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Trying to decide a new series to start


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Trying to decide a new series to start after reading everything in Sanderson's cosmere universe. Heard Wheel of Time mentioned before and that Sanderson finished the last few books.

For those who've read both author's what are the similarities and differences in and Sanderson. How they tell the story, set it up and end the book. Worldbuilding, lore, history, and secrets. Magic, dark magic, and evil. Mystery, suspense, imagination, creative, and original. Layers to the story, deeper meaning, philosophical question.

A few things I like about Sanderson's style.
To me the ending of a book is one of the most important parts of the story and I've seen so many great starts to a book not able to deliver at the end. A big part of why I like Sanderson so much is his ability to hook you from the start with a bit of mystery, build up the suspense, and finish with a brilliant ending that always has surprises. I like that he tells the story so there is mystery and gives you clues, some obvious and some less obvious, so that your trying to connect the dots. There are layers to the story he tells and usually a deeper meaning and reason to why certain things are happening. He just tells really interesting stories and I usually forget i'm reading a story because I get so into it which is kinda rare for me. Maybe the best thing to me is the worlds he creates. I really get into the lore, myth, religion, and history because it's so original, creative, and well thought out and it is a big part of the story. Good, bad, and in between characters, but also characters that are more mysterious

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I cannot recommend Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea enough. It packs as much punch as Sandersons yet is 10x as short. The magic system is fantastic but the way the world is build is truly a strong point in Le Guins writing. I recommend the illustrated edition, such beautiful art work.

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The ending, huh

There's a very long, freely available web serial available online called Worm by John C McCrae under the pen name (err..  user name) of Wildbow

It is an amazing exploration of morality and choices. Quite grimdark, very logical in its approach to Powers, highly recommended

Edited by Honorless
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5 hours ago, Wander89 said:

I cannot recommend Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea enough. It packs as much punch as Sandersons yet is 10x as short. The magic system is fantastic but the way the world is build is truly a strong point in Le Guins writing. I recommend the illustrated edition, such beautiful art work.

10x as short is not a good thing!

I really like Starsight (by Brandon) and the Legion books. And Reckoners

 

Some other, inferior series are

Seven Wonders

The Immortal Life of Nicholas Flamel

 

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The Lightbringer Series by Brent Weeks

The Powder Mage Trilogy by Brian McClellan

There are a lot of similarities between these two authors and Brandon, so if you’re looking for works that feel similar to the cosmere, I highly suggest these 2 authors, especially Brent Weeks. 

Edit: In fact, McClellan was one of Brandon’s students at BYU for a while. If that doesn’t point towards a similar taste in writing, I don’t know what does :D

Edited by ILuvHats
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On 16/10/2019 at 1:15 AM, Wander89 said:

I cannot recommend Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea enough. It packs as much punch as Sandersons yet is 10x as short. The magic system is fantastic but the way the world is build is truly a strong point in Le Guins writing. I recommend the illustrated edition, such beautiful art work.

I'm mixed on Earthsea.  I liked the first book. The second book - Tombs of Atuan - is one of my favourite books ever.  (for the OP - they are short children's fantasy)

The third book I really disliked (the afterlife stuff was depressing).  Book 4 - Tehanu was a very different to the first three, but I enjoyed it.

 

Then the last book The Other Wind... I liked that she tried to fix the depressing stuff from book 3 (I understand she became a taoist, and wanted to add something of that outlook to her writing).  She also went a long way to have this book be all about the strong female cast (yay) in a series that had previously been mostly about the men ... but I remember being very sad with the way she treated Ged in order to boost the new characters.

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4 hours ago, Snorkel said:

I'm mixed on Earthsea.  I liked the first book. The second book - Tombs of Atuan - is one of my favourite books ever.  (for the OP - they are short children's fantasy)

The third book I really disliked (the afterlife stuff was depressing).  Book 4 - Tehanu was a very different to the first three, but I enjoyed it.

 

Then the last book The Other Wind... I liked that she tried to fix the depressing stuff from book 3 (I understand she became a taoist, and wanted to add something of that outlook to her writing).  She also went a long way to have this book be all about the strong female cast (yay) in a series that had previously been mostly about the men ... but I remember being very sad with the way she treated Ged in order to boost the new characters.

I picked up the illustrated version and I adore the artwork. I know it's children's fantasy but it was the first fantasy I ever read and will always hold a place to me. There are better works, Kingkiller or Mistborn is the next for me to put forward when anyone asks but I agree with the take on the later books. It was almost as if she did try to make it a new series with different characters but then wanted it over and done with.

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1 hour ago, Silverblade5 said:

 

I really liked Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher series. First book  is The Last Wish.

 

*reminded that I have this book sitting on my shelf, and probably won’t get to it until after the show since I’m in the middle of WoT right now. 

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If you don't mind being extremely confused by the plot for a while and getting thrown into the middle of things and being left to figure it out, I'd recommend the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. The first book is Gardens of the Moon, and it's pretty infamous for being hard to get into, but if you can pull through I think the series has a lot to recommend it.

 

Mainly, since you talked about liking great endings, I think Malazan has some of the best, biggest, most crazy endings I've ever seen in fantasy. Often the books have tons of different plot threads and storylines, many of which seem completely unrelated at first, but then near the end of the book everything comes together in a massive convergence of awesome.

 

The books can be a bit brutal at times, and have lots of shades of grey characters, but they also have a huge theme of compassion to them that really shines through.

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18 hours ago, ILuvHats said:

I’ve tried them, but they’re not really my thing. I find it hard to focus when I’m not visually engaged

Audiobooks really stunt my progression. I tried audiobooks instead of re-reading and found I do not have the attention span for them. Even tried Graphic Audio but nah, I need the book in front of me otherwise I am just going to do something else and completely forget what's being said!

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