EC11

This is awesome! I'm glad this (sort of) gives some confirmation to things we've been suspecting. Though it raises just as many questions as it answers! Brandon you sly man you!

You are indeed correct that I did! Thanks for that Gotta get the right tropes

I, personally, would be thrilled to have more set with Sixth of the Dusk as his straight Polynesian culture examination was fantastic. If he set more in the setting that would be a great piece to explore and flesh out. However, another Threnody novel would be amazing. My reasoning behind that idea is that since Mistborn The Original Trilogy that was arguably the "darkest" story he has written, and he can actually write that kind of story very well. I would be enthused if he wrote another from that perspective, in a world where the shadows are encroaching and just surviving another day is a struggle. It would be very interesting to see.

I certainly loved Sixth of Dusk if so much for the uniqueness of the setting, to the really clever way the creatures of Patji used their minds to hunt others. The contrast between a changing culture was great I think (brought echoes of the fur trade to this Canuck, only far more deadly!) and Sixth destroying Vathi's romantic views of his culture made me laugh out loud the first time I read it. Their interactions and the ever present tension in the story from start to finish, whether the creatures of the island or the machinations of the Ones Above simply filled me with curiosity. Needless to say, I loved it! Probably my second favorite story in the anthology after The Emperor's Soul really.

I knew it!

Well I might as well say my piece. Our first introduction to Steris is through her looking at the marriage as a dispassionate business affair to raise the standing of her family in the world, as they have the money but no ancient family name and so can't run in the greater social circles. When we first meet her she is stiff, businesslike, and perhaps a little off putting. However, she grows wonderfully and we see how she came to be who she is now. Her father had an affair, which affected her deeply, and so she worries about becoming passionately involved with a man, and her own social awkwardness causes her to be brisk and businesslike in her interactions as a shield. Over time we see her soften, become attached to Waxillium, and come out of her shell even if only a touch. For me it is a great story as I would have been disappointed had Wax chosen Marsai, as that would have been the most "emotional" thing he could do. In the end though, Steris proved herself willing to compromise and embrace Waxillium and his eccentricities, and Wax accepted hers. A fairly decent love story that way.

It is his only complete series to date, but I think even SA will have trouble outdoing the original trilogy for two reasons: 1) The Mistborn Original Trilogy is much shorter in length and scope meaning its easier for new readers to dig onto, and allows the plot to be largely self contained. 2) Stormlight has (IMO) numerous downfalls in its scope and framing to make it quite as powerful as the Mistborn trilogy was. Basically, the self contained nature of Mistborn, its characters, and the way it manages to so expertly raise the stakes in each volume is what gets people hooked and makes it so memorable (I mean, The Lord Ruler dying in Mistborn, Ruin escaping in Well of Ascension, the world ending in Hero of Ages, hard to top!) in a way that I don't think Stormlight will be able to match. I'll cheerfully be proven wrong in this mind you

So I wrote my own little piece regarding my thoughts on the original trilogy, and you know what, I think it is the best work Brandon has written to date*. Now I realize this might be controversial to some but I ask that you hear me out. The series as a self contained whole is excellent, without any intense dangling plot threads, little overall attachment to the greater Cosmere (not that this is a bad thing) and has some of the coolest moments in Sanderson. And I think we can all agree Allomancy is one of the coolest magic systems Brandon has written to date! So thoughts on this opinion> *I should add that while I think Mistoborn is his greatest work, Way of Kings is probably his best written novel to date.

I wouldn't rate it that low, but I agree this was probably the weakest installment in the series so far. There was a lot being thrown around and I didn't find any of the character arcs as satisfying as I did in books 1 and 2. Some of the characters seemed to slip here, and the sheer amount of stuff going on made it hard to follow some threads. Overall Shallan, Dalinar, Adolin, and Jasnah had the biggest growth. The little tidbits throughout the book were fascinating, but the overall plot itself seemed to slump. Aesudan had zero characterization in book one (not even a name!) and her bare bones characterization showed yes she was neglectful and caused the riots, but gave no lead to the fact she would be bonding one of the unmade! It feels like it was more of a last minute addition almost, and it was sprung so suddenly (and she only appeared in that one scene) that the whole reveal felt slightly pointless. Odium's reveal had the biggest oomph for me, and Dalinar's story was perhaps the most interesting from a growth perspective. Yeah Shallan grew too, but Kaladin seemed to slip backwards. Renarin's plot line seemed almost thrown in at random and so when his spren was "wrong" I couldn't really do anything but scratch my head at that. There was very little lead up, and quite frankly we needed more time with Jasnah to really get a look at what was going on from her perspective. Personally, I blame the weakness of the Kholinar arc for the failings on some parts of the book, but I'm hoping book 4 sorts much of the hanging threads out.

This Halloween I "published" my first short story on my blog, meaning that everyone could see it for free. I felt no need to try and self publish a piece of flash fiction like this, and felt that it might be better served as something people could peruse on the web. I'm posting it here (well the link really, I'm not sure if it is in vogue to just plunk a whole piece down in one post) so people can take a look, and maybe I can get some critique on the piece. I'm hoping to keep writing for the foreseeable future, but this is my first real foray into the "putting my work out there" world. Though this is a "horror" piece, it contains no direct gore or violence so could broadly be considered family friendly. My attempt was to build atmosphere and mystery, and I aped the Old Master H.P. Lovecraft a bit, as it was thanks to him I sat down and pounded this out. So here, for perusal, is The Disappearance of Wilson Enjoy

Bugs Bunny Agents Mulder and Scully from the X-files, but Agent Dogget worked his way into my heart eventually. This is an odd one, but from the First Law series I love the character Bayaz. He's such a magnificent bastard (emphasis in bastard) in how he mercilessly works to get his way and plays everyone I can't help but grudgingly respect him. Finree from The Heroes, was also fun to read about since she briefly got one up on Bayaz. Mat from the Wheel of Time is obvious. Though I also enjoy Tuon and Rodel, and Uno is by far the best secondary character, The team on Stargate SG1 is simply a joy. Col. Jack Oneil and Teacl are my favorites, simply for their wit and blunt attitude. Then my favorite Sanderson character is Sazed, followed by Dalinar.

Well Azure could be redeemed later if she ends up in conflict with Szeth over control of Nightblood, otherwise her inclusion in that part of the plot would be something of a waste and she might have been better regulated to the background as a secondary character rather than having her mystery built up so much. I'm fairly certain she will have to show up again at this point, but we shall see. Since Way of Kings I've seen the story as a big crossover so I'm bot too disappointed. Agreed. For all of Shallan's scouting she didn't really tell us anything we didn't know about what was happening at the Palace. she never got a look at the queen, she never really figured out the plan from the Unmade, never even really got mislead by them. It kinda just flowed naturally from their pre-existing assumptions, which makes it less surprising when Kholinar falls. Kaladin makes some sense, if he'd frozen having been forced to kill one of the Wall Guard trying to protect one of the parshmen that would have been an excellent reason for his BSOD, but here he kinda becomes too passive for the character growth we've seen (loyal to his squad first and all that) so his sudden descent into secondary bleakness felt out of the blue. I feel that his character could have gone down that path with a bit more aplomb after realizing he has "betrayed" one of the squads by fighting for the other side and now he can't protect everybody.

My feeling is that since the Everstorm acts in a similar way to bring the Voidspren, a Highstorm could act that way to aid in jumping between worlds.

It seems many step into Shadesmar by accident on occasion, but that might be more from Cultivation's touch. However, Dalinar was able to summon Honor's perpendicularity, so that could mean that before this is moved around in the Highstorms. This is a a theory mind you, but since it is a meeting of power from the three realms I'm willing to bet someone could take advantage of it to travel between worlds. The Everstorm does something similar, bringing the Voidspren from Braize. So my thoughts are it stands to reason that a Highstorm could do the same thing.

Shadesmar felt like the plot was moving though, with a coherent sense of direction. The Kholinar arc seemed to amble about a bit from set piece to set piece, feeling a tad clunky, with Azure being hyped up a touch too much. Wit/Hoid was great, and it felt like he helped move Shallan's character along, but even trying to sneak in to the Cult of the Moment seemed forced at points. One of my biggest problems was that that pay off to the arc was lumped very unceremoniously at the end. The biggest flaw being Aesudan not being built up enough to the reader before the big reveal that she's turned evil, which made that plot twist completely left field. I felt like it blindsided me completely, and had no foreshadowing, with very little proper build up to "is the queen evil, is she under the control of one of the Unmade" and her first on screen appearance was almost underwhelming as an explanation as to why the palace had gone dark. So the surprises of the city falling didn't seem overwhelming. Then Kaladin's Heroic BSOD moment seemed almost too abrupt, without enough context that he found himself killing former friends, then Elhokar's death almost felt forced. While Kaladin has some character growth regarding protecting people, this felt almost out of the blue that he shuts down completely. The foreshadowing on that one could have been a little more blunt.