relatively speaking, because even TES is better than tons of other books I've read (and it was just a short story).

[AbsentKeeper]

Many people have been saying that White Sand is their least favorite, but I actually really like the adaptation. Of course, that could be because I'm generally a fan of graphic novels.

My least favorite Cosmere story was Sixth of the Dusk. I liked it as a whole, but I thought that it was too short to show off the world, and the lack of speaking characters impeded some of the dialogue that I love Brandon for.

[Matthaeus]

Elantris is my least favorite for more or less the same reasons that other people have stated. I had read it after Mistborn and it felt plodding by comparison. I am looking forward to seeing what he does for the follow up though, now that he has written quite a few more books since then. 

[Nathrangking]

Elantris because...

Spoiler

The pacing of the story felt rather slow to me. It took till the middle of the book for the action to really pick up. Before that seeing Hrathan pace around, Raoden chase his tail and Sarene try to figure out what was going on did not appeal to me.

I know that it was a very early work, but it was still difficult for me to get through.

[gottasha]

Alloy of Law. Not very well written and kind of cheesy. But I love the rest of the trilogy.

[Knotai]

After Shadows of Self, which I think is Brandon's most well-constructed Cosmere book, I was really let down by Bands of Mourning. Bad character writing, deus ex machina, and too much expansion. There was also a bit too much Cosmere infodumping only in the context of "look, here's an Easter egg!"  

I haven't read the White Sand graphic novel, but I was really impressed by Eric's character in the original manuscript, which managed to overcome some of the problems with the plot and Khriss.