Infinity Blade Redemption came out today

[lordofsoup]

Anyone else read it yet?  

 

Cant find any other threads on it, but if there are, delete me plz.

[variety.of.passions]

I assumed that it'd be released as an ebook as well, but I guess it hasn't quite gotten there yet. I've spent the morning re-reading Awakening in hopes to jump into Redemption. I suppose I now have to wait a little longer

 

Oh, wait. I just found out that it's only being released through i-tunes...

Edited September 3, 2013 by variety.of.passions

[Rubix]

It's not only being released through iTunes. It'll be up on other retailers next Tuesday.

[variety.of.passions]

lordofsoup, it was pretty amazing--just like all other Brandon Sanderson writings. However, it has a slightly different feel to it than Awakening.

[lordofsoup]

Ya I liked it.  The end kind of reminded me of Rand a bit.

[Sirscott13]

To be honest I loved every moment of the book. 

 

****SPOILERThis post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules*

 

 

I loved the tie in to our modern day world as its ancient past. The God Kings back story with his dad really intrigued me. I also loved the easy they tied in the worker as a god among gods. To me at least, the way he said so primitive when the god king was being made deathless plus the little foreshadowing when the god king was speculating how his attire resembled a god of ancient ancient egypt, I am starting to think that the worker of secrets has been deathless even before egyptian times and let the world fall to that of the ancient world from something more grand just as the god king let the world fall to dark ages. I think the worker is far older than anyone and his ageless wisdom is what makes him so powerful. I think he has grown to attached to godhood though and that is why siris is unpredictable, because he is more mortal than deathless, and has reborn enough times to make himself unpredictable. the worker thinks logically, throw emotion in there and his talents start to crumble...

[11thorderknight]

Wow.

 

As much as I love massive epics like Wheel of Time and Stormlight Archive, I truly feel that a short story, or short novel, can pack a stronger  punch in the right hands. Leave it to Brandon to prove this yet again. To take a fairly plot-less slasher video game and turn it into THIS  - amazing.

 

I was convinced halfway through the book that we'd find out that Uriel turns out to be Ausar/Siris. (I guess it still could be, who knows...but not looking likely). I was a little frustrated that we don't learn more of Siris's backstory - who was he, back when he was Ausar? What was the rivalry between him and Raidriar? And how did he manage to originally imprison the Worker of Secrets?

[Kurkistan]

You're good, man. It's up everywhere now.

[Kurkistan]

Just finished it. 'Twas good.

[Morsk]

When it said Deathless all look like pampered teenagers, I somehow thought of this from The Onion:

Insecure, Frustrated Bully With Something To Prove Considering Career In Law Enforcement

[Trizee II]

This was amazing. Personally I felt that it was Brandon's best short fiction piece yet. It combined great worldbuilding, characterization and action to make a beautiful story. My only issue with it was that, not having played the game, I was a bit confused by the beginning, but I soon got into the story (though there are still some events that I'm missing.)

 

Here's an interesting thing I noticed:

 

I don't remember where, but Brandon once mentioned that one of his earlier books was a novel called the Six Lives of Pandora (or something like that). It was a sci- fi about a man who couldn't die, no matter how shot full of bullets he was, and the psychological effect this had on him. We saw something very similar from Siris's POV in the first part of this novella, which made me wonder if Brandon used Pandora as a source for those scenes. Anybody else notice this?

[PeterAhlstrom]

The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora. I should read it again. I only got halfway through last time, a few years ago.

 

But off the top of my head, I don't think there's a resemblance.

[Kurkistan]

I'll have to disagree, Trizee. This was certainly good, but The Emperor's Soul still blows Brandon's other short work out of the water, in my book.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Sirscott13]

So yesterday at the steelheart signing in orem I asked Brandon about infinity blade. He said the game creators will do spin off games but the story is pretty much over even though Brandon set the game creators up for a really great story. If you finished IB3 you found out that a lot of questions go unanswered and it leaves you feeling very anticlimactic. So Brandon didn't mind telling me about what he imagined for the characters. The worker was definitely an ancient deathless from like Egyptian times and he liked to wipe them away and present himself as the elder deathless. Ausar was from the ancient world also created around the same time. Brandon said he wanted to go more into depth with that sorry but that the game creators ultimately got to have final say and were trying to make a game not a story. But cool that Brandon was willing to share

[FeatherWriter]

*coughs inconspicuously* As someone who played the games through and read the novellas chronologically, I can say that the novellas are MUCH better if you know what's going on. I'd encourage anyone who has the ability to play the game to do so, because they're fantastic and we should definitely support ChAIR for making such wonderful games, but I also know that not everyone has access to an iOS device. 
 
So with that in mind, I made a storyline guide to help people who can't play the games get the story: It's over here on tumblr. I hope this helps!
 
As for my reactions, I haven't finished playing IB3, so I don't know how it ends, but I did finish reading/playing all the way through Redemption so...
 

Ah it was so good! I was having Brandon withdrawl after finishing Steelheart, so I decided to get back into Infinity Blade so that I could read these. Siris and Isa are so wonderful! As soon as I saw the worker abandon Siris and Raidriar together in the Vault, I knew I just HAD to get the novella and see what Brandon did with that. Sure enough, heartbreaking. Siris letting Ausar out to cope with the unending death and killing? Being trapped with his mortal enemy and then those few brief moments of "humanity" that they show in between it all? I CAN'T HANDLE IT.
 
I love Siris's awesome mix of dangerous competence and childish naivete and I love Isa's language mess-ups and how passionate she is about things. And Raidriar. ARGH. Brandon, how dare you? This is like... making me feel kinda bad for The Lord Ruler in HoA, but about 100000 times worse. Sad backstory? Plus self-sacrifice? UGH I CAN'T HANDLE THAT. He's such a jerk and so self-righteous and has no respect for human life, but Stormfather take me if I wasn't crying by the end. And that thing where he conveniently forgets to tell Siris that Isa's "dead" and then conveniently forgets to tell him that she's Deathless? NOT OKAY. Jerk. Stormfather, I hate his stupid face and he wears a mask all the time so I can't see it, but I hate his stupid face anyway.
 
Then of course Infinity Blade 3 decides that Raidriar's battle with the Worker would make a good tutorial level so then I have to PLAY IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Gah. Painful. I have a feeling this game will be the death of me...