Lost Metal Full Book Reactions (Cosmere Edition)

[Crowbar]

I'm concerned about Brandon going "all in" on the Cosmere moving forward.  There's a risk that these books start to be all about worldbuilding and fleshing out the Cosmere, and not enough about the plot, characters and story of the novel.  The Lost Metal comes very close to doing this in my opinion.

In addition, all these Cosemere references are starting to become a bit exhausting.  I know many readers of these stories know these references by heart, but for me, I was reading The Lost Metal on my iPad with my laptop open to Coppermind so I could place all the world hoppers properly.

 

Here's what a typical The Lost Metal reading session was like for me looking at the Coppermind:

Aons, Seons...oh yeah, that's Sel, Elantris - got it.

Moonlight has a tattoo...is that a ghostblood tattoo?  Oh yeah it is, and she's the protagonist from the Emperor's Soul - now I remember.

Aether's?  Am I supposed to know about these?  Have I heard about them before?  Ah nope, it's something new.

Who the heck is Dlavil again?  He's from Silverlight?  Oh yeah, that fort in the Cognitive Realm...that place is important but I've kinda forgotten about it, better read up.

Dor?  What's Dor? - Figured it was Investiture...but all this about Devotion and Dominion and that it comes from Sel?  I forgot all of this (if I ever knew it), but then I read Elantris ages ago.

That ghostblood girl with the dog and the pageboy haircut...Oh jeez, I don't remember this character at all from Elantris.

 

Again, exhausting...reading these books is starting to feel like homework.  

 

The other problem is that there's really no end in sight for a resolution of this cosmic conflict in the Cosmere (see what I did there <grin>).  I suspect I'll be hearing about Odium, Autonomy, and Hoid for another 15-20 years before this all wraps up.  I'm starting to get a whiff of Wheel of Time with this never ending Cosmere plotline.  I bailed on Wheel of Time about halfway through because I found it also to be a bit exhausting.

I'm going to finish Stormlight 5 and then probably take a break for a while.  I was really looking forward to the expansion of the Elantris and Warbreaker books, but if they're just going to be vehicles for expanding the Cosmere, I'm going to take a hard pass.

Reading the online forums, it's clear that there's a significant fanbase for the Cosmere minutiae, and it is fun for a while...but as they say, the best time to leave a party is when you're still having fun.

I'll close with saying that Brandon has a lot on his plate nowadays, expanding his company, self publishing the Secret Projects, working with Hollywood on adaptations of his books, etc.  This has got to be thrilling for him, and I wish him all the best on his rising success and wealth - buuuut, he's admitted to cutting his writing down to 3 days/week from 4.  Considering his laudable commitment to releasing books on time, one has to believe that the quality of the end product is going to suffer a touch.  I first noticed a hint of this with RoW, and it's clearly evident in TLM.  My advice, push back the schedule, give the books more time to breath and develop, your career will ultimately benefit.  Other authors have clearly lost their focus once the big Hollywood dollars come rolling in, don't let that happen.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Crowbar

[StormingTexan]

First off I do not disagree with your other points about TLM. The interesting thing is I think these things are going to bother long time readers more than newer fans. As long time readers we have seen the Cosmere slowly develop over decades so this more "in the forefront" approach seems more jarring in my opinion. Newer fans will not go through this. I will say I thought Brandon did a much better job balancing this in SP1. There are a ton of Cosmere tidbits in that book but the difference to me was all the Cosmere stuff was directly relevant to the story unlike some of the things in TLM that felt more like info dumps. This may be due to the fact Brandon said he wrote the SP books as all pretty much stand alones and feels like they are good entry points for new readers. So I am hopeful Brandon can and will balance this better going forward. Honestly after reading the first SP I am pretty hyped about the other two coming this year. 

 

23 hours ago, Crowbar said:

Considering his laudable commitment to releasing books on time, one has to believe that the quality of the end product is going to suffer a touch.  I first noticed a hint of this with RoW, and it's clearly evident in TLM.  My advice, push back the schedule, give the books more time to breath and develop, your career will ultimately benefit.

On this point I am also hopeful as he did push out SA5 more than a year I believe and has made comments that he knew he needed more time to make sure this was right so I think he is cognizant of some of the fans concerns on quality over quantity. 

[Telperion]

On 1/4/2023 at 8:07 AM, Crowbar said:

I'm concerned about Brandon going "all in" on the Cosmere moving forward.  There's a risk that these books start to be all about worldbuilding and fleshing out the Cosmere, and not enough about the plot, characters and story of the novel.  The Lost Metal comes very close to doing this in my opinion.

In addition, all these Cosemere references are starting to become a bit exhausting.  I know many readers of these stories know these references by heart, but for me, I was reading The Lost Metal on my iPad with my laptop open to Coppermind so I could place all the world hoppers properly.

 

Here's what a typical The Lost Metal reading session was like for me looking at the Coppermind:

Aons, Seons...oh yeah, that's Sel, Elantris - got it.

Moonlight has a tattoo...is that a ghostblood tattoo?  Oh yeah it is, and she's the protagonist from the Emperor's Soul - now I remember.

Aether's?  Am I supposed to know about these?  Have I heard about them before?  Ah nope, it's something new.

Who the heck is Dlavil again?  He's from Silverlight?  Oh yeah, that fort in the Cognitive Realm...that place is important but I've kinda forgotten about it, better read up.

Dor?  What's Dor? - Figured it was Investiture...but all this about Devotion and Dominion and that it comes from Sel?  I forgot all of this (if I ever knew it), but then I read Elantris ages ago.

That ghostblood girl with the dog and the pageboy haircut...Oh jeez, I don't remember this character at all from Elantris.

 

Again, exhausting...reading these books is starting to feel like homework.  

 

The other problem is that there's really no end in sight for a resolution of this cosmic conflict in the Cosmere (see what I did there <grin>).  I suspect I'll be hearing about Odium, Autonomy, and Hoid for another 15-20 years before this all wraps up.  I'm starting to get a whiff of Wheel of Time with this never ending Cosmere plotline.  I bailed on Wheel of Time about halfway through because I found it also to be a bit exhausting.

I'm going to finish Stormlight 5 and then probably take a break for a while.  I was really looking forward to the expansion of the Elantris and Warbreaker books, but if they're just going to be vehicles for expanding the Cosmere, I'm going to take a hard pass.

Reading the online forums, it's clear that there's a significant fanbase for the Cosmere minutiae, and it is fun for a while...but as they say, the best time to leave a party is when you're still having fun.

I'll close with saying that Brandon has a lot on his plate nowadays, expanding his company, self publishing the Secret Projects, working with Hollywood on adaptations of his books, etc.  This has got to be thrilling for him, and I wish him all the best on his rising success and wealth - buuuut, he's admitted to cutting his writing down to 3 days/week from 4.  Considering his laudable commitment to releasing books on time, one has to believe that the quality of the end product is going to suffer a touch.  I first noticed a hint of this with RoW, and it's clearly evident in TLM.  My advice, push back the schedule, give the books more time to breath and develop, your career will ultimately benefit.  Other authors have clearly lost their focus once the big Hollywood dollars come rolling in, don't let that happen.

 

 

 

 

I couldn't agree more, I love the connections and seeing things personally, but I hope he eases into it more than in this book, For those that haven't read everything there was a ton of new investiture involved and its a bit jarring if you don't know where things are coming from, I think these books being so short in page count suffer because it leads to more info dumps rather than natural introductions. Although Im here for the long haul. I just worry about something happening to Brandon so we all get a cliffhanger... Im looking forward to radiants orbital dropping from spaceships to kick the crap out of metal born.