Iarwainiel I

You beat me to it, @recneps ! Welcome to the 17th Shard @Thurin ! It warms my hear to see I'm not the only Silmarillion fan here! (Hmmm ... might be time for a reread of that volume ...)

1131 was published today: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1131.html This story just keeps getting better & more amazing. I think A Joe in the Bush predicted some things correctly - wow! We have yet to see the dinosaur in the battle, and I'm hoping Mr. Scruffy gets some action soon as well.

Yeah, the publisher is Baen, and they kind of had a retro thing going. Books 4 & 5 have more modern covers. He's supposedly finishing book 6 now (please let it be true!). The 4th book, "Children No More," revolves around rescuing children from guerilla soldiers who have basically kidnapped them, killed their families, and coerced them to "join" their army. The author has donated the profits from the book to an organization that helps kids IRL who are in these kinds of situations. I really respect that Van Name is trying to shed light on an injustice & putting his $$ where his mouth and heart are. If you like action & cool future tech, IMO you'll like this series.

I really like the "Jon & Lobo" series of sci-fi novels by Mark Van Name - they're not very popular, and I don't understand why. Lots of action, sentient spaceship, nano-enhanced human... what's not to like?

I recently read the last part of OB and something occurred to me: Taravangian on one of his smart days (not his "day of genius") might be around the same IQ as Jasnah, more or less ("exact" isn't the point here). But consider the contrast between them: When he hears children singing that disrupts his concentration, his immediate impulse is to have them executed. Regarding Nohadon's story (that Dalinar tells him) about justice, it's obvious to him that you should kill all 4 accused, no matter if one of them was innocent. Jasnah's logical action was to kill Renarin when she saw his corrupted spren; instead, she hugged him and comforted him - she showed mercy and hope. "...the love of Jasnah Kholin did not fail." [That may not be an exact quote, but it's close.] And that's the difference: Love. Jasnah is crazy smart, but she is not a machine using cold logic alone: she adds emotion and intuition to her thinking. I have a feeling that this difference between her brain and Mr. T's brain will be important to the plot at some point. BTW, I know that the Jasnah we saw in Kharbranth in TWoK might not have been like this. All these characters fluctuate, like real people do. But I really think that Jasnah's strength is in her heart AND her head.

@mattig89ch - IMO you are smart not to waste any more time on a series you don't like. The ONLY character in the whole series I liked without reservation was Hopper the wolf - all the love for the Hopper!! I felt all the female characters were basically the same person, just with different overly-florid descriptions of how they looked. I felt that Jordan's background in the military/at that military school (where IIRC there have been issues with hazing and harassment) might have influenced his idea of "women/strong women," and not in a good way. I could not force myself to read beyond book 6 - literally wanted to stab my eyes out and kill all the main characters myself. Admittedly, as a middle-aged woman I am not the series' target audience. So to bridge from book 6 to Brandon's books (#12, 13, & 14), I relied on Leigh Butler's re-read and the WOT Encyclopedia, which are both still online I think. So if you someday want to read Brandon's WOT books, that's a viable path. Meantime, I hope you're able to get your hands on some reading material you DO enjoy! Reading should be fun!

Just finished Brian McClellan's Wrath of Empire for the 2nd time (book 2 in the "Gods of Blood and Powder" trilogy). So excellent! Srsly, I think this is the most fulfilling book-2-of-a-trilogy I have ever read. Many plot lines have satisfying conclusions, even while they're setting up for the final book. If you haven't read any of his Powder Mage books, you're missing out. If you want to check it out with a short read, try the e-novella "Ghosts of the Tristan Basin;" it introduces several of the characters in this latest series including the marvelous Mad Ben Styke. Hmmm ... maybe Mad Ben Styke is a bit like the Blackthorn (Dalinar in his younger days), but without the Thrill - - more in control of the bloodlust, and with a morality that causes him to protect the weak. Not an exact parallel, but some similarities - ?? But as much as I like Ben, my favorite character in "Blood & Powder" might be Celine. I would love to know if McClellan pattered her after a real little girl he knows; she is amazing!

I was a biology major long ago, and First of the Sun really intrigues me with its biology-related magic (I am not going to say "magical creatures"!!). Second choice would be, like most of you, Scadrial Era 2. I've got a knack for fixing machines, so a steampunk-like setting would provide me plenty of opportunities for gainful employment. Excellent question, OP! Thanks for starting this thread!!!

This came up in my twitterstream. No idea who the person is that posted it, but apparently if you force a bot to watch 1000 hours of Olive Garden commercials, then ask it to write a commercial of its own, prominent in the script is the line "Unlimited stick" (right after the line "I shall eat Italian citizens."). Also, I do in fact drive a stick (manual transmission car), so I am a stick - - or at least my car is.

The only reason I have mixed feelings about this is, I'm already worried that I won't live to see Book 10 of the Stormlight Archives. I would NEVER want to inhibit Brandon's creativity! ... but sometimes I'd like to ask him, "Don't you want your parents to live to read the final book in your life's greatest work?" Ah well. I haven't had TV in over 15 years, but if the TV series does ever get produced, that means I'll have to get cable because no way am I missing a Sander-show.

I forgot to include something that made viewing the movie more enjoyable, at least for me and my friend (who is also a Sander-fan - it's so easy to proselytize for the Cosmere!). Sitting next to us was a group of young boys who were in that "Girls are yukky!" phase of life, and every time Han and Qi'ra got romantic, those boys would make the best comments: "Oh no!" "Not that again!" "Come on - cut it out!" It was just adorable, and it gave us a good chuckle. I'm so glad they were free to express themselves and who they are at this time of their life, and no one shushed them or ridiculed them. Really added an extra dimension to my movie-going exxperience.

I loved it too - especially that the line "Punch it, Chewy!" is now at last actually spoken in a Star Wars movie. I really hope we'll see more Wookies. IIRC, it was canon that Chewy was the last of his kind - it would be nice if that could turn out not to have been true. (Guess I'm just a softie for hopeing there wasn't a Wookie genocide.) I liked how we learned that Han's father had worked in a factory that built Corellian freighters, & maybe even the Falcon itself. That would be so cool if his dad helped build his ship. One thing in "Solo" that took me a bit out of the flow was the actress who played Qi'ra - she was just too old IMO. Someone told me she's 31 in real life, and she looked it in the movie. The story at the start seemed to say that she and Han were the same age, then when they meet up later she's way older? I know - relativity/physics & all, but they've never gone that route for anyone else in these movies so why start now? She will be an effective and complex villian character though. I really hope they make sequels. So far it has underperformed at the box office, but maybe the holiday weekend was just a bad release date? Hope ticket sales pick up!

About a quarter of the way through Wrath of Empire - book 2 of the "Gods of Blood and Powder" series; 5th Powder Mage book; by Brian McClellan. Very irksome that I have to go to work all day & cannot just finish reading this excellent tome. Mad Ben Styke!!!

Just saw it a 2nd time & wanted to add a couple things. I totally get how Spiderman's death resonated deeply with folks, but the death that hit me hardest was Loki. I guess it was just because he was in the act of stepping up, making a committment to do the right thing though he had to know the risks - it just seemed so sad. Thor told him in "Ragnarok" that he could be "so much more" than the god of mischief ... to me it was sad that he died while living up to that statement. I really hope that Loki does come back. What if it's something about him being a Frost Giant, not an actual Asgardian? I bet Thanos wouldn't have known that. It would be interesting (though really, really unlikely, I admit) if this was a plot point. I've seen theories elsewhere online that what will happen in the next movie is, with Thanos "at rest" and half (or more) of the universe's population gone, we are ripe for another Big Bad to appear and wreak havoc. And if that's the wy it goes, might Thanos see that he has left the universe vulnerable to attack and decide to un-poof everyone to fight this new enemy? Interesting proposition...

Admittedly this is a crazy theory, and I'm always wrong about stuff, but here it is: If Jezrien's honorblade is really a splinter of Honor, what if it doesn't do exactly what Odium thinks it will? Do we have any information on whether one of the honorblades had ever been in his control - or that of the Fused - prior to this? If not, they're surely guessing as to what the blade can/will do. What if they (Odium and the Fused) think that Moash will become their version of the Assasin in White, but the very nature of the honorblade - as a splinter of Honor - veers slightly in a different direction, maybe so slight that they don't notice it at first? What if the blade somehow works on Moash's soul and awakens in him things that he has deliberately tried to kill? - honorable things like compassion and mercy and loyalty, or just a longing for those things. Don't get me wrong - I hate Moash as much as others do. But things are always more complicated in this series than we thought they were.

The best part about Infinity Blade was Brandon's involvement with the story. It took the game to a whole different level of storytelling. Characters were very complex & deep. The part about Radriar and his whole backstory - literally tears in my eyes.

Like some others here, I read the GN's first, then got the prose version as I was unsatisfied - glad I did. Kudos to Brandon for being willing to let committed fans read the prose version. It's obviously less polished, and the characters aren't as well-drawn as those in his newer works. But it's still a great story. Am I the only one who knew Nilto was Gevin from the very beginning? And I suspected Elorin early on too. I loved how Kenton beat Drile by remembering "who he was" and going back to his roots. The only thing I didn't care for was Kenton's decision at the end to chuck it all and go after Khriss. What? After you intentionally destroy someone (Eric) who you claim is your friend? It reminded me of something from Oathbringer which I will duly spoiler-tag: It just made me really dislike Kenton, which was not a great reader experience at the end of the book. I hope that, if Brandon ever does re-vamp White Sand, that he'll flesh out the characters a bit more and make them more "real." Kenton and Khriss are supposed to be about the same age as Kaladin, Shallan, and Vin, aren't they? I'd like to see them more at that level.

I wonder why they are (or were) called "Skycolors." Maybe Darkside has something like the Aurora Borealis, and those same colors are what the people have in their eyes, etc.? The term "Shifting Colors" would work the same - the A.B. is nothing if not shifting. Also, Khriss sees colors in Kenton's eyes and thinks it's strange because a Daysider wouldn't have Skycolors. But what if they do? What if it's just another fallacy, and no one knows becuse they can only be seen on Darkside? Taldain, at the time of White Sand, seems to be riddles with gaps in knowledge. Come to think of it, that might be a huge motivation for Khriss to solve all.the.riddles, which leads her into the larger Cosmere.

OK, read the excerpt. Still a bit disappointed the story will be about a teenager, not the younger girl, but that demographic will buy more books so it's probably a wise choice. I just hope the spaceship is as great as Mark Van Name's Lobo (of the Jon & Lobo series); I know it's Brandon, but that's a tall order IMHO. I'm looking forward to this one in November; till then, I'll have McClellan's Mad Ben Styke to sate my need for books.

The cover is beautiful! But the girl's face looks several years older/more mature than I imagined from what he read us at the Oathbringer release party. But that wasn't even a first draft of the text, IIRC, so maybe Spensa is supposed to be 14-15, not 8-10 years old? I was liking the younger heroine a lot; it's Brandon, so whatever it is I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it.

I agree with other posters who've said that Thanos, for as good of a villian as he is, has a weak and questionable motivation: The main problem in the whole universe is ... overpopulation? So when the population goes up again, he goes on his murdering rampage again? and again? How many sentient beings is "enough"? How does he know? - - maybe with all 6 stones he's smart/wise enough, but not when he started his programme. Another thing that hit me, reading through the comments in this thread: Where was Valkyrie? I didn't see her at all. Admittedly I've only seen the film once so far, so maybe it just flew by me too fast. It was interesting how Thanos, at the end, is presented as having found "peace" on a mountainside overlooking a valley; it reminded me a lot of Odin in Thor: Ragnarok, finding "peace" sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean. My current theory (and FYI I am ALWAYS wrong on these things): Gamora is still alive inside the Soul Stone, and she will find a way to manipulate Thanos or hijack the Gauntlet or get out or something. This next year will fly by! (Which will come first: Wax & Wayne 4 or Avengers 4? Can't recall... )