Dunkum

yes, yes, and yes. off the top of my head, we have seen Hoid do the following "on screen":

Some are easier than others. for instance anyone can receive breaths and learn to do awakening, and anyone can bond a spren assuming they can find a willing one (though leaving the rosharan system with one is harder). others are trickier - pretty sure accessing Selish magics require modifying connections if you are not from there. though things like Hemalurgy and unsealed metalminds can help too.

Just Nalthians. but anyone is capable of receiving a breath if someone from Nalthis give it to them

been slowly making my way through Tad WIlliams's "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" trilogy. it isn't bad, but it just isn't grabbing me either. I'll try to finish it but part of that is just because I don't have anything else I'd rather be reading right now.

10 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I actually felt it was the opposite way around - I was okay with it in Tress because of the Princess Bride conceit, but disliked it in Yumi. Agreed with you wrt the storytelling segments in Stormlight though!

I can see that - Tress takes itself a bit less seriously. also Hoid is more actively involved in Tress, as opposed to Yumi, and that can help a bit as well because it sort of internally makes more sense that he would be talking about it. but as I recall (and its been a bit since I read either) he was also adding a lot more commentary in Tress, so for me at least it was more distracting. it more or less works sometimes, but there is definitely such a thing as too much.

38 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

-Yumi

I think I'll like it better the second time around. Hoid narrating is tiresome (back to my problems with Sanderson and banter) and Yumi had to grow on me but really enjoyed Kilahito as a setting. That Sanderlanche was insanely good though.

He wasn't quite as bad in Yumi as he was in Tress. I think he more or less works in the storytelling segments in Stormlight, but those are much shorter - not long enough for it to become grating.

4 hours ago, masquacks said:

i actually just barely went to youtube right before you answered but what are your thoughts on this just go to it and click the description cause he feels knowledgeable but i just want to here what the community says

j 

I'd probably pick this order over the one Brandon suggests in the other response - I think keeping the secret projects at the end of the current books works best, especially if you are trying to catch connections the first time through. but some notes:

note 1: I agree with Brandon about Elantris being one of the weaker entries, and probably wouldn't start with it. Mistborn or Warbreaker would be my choices instead (I think Mistborn was actually where I did start so many years ago). that said, I agree with the list, if not necessarily the precise order, of the pre-stormlight books.

note 2: personally I don't like the idea of jumping back and forth between Stormlight and Mistborn Era 2. I mean, i read them as they came out so I DID do that, but I wouldn't do it that way again. so if you'd prefer to read through one series before jumping to the next, then I'd have to recommend Mistborn Era 2 before Stormlight. there is not a huge amount of intersection there, and most of it comes from book 4 of Mistborn era 2 if memory serves, so if you wanted to retain something like the level of surprise that you would have had reading them as they came out, you could theoretically do SA 1-3 (including Edgedancer, and maybe Dawnshard if you want, though it can go later as long as it is before Stormlight 4) then Mistborn Era 2 (including Secret History where he puts it relative to those books) then Stormlight 4. but if you want to spot all the connections as soon as possible, then Mistborn Era 2 comes first.

EDIT: i looked it up and I had the release order for Rhythm of War and The Lost Metal backwards. so to revise my note 2: to keep the surprise aspect you would do all of Stormlight before all of Mistborn Era 2.

do you know how similar The Narrow Road Between Desiresis to "The Lightning Tree"? I got the impression looking at it that it was essentially an expansion on that story to some degree, but I haven't actually read it to compare.

42 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

No, not every fan. I'm a fan in some ways, and I know a lot of fans. Not every fan.

However, I do know what you're talking about. Those types of fans who ignore every flaw are kinda annoying lol. There are flaws in every piece of writing. 

I love the series mainly because it works despite its flaws and the consistency issues. I also just adore JK Rowling's way of writing prose. Maybe it's just the way I've heard it in the audio books, but it's really fun and captures me every time.

I was exaggerating some, but there are definitely a few people I have met for whom it seems to be a pillar of their identity and they will hear no ill spoken of it. my experience is just completely at odds with the line "no one is pretending it's the best thing ever"

personally I think it's fine, and I'd probably like it a bit more if not for the sort of hype that surrounds it. but I also have plenty of gripes with, so I land firmly in the "overrated" group on that one. but part of that is just that it did get so much publicity. Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and A Song of Ice and Fire are probably the only fantasy series that are even slightly comparable on that front.

On 2/1/2024 at 1:57 PM, Just a Silvereye said:

Oh yeah HP. I'd say it's fairly rated, because no one is pretending it's the best thing ever.

this baffles me. who have you been talking to? because every HP fan I have ever met DOES seem to think it is the best thing ever, and they will go on about it at length. its a fun enough series, but that level of hype is unsustainable.

5 hours ago, Procrastination said:

697: If you are at a party and somebody is wounded in the epic party battle scene, know that you cannot use wine as a disinfectant. It will not be effective because there is not a high enough alcohol percentage. (Saw this in a book the other day and had to look it up).

huh - I'm not surprised about wine, but I was curious what WOULD make a useful disinfectant. based on google results, even most hard liquor isn't concentrated enough. you pretty much need to jump to grain alcohol or other types of things sold specifically for having a lot of alcohol.

Didn't realize Jim Butcher had finished a second book in the Cinder Spires series until I saw The Olympian Affair at the book store this afternoon, so starting on that today. I liked the first one well enough, but I read it so long ago that I barely remember anything about it or the setting. ideally i'd give it a reread first, but I don't have it on hand. if I get too confused i'll just look up a synopsis or something to refresh my memory

27 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said:

TROS is one of my least favorite movies ever. 

I'm firmly of the opinion that any time anyone suggests hiring J.J. Abrams for anything, they should just play the "somehow Palpatine returned" scene to remind them why that is a bad idea.

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Out of curiosity, were you aware of "why" Sanderson chose to use Hoid's voice as narrator for those? WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

Brandon Sanderson

So, that is the start of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. Now the analysis.Where did this come from? Well, you can probably tell this is another Hoid story. I wanted, after I wrote Secret Project one, to try a different style of voice for Hoid. Project One has a modern fairytale vibe, like Princess Bride–and I like that. I think it turned out really well. I’m proud of it, and I’ll probably use that voice again sometime.

But I also wanted to have access to a different kind of voice for Hoid. (Or several different voices.) Part of the reason I’m doing all this is to figure out how I want to write Dragonsteel, his origin story, which will be first person. So I wanted to test out other narrative voices that Hoid might use in telling stories. For Secret Project three, I specifically wanted one where Hoid was using more of a traditional narrative style.

To explain it another way, I wanted him to tell a story that felt less fairytale and more dramatic.

So, this kind of feedback is the kind of discussion he hopes we have, so he can refine the first-person project discussed in the WoB.

hadn't seen that one before. for what its worth I suspect it would work better in the proposed book than in the other 2, because that one IS his own story. his interjections were distractions in the other 2 in a way that wouldn't be the case there.

Not sure how controversial this is but: I don't like Hoid very much as a story teller. his little interjections can be amusing, but he jumps in too much with them and it hurts the flow of the story.

very minor spoilers for 2 of the secret projects (probably unneeded at this point, but doesn't hurt to be careful):

1 hour ago, Argenti said:

No

Algebra was fine, geometry was really easy. 

Calculus is hell.

calculus is....fine. Abstract Algebra is great though. I could do proofs all day. but not Linear Algebra, too many matrices - the worst thing in all of math

4 hours ago, Ookla the Bald said:

I'm also starting Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's interesting so far, but I'm only just starting it. I was super impressed by Tigana, so I'm hopeful.

haven't read that one, but i've read a few from him and I didn't think any of them were quite as good as Tigana. not bad, but also never quite reaching that height.

the prologue says he has an "unusual weight" which I always interpreted as meaning he is heavier than he should be, but I'm having trouble finding other references in Warbreaker to his weight. they might be there, but i'm skimming through the physical book, so easy to miss them if they are.

30 minutes ago, Just-A-Stick said:

Hmmm

What about Cherry? Cherry flavor is NASTY!  

not disagreeing, but grape is worse.

3 hours ago, Wittles of Shinovar said:

Christmas music is...not that great. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, the genre is mediocre at best.

I don't think this is all that controversial. ther are  few solid ones, but for the most part any enjoyment I get out of christmas music is highly tinged with nostalgia for when I was little

15 minutes ago, Just-A-Stick said:

Or    A N Y   G R A P E   F L A V O R E D    A N Y T H I N G !!!!!!!!!!

I don't think this is controversial at all. grape is second only to licorice as a bad flavor

3 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

Its not as glaring as Mat, but it was still very noticeable to me. I mostly noticed it with Tuon. She feels ever so slightly off a lot of the time. Im not really sure how to describe it overall, but she feels like a worse person with Brandon writing her than Jordan. It's hard to tell how much of it is her taking the role she believes the Empress needs to take, though, which is mostly how I justify it to myself. There's also two scenes where I felt she said something that Jordan Tuon wouldn't (saying she enjoys seeing damane "broken", when with Jordan writing her she came off as more caring than that, and Bethamin implying that breaking them down to a certain extent is considered unfavorable; and her outright refusing Healing in the Last Battle despite saying explicitly that the people who are afraid of being Healed are idiots).

Other things are a bit hard to explain. It's not like Mat, where the differences are easy to describe. But I just got a different feel from the in the Sanderson books. I don't know how much of it is Brandon not having Seanchan characters other than Tuon and Egeanin, and how much of it is his (most certainly negatjve) perspective on the Seanchan coloring how he wrote them. I guess I could describe it best by saying that they felt a bit more sadistic, in Gathering Storm particularly? Like in Jordan's books, their actions were a matter of course. This is how it must be, so that is how it is. But during the raid on the Tower, they felt like they were taking more pleasure in it than in Jordan's books. Does that make sense?

it makes sense, though i'd have to reread a fair bit to see if I agree. part of the problem is that we do tend to get a very limited amount of Seanchan perspectives, so its harder to gauge how consistently they are written.

2 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

The biggest thing I would be afraid of for it is them capturing the Seanchan just right. Jordan had a very specific way with the Seanchan that Brandon messed up, and I don't know if very many people would be able to do what Jordan did with them properly.

Can you elaborate on that? i don't remember feeling like Brandon didn't handle the Seanchan well when I read it at the time, but if it wasn't as glaring as his first few Mat chapters then I definitely could have missed it.

10 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Here's the WoB (I also went into SP2 blind, and only found this after-the-fact):

  Hide contents

Brandon Sanderson

Generally, books form when multiple ideas stewing in the back of my brain combine in interesting ways. The most obvious idea for this one [The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England] is my desire to do a Jason Bourne type story. I know it’s a little tropey, but there’s something about me that genuinely loves the type of story where you find out about the characters as they remember who they are.  I think it’s because I love books structured in such a way that the reader and the character feel the same things at the same times.

There’s this beautiful sense of discovery to a book, and though it could (obviously) get old, I personally enjoy the occasional story where you get to enhance that feeling by starting with a blank slate character. (When I’d GM role-playing games, I loved to have all the characters start with no memory and the players discover and develop them as they went.)  So, I hope you’ll forgive me for using a trope that can sometimes be a little eye-rolly (amnesia). I promise I do some interesting things with it.

The other big idea that led to this was one I’ve had for years about “time-travel tourism.” A lot of time travel stories focus on changing (or not changing) the present. I wanted to throw that worry out the window and play with the idea of “past as playground.” You can hear Dan and I discuss this concept (though I’d already written this book in secret by then) on episode 18 of our Intentionally Blank podcast: “Time Travel Disaster Tourism.” As these two ideas melded into “Time Traveling Jason Bourne,” I knew I had something that would be fun.

The final element that connected here was me realizing—as I started working on this—the uncomfortable nature of the topic. Playing with the past meant playing with people’s lives, and there were some parts of this that I felt I needed to hang a lantern on. That’s when I decided to use interjections from the Frugal Wizard’s handbook. (I’d actually had this idea as a title with no context years before.) I figured I could highlight the inherent ridiculous—and somewhat immoral—nature of the basic premise with some satire, making it okay to laugh at the situation all while we talked about human nature. Because I think this is really something we’d do if we had the chance to travel to the past without consequences in the future. So it’s worth talking about it in narrative. That’s part of what SF/F is for—exploring the impossible now so that when some impossible things become reality, we as a society have already had a chance to investigate how we feel about the subject.

Anyway, those three things combined into this story. While Secret Project #1 has a fairy-tale tone, I intend this one (when in the protagonist’s viewpoint) to be more action/adventure. The Frugal Wizard inserts are comedic, but the main text is not a comedy, save for the occasional sarcastic or amusing comment by the narrator.

Secret Project #2 Reveal and Livestream (March 10, 2022)

 

yea, something like that would definitely put a different spin on it. if i'd been going in expecting that, i might have been a bit disappointed too. it would have flavored the read a bit differently at least

1 hour ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Yeah, that's not a direct quotation, but don't you agree that it's a pretty accurate overview of the "feel" of the first few chapters?

kind of, but I wouldn't put it that way, personally. I got more "unreliable narrator - cyberpunk edition" vibes than "secret agent with amnesia". Like I said, my read of the book wasn't going in a Jason Bourne direction. I don't really recall exactly what I was thinking at the time, but it was definitely closer to what we actually got. I can sort of see how you'd arrive there but it definitely wasn't how I saw it.

44 minutes ago, Mason Wheeler said:

"I just woke up in an unfamiliar place.  I don't know where I am or even who I am, but I'm able to do cool things that the normal people around me can't do.  And there are people hunting me."  Sure sounds like a Bourne story to me...

Sure, if you phrase it like that. but if you phrase things vaguely enough, you can make Mistborn sound like Little Orphan Annie. the question is, where did that come from? its not directly from the book that I can see. Is it from any pre-release material or interviews or some such? and to be clear that's an honest question - I went into all 4 secret project books blind. the only thing I knew going in is that 1 of them was non-cosmere - so if that quote is from Brandon, or someone affiliated with him, I agree it would be at least a little misleading

3 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Well, the promise we got was "Jason Bourne in a medieval parallel dimension," and I really wanted to read that story.  But it wasn't what we got.

Is that the promise we got? I certainly never had that impression, but I also never read any promo material or the like. from just the book itself I never thought we were getting Jason Bourne.