DSC01

The full context of the quote comes from the comments on the post. Someone said: To that, Brandon replied: The last sentence is what's crazy about it. Sure, Renarin may or may not die, but that's not the important part. I'm wondering what on earth is going with "the nature of the back five books," if dead characters being around a lot is a major part of it. I mean, is that about the narrative structure or something odd with resurrection going on? My guess is that it's the narrative structure, and that the back five will rely more on flashbacks than the first five. I speculate that these flashbacks will take place during the events of the first arc and will radically change our perception of events that we thought we understood, just by giving us an alternate viewpoint.

Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait! What does this mean?!

Oh, yeah! I don't know why I didn't think of The Wheel of Time. I've read each book 3 times. I also read the deleted Demandred chapter in Unfettered once.

I don't know if Eddings was quite so fantasy-by-numbers when Pawn of Prophecy came out 34 years ago. Of course, I mostly read newer fantasy, so maybe it was totally stereotypical. The Belgariad on tons of best fantasy lists, so when I read it, I assumed that it just seemed unoriginal because it influenced stuff I had read before. I honestly don't know. I definitely agree with The Gate Thief not being good. I didn't read the latest book, but the second one just wasn't particularly interesting.

I've noticed that there are members of the Shard that have read some of Brandon's books a lot of times. I mean, a lot of times. But I'm betting that the average Sharder hasn't read Words of Radiance 60 times, even if there are a number who have. So I'm interested: how many times have you read various Sanderson books? Here are my numbers: Elantris: 3 times The Hope of Elantris: once or twice The Emperor's Soul: twice First Mistborn Trilogy: 3 times The Alloy of Law: 3 times Shadows of Self: once (gonna re-read in the next couple of days, to prep for Bands of Mourning) The Stormlight Archive 1 & 2: 3 times Warbreaker: 3 times I've also read all of the other Cosmere novellas once. As for unpublished stuff, I've read The Aether of Night, Mythwalker, The Way of Kings Prime sample chapters, and The Liar of Partinel each once, and I've read White Sand twice. Non-Cosmere: Both Legion novellas, the first Infinity Blade, and The Rithmatist: once each Steelheart, Mitosis, and Firefight: twice each Never read any Alcatraz books or the non-Cosmere shorts not mentioned above.

So, I had been in a bit of a reading rut, where I just didn't read much. I was having trouble finding anything that I was interested in, having not yet realized that epic fantasy is totally my jam. Then I saw the ads for Game of Thrones and got excited about the idea of a realistic fantasy series. After seeing an episode or two, I figured that I ought to give the books a shot. After I finished them, I fished around on Amazon for more fantasy books to read, and between a bunch of free or super cheap self-published Kindle books that were hit-and-miss (more miss, to be sure), I happened across Mistborn. The funny thing is, I did know about The Wheel of Time, and Brandon was already working on finishing it at the time, but I either never saw that or didn't make the connection. I did think about reading WoT, but I was kind of scared of it. I had seen the paperbacks kicking around when I was a young pre-teen/teenager, and I was really intimidated by these huge volumes--as long as any three books that I'd ever read--and seeing stuff like "Book Six" on the covers. I wasn't 13 years old anymore, and the books in A Song of Ice and Fire are all as long as WoT volumes, but I guess that memory stuck with me. Plus, badmouthing WoT online is something of a pastime for some folks. Around this time, I went online to air my grievances with A Dance with Dragons, and saw a complaint (with which I agreed wholeheartedly) that long sections of the book read as a depressed Tyrion's tedious travelogue. To that, a disillusioned WoT reader replied that they longed for something as interesting as a travelogue in some of the latter volumes of WoT. Having now read the series 3 times, I know that there is nothing as boring as Tyrion's sad-sack travels or page-long descriptions of feasts, but that sure scared me off then. Anyway, unlike a ton of Sanderfans, The Wheel of Time had nothing to do with my discovery. I didn't know about the Cosmere when I first read the first Mistborn arc, then The Way of Kings and Alloy of Law. Probably because I was also reading a lot of the aforementioned Kindle books at the same time that I picked up The Final Empire and associated it with the pack, I didn't take it all that seriously at first. I devoured the books, but they seemed like a bit too much fun to take seriously. The Stormlight Archive, though, was a totally different story, and as I learned about the Cosmere and everything, I really developed a strong affinity for the books. All because of an HBO show.

I'm in the camp that thinks the monster is a new hemalurgic creation. With its eyes possibly being spikes, we're looking at something along the lines of a Steel Inquisitor--just also a monster. That said, it doesn't mean that the subject of the spiking didn't originally hail from a certain other Shardworld. Also, concerning what Moogle says, above, about Marasi possibly Spiking herself, I think that's exactly what we're going to see. Maybe not necessarily with the earring. The conversation she had with Wayne about being in Wax's shadow shows that she really wants to distinguish herself. We know that she thinks her power is lame (I don't think that the one stunt at the end of AoL was enough to convince her otherwise, no matter how important it was to the operation). I think that her yearning to excel is going to make her behave somewhat rashly, and signs are pointing towards some hemalurgic dabbling, methinks.

I'm super excited about the new season. Season one was out-of-hand good, and this season looks like it's going to be even better. Elektra and Punisher are both characters that I never was super into, but given the quality of Marvel Netflix's work, I am really excited about their inclusion. After all, I was never super into Jessica Jones, either (by virtue of me having never read a single comic with her in it), but I ended up really enjoying that show. Basically, if Marvel Netflix says they're going to put a character in their shows, I get excited, even if they're not my favorite, I've never heard of them, or even if I actively dislike the character (that hasn't happened yet, but I imagine that I would still get excited).

I think the Stormlight novella is a different case altogether. Wax and Wayne came after the first Mistborn arc was completed. It organically grew into something bigger than a short story or novella because it made sense as a way to tell the next chapter in the greater Mistborn saga. Stormlight, on the other hand, has barely begun. A novella growing into a whole series would threaten to derail the main series, at this stage. Think about it: of the ten Radiant orders, only two have been explored in detail. So much of what is going on remains a huge mystery. If you have a side-story that is anything more than a novella, then it's either going to have to start solving that mystery, thereby interfering with the main series, or tell a completely different story. A novella works for telling a completely different story. It fills in some details of the world, makes the whole thing richer... A whole other series wouldn't do that as well, in my opinion. Not now, anyway. After SA5, maybe.

I can't think of anyone that I would really compare to Sanderson that isn't already on the list, but I notice that there is one ridiculously good fantasy author who hasn't made it there yet--R. Scott Bakker. So far, Bakker only has 5 epic fantasy books out (the sixth has been delayed forever because the manuscript was too long for his publisher, but it's finally coming out this year--the first half, anyway, as it was at last split into two volumes), but they are really good. The Second Apocalypse is the name of the overall series, which was going to be three trilogies, a plan that isn't going to work now that the second is going to be a quartet. Anyway, the first trilogy, The Prince of Nothing, is complete. The second series, The Aspect Emperor, has two volumes that are currently out (The Judging Eye and The White-Luck Warrior). The third volume was going to be The Unholy Consult, but that is now going to be the title of the 4th book, and the third with be The Great Ordeal, with a probable release date in July. Now, it's pretty dark stuff. I generally get tired of bleak grimdark books, but somehow, this series has a quality to it that makes you want to keep reading and invest in the characters. The thing is, the characters aren't necessarily all that likable. They're morally grey, sometimes (or often) do terrible things, but while that usually makes me despise a character and not want to read the book anymore, it works really well here. I dunno. Just read it. Unless you can't handle violence and sex and stuff.

Maybe. In Lift's Interlude, she observes him "being awesome" and also with a Shardblade (which we also see in the Ym Interlude). It could be an Honorblade and not a Shardblade.

I think that red=Odium and gold=Autonomy. I don't have a whole lot of evidence for that, but it's what I've been working with... Hopefully, BoM fills something in for us. Or maybe White Sand.

Yeah, I forgot about Sigzil and his training. Zahel probably knows Hoid from Nalthis, though, and I was lumping Jasnah in with those who simply know Hoid because he's Wit. I'm sure that he spent plenty of time pulling strings in his capacity as Wit, and that would include interacting with Jasnah, but I was thinking of people who would have met him outside of that role.

When the Radiants had their honorblades, their failure to attract spren is pretty simple. It's not just that it's hard to Invest that which is already Invested; it's also the fact that the bond that they already had was almost the exact same thing as the spren bond. If you've got a thumbdrive plugged into your USB port, you can't plug something else into the same port. The slot is full. I think that analogy works for the situation, here. Of course, once they got rid of the blades, they might not have been bonded to them anymore. It's not really clear yet. If not, one could make the argument that, as the prototypes for Radiants, they should top the list for attracting spren. There are some problems with that, though. For one, why would the Heralds want to be Radiants? They already abdicated their responsibility. The years of war and torment have messed each of them up really good. It's not like a spren can force someone to bond them. A Herald would know exactly what was happening if a spren came sniffing around, and they could just reject them outright. And I think that they would. Just because this particular responsibility doesn't come with intermittent trips to hell doesn't mean that it would be in any way attractive to them. Another issue is that the spren themselves would probably view the Heralds abandoning the Oathpact as a betrayal of their bond. The Stormfather is exceedingly reluctant to allow any any new bonds in modern-day Roshar, and that's just because humans broke their vows in the past. It's not even the humans alive at the time--just being a member of the same species as those who betrayed the spren once is enough for the Stormfather to judge them all unworthy. That being the case, how much more would a spren judge someone who had actually broken their own bond? True, the honorblades are not spren, but they are something very close to them. See, I do think that it would be possible for a Herald without a bond to their honorblade to bond a spren. I don't think it would matter if they remained pretty Invested afterwards. Hoid seems to have picked up plenty of new powers over time, so gaining abilities isn't necessarily going to be precluded by the fact that one already has abilities. Keep in mind, the WoB most relevant to this issue is an answer to a question about a Returned being able to form a Nahel bond. The Divine Breath is a Splinter. Spren are also Splinters. Honorblades? Also Splinters. So, once you get rid of the Splinter you're bonded with, the space should open up to allow another one in (unless breaking the bind does some kind of spiritual damage). I just don't think that the Heralds would be suitable candidates after they did so.

I'd say that there is pretty much a 100% chance that he Soothed and/or Rioted her, but I wouldn't say that what's going on with meeting Shallan is necessarily a Richard Alpert-esque type thing. Hoid uses some kind of feruchemy to get where and when he needs to be, but we really don't know much about it yet. It does seem, though, that his interaction with Shallan was very important. It encouraged her to work hard at preventing her family from self-destructing, which was a part of her path to Radiancy. I just don't think there's any real plan at work (now that I think about it, maybe that is exactly like Lost...). Now, with Kaladin, it doesn't seem that they met at all before the Shattered Plains, but Hoid does interact with him twice at pivotal times, and the stories he tells help Kaladin on his journey. So he pretty clearly is trying to influence events. I think it's just an extension of what he does in other books, though. The only reason he's taking such a direct role on Roshar, instead of lurking in the background and subtly influencing things is that he thinks the stakes for the Cosmere are much higher with Odium involved (who he has admitted to holding a grudge against). The one character besides Shallan that we can say that he definitely did meet before the story begins (besides all the people who know him as Wit, of course) is Rock. It isn't clear whether that is really all that important in the grand scheme of things or if it was a chance meeting, but Rock did meet him, apparently right when he arrived on Roshar. An interesting observation: Hoid seems to have arrived on Roshar via Shardpool, but I really don't think he needs to use Shardpools in order to worldhop. If not, then chances are good that he arrived on Roshar on the occasion that Rock observed him, having come directly from Sel, where the odd conditions mean that one does have to use a Shardpool to worldhop, regardless of one's natural ability to travel via Shadesmar. Anyway, that's not really on-topic--just an observation.

Indeed. There are some big mysteries surrounding the Honorblades. They are almost certainly Splinters, but they don't have sapience (probably; that hasn't been definitively established, I suppose). That is definitely a huge conundrum.

I didn't answer the poll question because I don't think there's a good one-word answer for it. I think that there is an attraction between them after their experience in the chasms, and I do think that will develop into something over the course of the story. I don't necessarily think that they'll have a relationship, and there are a lot of reasons that a relationship between them would be a bad thing. I think what is interesting about the attraction is that it is kind of a unique situation in their society. The disparity between lighteyes and darkeyes is a really monstrous thing, and it has shaped Kaladin's perception to the point that he can't even see Shallan--or any lighteyed woman--as attractive. It's important to his character development for him to have an experience where he begins to see lighteyes as fellow human beings. This is also an important situation for Shallan's character. She and Adolin do seem like a fairly good match, but, really, she always expected to be married off to a convenient noble as a political play. Their whole experience in the chasms--shared experience leading to people realizing an affinity for one another--is not something that really happens for two people of the opposite sex in their society (and certainly not between a darkeyes and a lighteyes). By interacting with each other outside of the rigid social rules dictated by their society (which, to be fair, the two of them flaunt pretty regularly anyhow), they shared an experience that would be a fairly common way for two people to form an attraction in our society. But that doesn't really happen at all to Alethi people. It's not so odd that they would feel an attraction to each other. I think that is a plot point that will be most interesting if it doesn't lead to any kind of romantic interaction between them. It would be useful for Kaladin's character to examine the attraction he feels to Shallan and help him get over his bias against lighteyes. It would be useful for Shallan to examine her attraction and think about how she really feels about her betrothal to Adolin. They might end up being very good for each other. However, at the moment, the fact is that Shallan and Adolin are both just thrilled to discover that they are attracted to the partner that was arranged for them (something that could very easily not be the case at all). Yes, they genuinely enjoy each other's company, but I really think that they're most infatuated with idea of an arranged marriage actually working out. It would be a good thing for Shallan to base her romantic life around what she wants, not relief that her partner isn't terrible. I think an interest in Kaladin could facilitate that.

I like some dark and violent stuff. I love R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse series, and that is very much a grimdark series. I just really didn't appreciate Pact's unrelenting bleakness. I guess you could describe a lot of The Second Apocalypse the same way, but it's different.

I was raised in an evangelical Christian home (in fact, my parents were missionaries). Growing up overseas, in a culture that isn't secular in the way that Western culture is, the faith made sense to me. But then I came back to America and went out into the world, and my beliefs began to change. Now, I'm an atheist.

Yeah, I'll still give it a shot. I'm not going to get into it right away, though, since it looks like it's about half done right now. I'll give it some time and read some of the many other books I have on my list.

I finally finished Pact, just now. It's almost put me off of reading Twig. I don't know about you guys, but I get a really weird vibe from Wildbow's stuff. Like, why is there all of this horrific, gore-porn violence, but sex is shied away from really hard? I even sensed it in Worm, but it's much more pronounced in Pact. It's not like other authors who avoid sex scenes because they don't want to have that kind of content in their books; rather, it comes off as pathological, like the author has some real issues about sex. He certainly doesn't have a problem with other adult content. If Pact was adapted into a movie, you'd probably have to tone the gore down by at least 50% just to get an R rating. There's stuff that makes The Human Centipede look like the Mickey Mouse Club. It's not that I think there need to be sex scenes in any book with adult content, but there are elements of the story that would be better developed if the author didn't seem so scared of them. I have to say, I liked Worm way better than Pact. I'm really not a fan of horror in general, and that is essentially what Pact is. I read an argument that the difference between horror and urban fantasy lies in the competence of the protagonist. So I guess you could say that Pact is really urban fantasy, but it certainly does a poor job of justifying where that competence is coming from (though I guess the exceedingly vague magic system lets the author get away with fudging just about anything into the story, if it serves). Worm definitely has its horrific moments--the Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, Echidna, etc--but it doesn't overtake the story. I guess that I do have to at least admit that Wildbow has a way with stories. I did finish it, after all. However, the compulsion to read just a little bit more and see what happens next that carried me through Worm was lacking for most of Pact. It was there in some parts of it (in particular, the Toronto part), and I guess that's why I stuck it out, even though I was really tired of the whole thing for what seemed like most of the story.

It's... Well, it's really not a good show, but I'm watching it anyway. Visually, it's spectacular, but a lot of the acting is pretty bad, and the music is often very odd. Like, it will be all atmospheric and ethereal and in no way matches the mood of what's happening in the scene. It's kind of jarring.

Man, Pact is ridiculously bleak. I got myself into it, so now I have to finish it, but dude...

At this point, I don't even care about ASoIaF anymore. I'll read WoW when it comes out--I may even try to reread the first 5--but I've basically lost interest. I guess I'm just burnt out on it. Dance was boring and mostly uneventful, and when I tried to do a reread something like a year ago, I just couldn't muster any interest in GoT. Now, Doors of Stone, I will read pretty shortly after it's released, but if it comes out on the same day as SA3, it's coming second. That said, I really doubt that all three books would be released on the same day, even if they were all ready at the same time. Sure, it's three different publishers, but they have to be aware that the market for those books is essentially identical. In most cases, readers are going to want to buy all 3 books. All that they do by releasing them all on the same date is lower the chances that their particular book will make the bestsellers list right out of the gate, with buyers on a budget having to prioritize which they want to buy right away.

Crown of Swords is where the slowdown starts. I strongly disagree with those who contend that nothing happens until Knife of Dreams, but with every main character off doing their own thing, it takes a long time for anything to be resolved. Just a warning, in hopes that you don't get disillusioned when you start back in on WoT.