Legion: Skin Deep is out! (As of almost a day and a half ago. :P)

[Aonar he/him]

So, has anyone else read this yet? I bought it on my e-reader, and finished it in a couple hours. Even though it was far too short, and felt even shorter than it was, it was great; probably one of the strongest of Sanderson's shorter works. The humorous moments were well executed (infinite Batmans! ) the concept was interesting, and the story was engaging. The only problem I could find? At least a dozen new questions were raised about how Stephen's aspects work, and almost none of the previous ones were answered.

 

What does everybody else think?

[A Joe in the Bush]

I saw this post at 10. Bought the book on Google play, and finished reading it at 12 30.

 

Can we discuss spoilers in this thread? If not:

A Lawyer has finally defeated an assassin. That hostile takeover scene was hilarious.

 

As was the Infinite Batmans. 

So we learned more about the dead Aspects. Ignacio specifically. What would happen if Leeds gets a Concussion?

[Argent he/him]

I saw this post at 10. Bought the book on Google play, and finished reading it at 12 30.

 

Can we discuss spoilers in this thread? If not:

 

It's in the Skin Deep forum, so all is fair.

 

I literally just got an email about my preorder (which is good, because I was wondering what I should read next) and will be starting it shortly. 

[ccstat he/him]

I got the free Audible version (good for another month or so, if I read Brandon's post correctly) and listened to it. I think I would prefer the text version, but the narration was well done. (Also, if I misspell names, that's why.)

I liked it. Not quite as much as the first one overall, but still very good. I just posted my review on Goodreads, but I'll go into spoilers here.

 

I love Stephen's aspects and want to meet them all as the series continues. The exploration of his psychology is far and away the most interesting part of the books, even when the case he's working on is intriguing itself. My favorite part of Skin Deep was when Kalyani's husband showed up on the video call. Completely freaked Stephen out, and made me super curious about what that means. There were other developments (JC pushing him out of the car, Audrey learning crypto and writing in midair, etc) but that was the coolest one for me. 

 

I was also more interested in Sandra. After the first book I had decided I knew everything Brandon was willing to tell us about that backstory, but now I really want to know how Sandra knew about aspects. Did she have her own? And what about Stephen made her ditch him so completely? I had some ideas, but now I'm not so sure.

 

Another thing I liked was the allusions to past cases. Teleporting cat? When can we learn more about that one? 

 

I did think the biotech puzzle was substantially less interesting than the time camera, and really didn't live up to the promise of "what the corpse knows." I was expecting some kind of ghost or psychic element to show up, but really it was about looking for a record Paanos had left, however unconventionally. And, as a biologist, I kept examining the various elements for plausibility. I know, not the best use of my time, but still. Overall, Brandon did a good job, but a few things stretched my credulity a bit too far.

[Moogle]

It was an enjoyable, fun read. The main issue that detracted from it was Dion and his interactions with Stephen. I didn't enjoy Stephen's death speech to him at all, and it put a damper on the novel. The rest of it was nice, though. Tight plotting, interesting magic system, fun conflict resolution. Buying out a company like that is illegal, however, I believe. Something something fraud. I'm eager for the third novel.
 

[ccstat he/him]

Buying out a company like that is illegal, however, I believe. Something something fraud.

For that matter, so is hiring assassins, I believe. Not that Stephen seems overly concerned with legality most of the time.

[Moogle]

For that matter, so is hiring assassins, I believe. Not that Stephen seems overly concerned with legality most of the time.

 

I'm just interested in how Stephen managed to avoid paying fines/going to jail. He was being investigated, and buying a 60% stake in a company is not something you can just brush off.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

I liked this story a LOT, though I agree that it raised a whole bunch of questions about Stephen/his past/his aspects that weren't addressed and didn't really address anything that had been brought up previously except in passing.

 

I also thought Dion was the weakest of the characters in the story, but with characters this good, that's not saying too much.  I thought Stephen's death speech to him was a little odd, I saw it more as example of Stephen trying to reach out than anything genuinely powerful.  Also, INFINITE BATMANS was just about the funniest part of the whole book.

 

Favorite new character probably goes to Yol, I kinda figured at that moment in the story (basically intuiting how Brandon sets up characters) that he was going to be silly, but MAN, he was GREAT!  His outfit, his rap career.  But you also saw some depth and dark to his character through his later interactions with Stephen and what he was hiding.

 

Though my favorite character from this book has to be Audrey, she has the best one liners and pulls off some of the most awesome stuff in the whole book.  See her get fleshed out from the little we saw from her in the first book was great and her psychology and expansion of her capabilities have very interesting implications for the future.

 

What I found a little disappointing though was that I felt Ivy and Tobias got sort of overshadowed this time around by Audrey and JC.  Sure they're the older aspects that Stephen depends on, but neither of them had any real standout moments.  Heck, with Stephen's deductive abilities getting better and better, their relevance might actually be going down.  (Though the climax in the cellar points out that that time is a ways away still.)

 

One thing I felt should have been addressed better in this book was the introduction of Kalyani's husband, as that was one of the shots that REALLY took me by surprise and has the most immediate and dramatic implications for Stephen's mental stability.  That's not to say Brandon should have tied it up with a bow, but at least say SOMETHING about it at the end when they're at the mansion, as it's something I think Stephen would look into immediately.

 

Overall, good book!  Makes me very excited to see more from this storyline!

[Newan he/him]

I really enjoyed Skin Deep.  However, there was one thing that kind of frustrated me.  

 

We got to hear mentions about some really awesome cases (zombies, teleporting cat), and this case turned out being pretty mundane.  The body wasn't stolen for nefarious purposes.  The ability to infect people with cancer wasn't actually real.  The information stored in the body wasn't even important enough to make it into the book.  

 

I get why it happened.  In a story this short, the focus needs to stay on Legion, and the developments in his condition.  But I kept expecting to see something really crazy happen (besides the stuff in the mind of the crazy person), but it never did.  

Edited November 27, 2014 by Ookla the New

[Argent he/him]

My favorite part was probably Stephen's realization that Aubrey is straight-up insane. 

[RawToast225 he/him]

I love the wordplay that Sanderson gets to use, and uses well, because of the nature of Stephen and Tobias' similar diagnosis in the first book, but I missed it in the second one! I really want those jokes back. Oh well, it was still a great story. I loved the ending, but I called it the second he saw the mother. It was just a little bit predictable, but not bad at all.

[hafje]

Have to say I liked this book very much. It contained a wealth of information on the aspects and raises a lot more questions. Rahul's sudden appearance was one of the scenes I loved the most, together with the white room scene. Also the gap in Stephen's knowledge where Ignacio used to be was very interesting.

 

I hope however that Brandon will use the 'loose ends' he created in the past 2 Legion books. The camera, for instance, is still there but it doesn't seem like it will play a large role in the rest of the series. The same with the ending of Skin Deep, with the data on Panos' thumb drive still unknown. I really hope he has some plan for those two.

[Zas678 he/him]

I think he's trying to write it like a TV series- you have interesting quick one-episode plots, then you have these giant, very very slow moving greater plots that have personal meaning to the protagonist. Like Monk's wife's murder in Mr. Monk. Or Bekett's mom's murder in Castle.

[RawToast225 he/him]

Or Shawn's relationship with Juliet in Psych. Or that thing happening with Forever.