I kind of like this better.

[Karger]

I know what you must be thinking.  Liking something better then SA?  What kind of Sanderfan are you?  I kind of agree.  I know every order, every surge, every Herald and when we know I will know every Voidbringer.  Perhaps it is just familiarity that is breeding contempt or perhaps it is the fact that this one was never finished so Brandon had no chance to tell us everything.  Either way I do think this is an excellent work. 

SA as we understand it works well be combining the fantastic with the realistic.  We know the mechanics of how the powers work.  They are understood and accounted for.  The next steps are to some degree logical and predictable as is the world.  It was written almost more like science fiction then conventional fantasy.

WoKs prime is more mythic.  The consequences of any given action are less understood and the reasons for any action tend to be stronger if less realistic.  The reader does not really understand what is happening anymore then the characters do.  The politics are also done much better then what we normally get although to be fair we don't normally have ourselves with political players as main characters.  Jasnah remains awesome and giving her a leading role is something I am glad we did not want to wait 10 years for.  Taln himself remains a total beast and I hope he wakes up soon.  I hate Amaram now as much as ever.  For our GoT fans he is basically Littlefinger with military experience and the combination is scary.  Elhokar's arc was still tragic but even as a villain he was remarkably interesting.  He is also more competent which I find interesting.  Renarin's arc was interesting and I hope he will be OK. 

Also Lhan deserves a mention.  He is an amazing character.  The only effective mental health professional on Roshar.  He is also good at is his job and hilarious.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Karger

[Gderu]

I liked the cannon version much more, although this was still good. I feel like the character in prime are much worse than in the published version, especially Kaladin/Merin.

In Merin's first chapter I was cringing because the word 'lord' just kept popping up. The addition of lighteyes/darkeyes improves everything a lot imo. 

I also didn't like his handling of multiple viewpoints - especially in the middle of the book, I was eager to read Jasnah/Taln but at the end of every chapter we jumped to a different group. I think writing WoT really improved that part of Brandon's writing.

The last major complaint I had with this book was honor. Merin and Dalenar really annoyed me by being honorable to a stupid degree. Merin deciding not to use his powers in the battle against the five shardbearers was beyond dumb. In the published works, I feel like he managed to make the characters honorable but still logical and realistic. The Prime version was too much.

I did like a lot of the Taln plotline, especially after they left Kholinar. Taln was very competent which was fun to see. I also didn't think I'd be convinced that Taln might be a madman, but before the last few pages I was pretty convinced.

In general, this book was good, but the addition of spren and lighteyes to SA really helped the world feel more alive and breathing.

 

Karger, I think you might be feeling this way simply because we have already analyzed the published works so much. We know the world and a lot about it, while this is something new. Maybe wait and see how you compare Rythm of War to Prime after RoW comes out.

[Karger]

11 hours ago, Gderu said:

Karger, I think you might be feeling this way simply because we have already analyzed the published works so much. We know the world and a lot about it, while this is something new. Maybe wait and see how you compare Rythm of War to Prime after RoW comes out.

That is certainly one possibility.

[Frustration]

I think that if this plot had happened in the published setting, maybe with the magic in an in between state it would be perfect,

So long as it is Shinri not Shallan

Why Brandon did you have to ruin this character?