[OB] POLL: Ranking Oathbringer

[mariapapadia she/her]

5 hours ago, Bridge Boy said:

To clarify, I finished my 2nd, slower, read of Oathbringer today. Issues that I had upon my 1st read were more pronounced and the positives were more withdrawn. I find myself liking it less. This is odd for me as I always enjoy Brandon's books more on the 2nd read.

With that said, I thought Oathbringer was poor. I loved the book because the stormlight archive is my favorite series, and I have been breathlessly waiting for it's release for 3 years, but it was not an exceptional book as I have come to expect with Brandon Sanderson. It has many specific issues that I have highlighted in multiple posts on 17thshard since it's release. I just genuinely wish that Brandon would stop messing around with all of these others series and would instead solely focus on giving us his best for the stormlight archive. He's taken on many projects since writing WoK & WoR and I speculate that this may have something to do with OB being so underwhelming.

I love Brandon's books and I want them to be exceptional, and I have every faith that he will be able to turn it around for book 4. But I do have to say that I am quite disappointed.

As it stands I rank them:

1. Words of Radiance

2. Way of Kings

3. Oathbringer

I had problems with it as well, but I wouldn't consider it poor. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. That beeing said, I don't know what your experience with Brandon's book has been before, if you had to wait for them or not,  but it sounds to me that a big part of your discontent with the book was with expectations you created. I have noticed that on myself, since I've joined this forum that I became a more aware reader when it comes to these  books and of course all the endless disscusions, set me up for potential dissapoinments. This was the first of Brandon's book that I waited for, since all of his other works were already out when I was interested in reading them. For me it was the most anticipated book ever and I don't think the hype ruined that, but actual things that everyone mentioned above. 

I don't think the problem with this being not as good for some as the others is Brandon having too many side projects. Actually I think those help him a lot and he said multiple times that he needs those in order to keep working on SA. The epicness that is SA can become really tiering and such a creative person like him needs other outlets of expression as well. In a creative field you always need some distance from your work in other to see some things better, analyze and get inspiration. Good books, paintings, songs etc don't come from working non stop on them. 

3 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

Here is how I think they stack up:

1. Oathbringer

 

 

 

 

 

2. Words of Radiance

3. Way of Kings

Oathbringer is my favorite book of all times, and the Stormlight Archive is my favorite series of all times.

Way of Kings is a great book, but it suffers somewhat from the repetitive nature of how much you have to see Kaladin beaten down. His swearing of the first ideal is better for the build up, but it's also a slow slog through it when you re-read it or re-listen to the audiobook.

Words of Radiance was amazing, it still wasn't my favorite book of all times, but it was close. Shallan's story arc was awesome in WoR, her infiltration of the ghostbloods, her betrothal to Adolin (the shardplate discussion at the restaraunt at the end of the high storms is still one of the comedic high points of the whole series), but you also have plot lines that at the time were important, but are also somewhat tedious on a second reading or second listening (the investigation of the King's snore strap, I mean horse strap, what a snoozer, and Shallan's childhood is painful to wade through multiple times).

Oathbringer is amazing. Absolutely amazing. Each part is this would have been one of the best books that I have ever read on it's own, the climax to part 1 with the battle with Reshephir is how a very great writer would finish their book. That's just the end of part 1 in Oathbringer.

Haha! it's funny how we have complete opposite opinions on some stuff. I actually found WoK really slow when I first read it. It took me a while to get into it and it only picked up for me around the middle. While I was reading it the first time I was thinking Kaladin's arc was soooo looong and boring here and there. So on my first read I just thought it was ok. On my secon I flew through it and couldb't belive how I could consider it slow in the first place and by the 3rd re read I absolutely loved it ! Hopefully something similar will happen to OB as well. 

2 hours ago, Starla said:

I put it third. My order is 

1. Way of Kings
2. Words of Radiance
3. Oathbringer

My favorite part of any book, no matter what genre, is the characters. To truly love a story, I have to feel what they are feeling and be emotionally invested what happens to them. I live the story through their eyes. The first two books had wonderful character development and I felt everything from joy to anger to despair to a sense of wonder, right alongside the characters. It's what sucked me into this story so deeply. I also love character interactions, how they relate to each other and respond to interesting or shocking situations. 

I didn't feel much of that in Oathbringer. As many have mentioned in other threads, several key scenes between characters seem to be missing: Jasnah's arrival in Urithiru, Szeth showing up on Team Dalinar, Navani and family learning of Elhokar's death, the Helaran conversation between Kaladin and Shallan, Adolin killing Sadeas, Lifts's interactions with the rest of the cast, the radiant road trip to Thaylen City, etc. These scenes would have brought the reader more emotionally into the story, and I missed having that feeling of closeness with the characters. Especially Shallan, I felt like I couldn't relate to her at all in this book due to the extended depth of her identity issues. By the end of the book I have no idea if she's getting better or worse, nor have any sense of where she goes from here.

That said, the magic and worldbuilding in this book are tremendous, and those are are my second and third favorite qualities in a fantasy book. Unlike many others, I loved the Shadesmar sequence and the look into the lives of the spren. This partially makes up for lack of character depth, but it still leaves me feeling a bit empty at the end, like I watched a ton of cool stuff happen, but I didn't feel much of it.

Haha! Another instance where I totally agree with you. I loved the Shadesmar sequence as well and I liked most of the new places we got to see, but somewhere deep downI missed the Shattered Plains so much The feeling that the first two books created for me in regards to the setting is one of the things that I love most SA. It was so vivid in my head and it grew on me so much.That and  the fact that I don't deal well with change in a series of show, after I got used to something for a long period of time, made me a bit less excited about some of the otherr places we've seen in OB.

1 hour ago, IndigoAjah said:

What are people's issues with the pacing? (I have to say whilst I find pacing a big issue in films- looking at you, Snyder-, I've rarely been bothered by it in books or even TV or games. Except for a few.)

 

I thought it was an excellent book, best of Stormlight, with more nuanaced character work, appropriate continuing mystery, lots of high octane moments, more drawing together of the Cosmere (which I like), improved humour and a flourishing mythology. It had flaws, but I think it's a less one dimensional book than any of Brandon's other works, and continues to explore some of the issues his series previously touched whilst exploring new ones and not feeling especially cluttered. The flashbacks were so raw.

 

It could have balanced POVs between characters better, it was over the top at times and was maybe too optimistic (in the end) for a book 3 of 10 (then again, it's a Wheel of Time parallel and Book 2/3 of that matches up quite closely in many ways). 

 

It was remarkly similar in tone and soul to Thor Ragnarok for me, actually. 

Maybe I'm nitpiking here or arguing semantics and in that case I am sorry, but the sentence I highlited implies that other of Brandon's works are one dimentional, which I don't think is ever the case. Especially when it comes to Cosmere books here or SA. OB is great because the other two, which I would never even think of as one dimensional, created the world and the setup for this third book to be great. As a lot of people have said, the first two are still complex and explore a lot things, but also wrap the plot in such a satisfying way and give the feeling of self-contained books, while I don't think that happens completelly with OB. I didn't have big problems with the pacing in this book, but I though part 2 was a bit too long and sometimes slow for me, as I wasn't that interested in all the POV's of Bridge 4 and some broke the rithm. Also, the end sequence had a big of a wierd pacing. Of course these are just my 2 cents. 

 

1.WoR 

2.WoK=OB 

For me Words of Radiance is still the best Sanderson book I've ever read and right now I would put WoK and OB at a tie. WoK grew on me and it became and I have to give it more time and rereads to know exactly if I like OB more or not. 

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Maybe I should have said more multidimensional. The characters in the other works aren't overly simple but are sometimes not very subtle and OB has a lot more subtlety for me than most of his works, in characters. They've all had very subtle and complex themes though 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

I don't want to rank it yet, but I do think that it had strenghts that the other books don't have, but it also had unique flaws:

+Loss. There was a bigger sense of loss in this book than in the others, in my opinion. Elhokar, Eshonai, Jezrien and Amaram are all dead, Kholinar is conquered, and the world is divided. At the end, both WoK and WoR where a lot more bright, and I like to have some darkness in the books I read. 

+Some characters were better here than they have been before. Pattern was a standout, Szeth was awesome, Dalinar was brilliant, Rock had great moments, Adolin was pretty cool though (he was awesome in WoR as well though). 

+The final battle.

+Lore and reveals. We got a lot of info on the Cosmere, spren, Heralds and the Voidbringers. More than we got in the previous books.

+It was a more entertaining ride than the others.

And then we have the negatives:

-The Recreance-twist felt weak.

-Some things felt rushed. I think that we would have had more payoff in certain moments if we had gotten some more scenes from different characters. For example, an Amaram POV when he finds out about the betrayal of the Heralds would have made his boss fight against Kaladin much more powerful IMO. Teft could have used additional scenes though. And the fact that Glys was Odium-affected was somehow forgotten when Jasnah decided not to execute Renarin. Wierd.

-Some characters got shafted. Rlain got a POV chapter, but hardly appeared otherwise. Adolin, for all his greatness, could have had even more awesomeness if he got to revive his Deadeye (thought he would do that since the beginning of Part 4). Mraize got two scenes, and Iyatil had none at all. Graves died after two pages. 

[Stormlightning she/her]

For those who struggled to love Oathbringer as much, here's where I can understand you:

-I was 800 pages in and found myself thinking, "Man, by this point in WoK and WoR, I had at least two awesome, intense moments that I later went back and reread 500 times each (ex: Szeth's 1st assassination attempt on Dalinar and Adolin's 1-v.-4 Shardbearer fight in WoR). I'm surprised I haven't really had any of those yet."

-I must regretfully agree with those who feel that Brandon went a little overboard on deleting scenes that would have held that satisfying anticipation-spike. Moments like Shallan and Jasnah reuniting. I've noticed that Brandon pretty consistently makes things happen off-screen if they would be have 'awesome', but not helpful in building the story arc. I appreciate that he avoids these traditionally over-utilized moments, but agree that it was probably overdone and made the first 3/4th of the book a bit of a drudge.

It's completely ridiculous and a testament to Brandon's incredible storytelling that I sit here and think, "Man, you should have split this arc into two books. Even though you have so much more coming. Maybe it should be a 20 book series. Somehow in 1200 pages of absolutely critical storyline and world-building and foreshadowing, there wasn't enough room for the things that would have made it the most fulfilling."

 

However, I'm totally content with the movement of The Stormlight Archives as a series and am eager to see what comes next. The points above may have negatively affected the quality of book three, but at least Brandon didn't mess up the worldbuilding/story arc itself. I'd say authors and other mediums that do this (here I am thinking of stories like Kingdom Hearts) cause a lot more serious damage to their story and far more heartbreak to their fans.

Why I don't think that Oathbringer was worse, as a whole, than the other two books:

-I feel that this book was important for developing a lot of lines that will be critical in the future of the story. Somewhere, Brandon had to fit in all the groundwork for things that are coming. He put in a lot of world-building that will be very important for readers (especially the more casual readers) in the future books. Explaining everything about the Unmade, and about the functionality of Shadesmar, could well have been twice as long as they were and still been brief. I can't fault him for needing to explain these things before we get further into the series. Even if much of the book wasn't as exciting as in the previous two, it all felt very essential to me.

-The hype for this book was like...through the roof. And the atmosphere. And the expanding borders of the universe. Wit's commentary on how expectation is so important to how art is received is especially poignant here. I believe that with a few rereads, I will find myself much more satisfied with this book than my initial read though (although don't get me wrong, the avalanche was everything I was hoping for and more). I think once the hype of a new SA book dies down, we will find that this book was awesome in it's own right. In fact, I'm seeing a lot of that appreciation start to bubble up in other threads already as people really digest everything that happened in it. Just take the expectations out of the multiverse.

I think that in the future years as we await book four, we will all develop a love for Oathbringer that matches the other two. It became a bit of a catch-all for the stuff that needed to be outlined before we get too much farther. I can see why Brandon has done so much juggling of which character's flashback book to do next. I think he could have done Dalinar or Szeth as the focuses for book two, and book two would still have been utterly incredible. Now he's faced with this difficult situation where the flashback characters are moving into and even past some of their most pivotal moments, and he hasn't had a chance to do their flashbacks yet. Szeth has undergone a ton of transformation since book one, but Brandon still can't fully dive into that development until Szeth's actual book. If this had been Szeth's book, I think we all would have been a lot more satisfied with his arc, but we would have missed so much that was important to Dalinar's arc. It's a trade-off that's becoming tighter and tighter.

 

If you read all that, you're awesome. If not, here's the rundown: The book wasn't as long as it needed to be, unfortunately, to do all the characters justice. But it was still awesome for all it accomplished and will give us plenty to discuss until book four.

[Awesomness]

I think it suffers from being the middle book. 

Everything is getting more and more complex, and not every plot line can be explored to conclusion.

That said, there were some thinks I didn't like very much (im looking at you Shaveilant), but many others were just perfect

[Farnsworth]

Without a doubt, OB is the best book I’ve ever read. So much happened!!!

Any of these moments could have made a great book:

1) The journey though the CR

2) Kaladin’s return to Hearthstone

3) Shallan fighting Re-Shepir

4) Dalinar making a perpendicularity

5) New information on the Nightwatcher 

5) Seeing Odium/Passion

6) Szeth’s searing loyalty to Dalinar

7) Lift discussing Dalinar’s butt

 

We just got all seven. 

[LordOfTheMists]

1. WoR

2. OB

3. TWoK

All 3 are just so close. It was hard to rank them. WoR was just so solid throughout that it had to be first, and Part 5 of OB pushed it past WoK.

[maxal she/her]

1. WoR

2. WoK/OB

I have mixed feelings about Oathbringer. It may be because I said such high expectations for it as opposed to having no specific ones for the previous books. I read WoK and WoR simultaneously: I had little time in between both tomes to ponder on what may happen next, so I was basically fine with whatever Brandon was throwing at me. WoR is also the book into which Adolin grew into my favorite character and, as such, will always remain a favorite of mine.

Going into Oathbringer, after nearly four years of discussions, I had expectations, which I did try to keep modest, but still I cannot deny I had them. In retrospective, I still think of them as relatively modest as I feel there were many ways for Brandon to deliver on those, including ways which keep the existing narrative nearly intact, but he didn't deliver. The lack of pay-off for Adolin murdering Sadeas, in terms of narrative more than consequences to the character, truly hampered my ability to enjoy this book. Instead of reading an arc I thought would be really interesting, I thought could pan out into thousand of satisfying ways, I read it morphed into Shallan's personality problems. And I found those too centered on Shallan's character to really be as interesting as they were meant to be.

Other people have mentioned how the lack of character interactions and common scenes has disappointed them and I agree. I feel character development was too often tossed away to the profit of the narrative which by itself was fine, but not as enthralling as the narrative from the previous books. Sure, more "stuff "happens, but this "stuff" focused so closely on Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar and their own personal issue, I just didn't find it as interesting as the "stuff" happening within the previous books.

For instance, Dalinar politicizing for endless long chapters didn't fascinate me. I loved his backstory, I really did, but I thought there was too many of Dalinar talking to Queen Fen, Dalinar talking to foreign people, trying to convince them and well... since I have absolutely no emotional attachment to those characters I didn't find it as interesting as it was meant to be. I thought Dalinar's story arc could have been better if he was made to deal with more than foreign politics and his memories, if his relationship with his sons, with Elhokar was better fleshed out, if it played a role: this would have made his chapters more interesting, to me. It didn't help Dalinar's main character interaction was with Navani whom I think is the blander of Brandon's character. She hasn't come to life for me yet and I kept wondering why the story needed her viewpoints when other, IMHO more interesting characters, were around.

Shallan's personality issue story arc was too long or perhaps it had too many chapters. I thought the Veil scenes in Part 3 were too numerous: I didn't need as many. It dragged and since it was all about her and just her, it failed to grab my interest. I liked how the arc concluded but I felt it got a too strong focus into the book. A few additional scenes with Adolin commenting on Shallan would have been welcomed. I however really loved Shallan and Adolin's scenes together, so those worked out nicely for me. It really was the Veil arc in Part 3 which I thought dragged. It could have been made shorter.

Kaladin's story arc was rather small, but it got a many chapters nonetheless. He accomplished less than Adolin within the book, but he got ten times the amount of page time. As a result, I felt his story too dragged. His trekking with the Parshendis was too long and it focused on characters, I again, didn't care much for. I would have been fine by it if Kaladin's Part 3 story wasn't him, eating stew with a bunch of characters I, again, didn't care much for. Too much page time taken on Kaladin talking to other people which ultimately died. Mind, I understand the purpose of the arc, but I felt it had too much page time for what it really amounted to. It could have been made shorter or Kaladin could have been given more to do.

So all in all, I think, after three books, Brandon centering the story on Dalinar/Kaladin/Shallan stopped working as nicely as it did within the first two books. At this point in time within the story, I felt other characters needed development, page time and a more focused arc, but they didn't really get it. Oh Aodlin got Maya which was amazing, but it came after this dreadful story arc where he played the buffoon with his multicolored clothes. This clashed with the fact the character has been dealing with stuff, but since the narrative focused just on Shallan and Kaladin, they were skipped over. A few additional viewpoints would have done wonder here.

I thought the story came more to life when the narrative move onto other characters but the main three. Against all odds, I actually liked the Bridge 4 chapters in part 2, I liked the short Rysn chapter and thought she could have gotten a bigger role. I enjoyed the touch of Jasnah, but I do criticize how Glys being corrupted ended up being ignored. I was fine with Szeth's story arc, though his return and acceptance by everyone didn't work out for me. I thought Venli's arc was very touching and I surprised myself into liking it.

There was a lot of good stuff into this book, but the pacing suffered, for me, because of the focus being too strongly set on the Dalinar/Kaladin/Shallan's very internal arcs when I felt it should have expanded more on the secondary characters. On the reverse, I also ended thinking the finale had too many characters... While readers love Lift and Szeth, I thought they could have been left out of the finale or the finale could have been made to expand on more chapters to be less frazzled. 

As thus my critic of OB is mixed. I will likely change as I re-read the book, discuss and make up a better mind on various plot threads. It is entirely possible I would have loved this book if it weren't for my expectations on a few story arcs which didn't really happen. The whole Adolin/Sadeas/Ialai/Amaram arc really didn't get the coverage it needed to truly be satisfying while other arcs got too much of it to remain interesting.