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Hoid does mention Bavadin in the same breath as Rayse. We already know that he, at least, is/was awful, so Hoid grouping Rayse together with someone he didn't like for an insignificant reason seems foolish. I'd compare it to someone saying, "There are people I have a grudge against--the Starbucks barrista who makes my frappuccino kind of slowly, and the man who violently murdered my whole family."

I don't know. I liked the Belgariad okay, but it was something where I appreciated the obvious influence it has had on contemporary fantasy more than the work itself. I admit I felt a bit the same when I tried to get into MS&T without success. It really has a lot to do with when I'm reading the books. I'll read or reread a series that I'm really into, then I start casting about for something else to read, and it often fails to catch my interest. My plan for when I finish this Wheel of Time reread is to read some graphic novels that I've been wanting to get to (The Incal and Metabarons, mainly, but maybe the Bone collection I got a couple of months ago, too). I'm hoping that will work as a palate cleanser, and I'll be able to get into another series more easily.

I have to get back to that eventually. I started reading The Dragonbone Chair, and I just wasn't terribly interested. I ended up giving up after a while (I don't think I got very far). The same goes for The Malazan Book of the Fallen. I actually got about 400 pages in to Gardens of the Moon, but I gave up because I hated all of the characters so much that there was nothing to sustain my interest long enough for me to really figure out what was going on in the story. I think it just wasn't a good time for me to try to get into such a dark series.

You know, I just got to the first Mat chapter, and I have to say that on second thought, one could read his behavior as a reaction to finally being back with the Band, after months of first being continually sexually assaulted by Tylin, then completely disrespected by Tuon and the others he traveled with. Granted, the simple fact is that Brandon was writing Mat like he was still the immature prankster fresh from Emond's Field, but if one accepts that the book is canon as written and try to make sense of it accordingly, that is not at all an unreasonable way to interpret his behavior. In that light, yes, it's a step backwards for his character, but it is only temporary, after all. I know plenty of guys in their 30s who act like they're 22 again when they reunite with old college pals.

Well, there's tons and tons of sand around, so I got the impression that when someone was mastering constantly, new sand was getting sucked up to replace that which had been drained of Investiture. If not--if you can keep accessing Investiture for as long as you keep mastering the same sand and don't run out of water--then that really raises a question of just what is being recharged by the sun.

I've noticed that some people find it a stretch that the Shard's intent is part of the religion on Taldain, but really, that's far more likely than the kind of awareness we've seen on other planets, where the actual names of the vessels have made it into their culture (Tears of Edgli, aons, Atium and Lerasium, etc).

The sand would still run out of Investiture (or, more accurately, the lichen); however, the sand master would be able to continue to master indefinitely, if he had an indefinite supply of sand. The water works like a key, similar to how metal does on Scadrial, but while the metals are finite resource that unlock an infinite source of Investiture, water on Taldain is a finite resource that unlocks a similarly finite one. On Scadrial, they're plugging directly into the source, and on Taldain they're plugging into a battery.

Maybe that's just Bavadin, grumpily watching his people and wishing them ill.

He's referring to the dart launchers as being similar devices. It isn't terribly clear from the way it's presented, but the array of tubes around the Kershtian fighters' forearms (which Ais also uses) are pre-loaded with darts and charged with pressurized air. So, yes, they are very similar to guns in some respects, but they don't have anything like the power of an actual gunpowder-based weapon. Therefore, it's a huge shock when he hears a massive roar and someone's head gets blown up, but after Kenton realizes what the principle of the weapon is he observes that it really is very similar to the air-powered weapons that he is familiar with.

Interestingly, an anecdote from Brandon is that he was alerted to the problem because he kept getting comments from people that they thought he was writing Mat better than Jordan. That caused him to revisit what he was doing with the character because it didn't seem to be the right response: he wanted his writing to match what Jordan was doing (not to the point of copying his style but at least to the extent that the story was wrapped up in accordance with the rest of the series). That's not to say that the average reader preferred the new Mat. It's just that most people probably weren't going to walk up to him at a convention and start criticizing a fairly well-known author to his face, while the probable minority who appreciated the change were going to approach him with compliments.

Brandon himself admitted that he later realized that he was writing TGS Mat like he was still the Mat of the first couple of books. It's definitely corrected in the next two books, and the worst that I can remember (haven't gotten to Mat's POVs yet for this read-through) is that he was a bit too quippy and averse to responsibility (which is a character trait of his, but he had matured a little, prior to TGS). You are at the point where it seems like the wheels are just spinning and the story isn't going anywhere, but trust me, it's definitely worth it (at least it was for me; some people disagree). In books 7-10, very little time passes, but there are a whole bunch of different POVs to cover, and mostly those POVs cover the characters' thoughts and opinions on things, not action. Yes, all of that builds to action, but when you have four or five different stories that are all slowly building, it can seem like there's just nothing going on. That said, there are some pretty major events coming in The Path of Daggers and Winter's Heart. Those two books aren't nearly as uneventful as Crossroads of Twilight, in which plenty of stuff still happens, but there's nothing extremely portentous. Besides the slow build to plot points, I think another reason that books 7-10 seem tedious for some readers is that they are the volumes where it is most clear that The Wheel of Time is basically one long book and not a series of neatly divided parts. The story arc that you're expecting isn't in the one book that you're reading because it's spread across several volumes. The payoff starts in Knife of Dreams (and then even more so in the final three books).

All I can add is that, on April 11th, I asked Peter Ahlstrom (via Twitter) about whether White Sand has a canonical place in the chronology yet, and he said, "Not yet, but I suspect it's after Elantris." Personally, I thought that White Sand must have happened a considerable amount of time before Elantris, but clearly I'm wrong about that.

And now on to The Gathering Storm. I know that a lot of Sanderfans think that's the definitive moment in reading the series--moving on to Brandon's books--but I think that position more than a little disrespectful to the memory of Robert Jordan and his sizeable fanbase (not to mention to the expansive world that he created). Honestly, besides Brandon's tendency to switch between POVs in a single chapter and the lack of some signature Robert Jordan turn of phrases, it's kind of hard to tell the difference between the two writing styles, which is surely exactly what Brandon was aiming for.

The Darksiders' skin color is due to UV light from the weird star on their side of the planet, if I'm not mistaken. It always looks like a rave on Darkside, apparently. That's not to say that your observations about sandlings are wrong.

Yeah, I found it. It didn't turn up when I searched for it the first time, for some reason, but it was in there.

You know what? The last newsletter I got was the January one. I wonder what's happening.

The prophecy isn't a spoiler, though. The scene it comes from is in the first episode of season 5, I believe, not just the books. It's also undeniably coming true. There's always some doubt in GoT as to how true supernatural stuff people believe in actually is. But! Maggie the Frog said something about "gold shall be their shrouds," in reference to her children dying. Well, so far--sure--they've been buried in golden shrouds, but the same would be expected of any Lannister.

They probably won't, actually. The EU was always not considered canon. George Lucas always said that he didn't even know what was in the EU books, and he had no plans to maintain continuity with them in any way. Disney wanted to start making movies that take place after Return of the Jedi without being beholden to 20 years of story, but their announcement that the EU doesn't count was just a confirmation of the way that it had always been. Now, the books, comics, etc. are canon, and they won't be contradicting anything in the movies. That is the real concern, there. The new Star Wars books are canon until someone decides the films themselves aren't.

His personality is a lot like Hoid's, now that you mention it.

A Fire Upon the Deep was like that for me. When I was in high school (I think), I started it a couple of times but quickly gave up because I had no clue what was even happening, but when I finally stuck it out, I loved it. Of course, these days I probably would have no such difficulty, since I read so much fantasy and having no idea how anything about the world you're reading about works is a staple for the beginning of your average fantasy novel.

I just read White Sand Vol. 1. I liked it, but I've already read the prose version twice, so I always new exactly what was going on. Some people have been complaining that it's hard to follow. Back to WoT...

Aarik isn't Hoid. He and Kenton have been friends for a long time, and his father is one of the Taisha. The only way for Aarik to be Hoid is if Hoid is perfectly impersonating an actual person from Taldain. Did anyone notice what appears to be modern machinery on the first page of Chapter 2? I wonder what's up with that.

Man, I feel like Crossroads of Twilight took forever! I did have other stuff to do that kept me from reading, so it wasn't that volume's storied tediousness that kept me (though I will admit that reading it so slowly underscored just how little of note happens in the book, even if I didn't find it entirely boring). Starting Knife of Dreams now.

Most white babies are born with blue eyes, but it's not universal. I'll have to dig out my photo album and check, but I'm pretty sure that the photo taken minutes after I was born shows me with brown eyes.

That's an interesting way to translate the title. The Legions of Dust? I guess "Rithmatist" can't really be translated, but it seems like it wouldn't have to be. It's a made-up word resembling "arithmetic," and the French "arithmétique" is basically the same thing. Why not just "Le Rithmatist" (maybe you'd have to add an "e" at the end, and maybe it should be "la," but my French is pretty bad)?