Iarwainiel I

Another artist I'm listening to lately is Daniil Trifonov (http://daniiltrifonov.com/) --- astounding young pianist! Check out this sample from NPR, 15 min. long:

Storming or Starving!

I have 5 CDs by Scott Cossu, a pianist who does "light jazz." The CDs are all out of press now, which is bad cause the music is wonderful. Maybe look for him on iTunes or something -- songs that lighten your mood!

For me, it's gotta be Wax and Steris. I love how Brandon took a character who was socially awkward and wove the story so that it was believable that she could be a romantic lead, and how her quirks actually helped the "good guys" win. She tries so hard and is so dear, and it's just so cool that the hero sees that and comes to love her in her own right, not just an arranged marriage. For any relationship, not just romantic, I'd say Dalinar's love for his two sons, and how we've seen that develop.

Welcome to the 17th Shard, @hippiedogmom! You are by far not the only person to only realize later that many of the books are interrelated & have to retro-fit bits and pieces together after the fact. What @Ammanas said is true - Cosmere-awareness isn't necessary, but it does heighten one's enjoyment. Brandon actually has a list of books to start with on his site: https://brandonsanderson.com/books/where-do-i-start/ He says to just read any particular series in sequence, no matter what series you start with. If I were to suggest a sequence, it'd be {Mistborn Era 1/Elantris/Warbreaker} in any order; then the first 3 Stormlight Archives books all in a row, keeping in mind that the short story "Edgedancer" is part of the Stormlight Archives & fits between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer; then {Emperor's Soul/Mistborn Era 2/White Sand/Cosmere short stories (published together in Arcanum Unbounded)} in any order. Or you could save Stormlight till after the second grouping. That said, any order that gives YOU the most enjoyment is right for you - no rights/wrongs about it. And don't forget to look for Hoid in every book! Happy reading!

1. Brandon - 38 (count is based on the "Books" list on his site; the only things I'm missing are Legion & Snapshot) 2. Christopher Fowler - "Bryant and May" mystery series - 14 (just found out there's a new one! soon to be 15!) 3. Brian MacLellan - "Powder Mage" series - 10 (counting e-books; #11 is due out in less than a month!) Honorable mention: Spencer Quinn - "Chet and Bernie" mystery series - 9 (counting e-books)

@MasterJack - You've got plenty of suggestions already, but I can add a couple more. The Monster Blood Tattoo series by D.M. Cornish is stupendous. It's borderline tween/YA, but the author's sheer creativity puts it a level above IMO. Even if you can guess where the story is going, it's enjoyable to see how it gets there. Plus, the author's day job is graphic design, and the books have wonderful illustrations! I just love this series & hope you will too. Someone else suggested C.S. Lewis's Narnia series. He also has a "space trilogy," and the first two books (Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra) are really good. (Book 3 is very strongly tied to real historical events in the 1940s and isn't a great read today. It also has some more mature themes you'd probably want to avoid.) It's been a while since I read them, but I don't recall anything offensive in the Ex-Heroes series by Peter Clines. Think zombie apocalypse + superheroes, with a little humor thrown in. But I'm not 100% sure about this one - if you do try it, get it at the library so you can just take it back if it turns out not to your liking. I'm pretty conservative re: language, and I didn't find the swearing in The Martian to be offensive. It felt realistic for what people like that would say. I very much appreciated how the author gave a key role to a character who was awkward (probably asperger's) - such a nice touch and, again, realistic. I would also agree that Ready Player One is a great choice. I have not read anything else that Ernest Cline has written, so can't speak to Artemis. I don't think anyone has mentioned the Hunger Games trilogy, but those were surprisingly good. (Not so with Divergent or Maze Runner, IMO - lame stories with those two.) Finally, I wanted to mention that there are at least 2 older threads with this same question, so whenever you come to the end of these suggestions, you can always search for those. It's so great that we have this community where people respect each other's preferences and are always glad to help!! * Addition: There are also several older threads re: "Is reading The Wheel of Time series worth it?" and the replies echo those in this thread. So if you need more info to decide, you can look there. IMO Book 1 was the high point & it went downhill from there, but as always YMMV.

I also don't highlight books, except for non-fiction. I haven't done this yet, but on my next SA re-read, my plan is to use various colors of post-it flags - like, pink for info on one of the secret societies, blue for info on the KR/Heralds/history, yellow for worldhoppers, etc. Still working out what my categories will be. I definitely want to have markers for awe-striking moments and for gnomic passages (wise sayings that could be quoted in other contexts ... I won't give an example cause spoilers, but there are more than I would have expected and from many different characters. I'd also have a key or "legend" that lists what the colors stand for. I expect that the edge of the books will bristle with flags, like a rainbow. :-) There are tons of colors of those flags, and you can always cut strips of post-its in other colors too. Plus, if you use the paper ones, you can write a couple words on each one if you want to, re: what you're marking. Hope this helps! :-)

In WoR, right after the chasm scene, when a messenger tells Dalinar that Stormblessed just came out of the chasms, and it says "Dalinar ran the whole way." Undignified thing for a high prince to do, but he'd developed a relationship with Kaladin and especially after the fight in the arena. When he calls Kaladin "son," it's like he truly means it - not the same as Adolin and Renarin, but still a dearness, not just a military relationship. In OBR, I agree with all the stuff everyone else has posted above. I'll just add one: I really love how Glys talks to Renarin near the end, how he's so childlike and excited to be on the side of right. "It will be beautiful, Renarin! Look" "It will fear you! It will go. Make it so that it will go." I'm really looking forward to finding out more about Glys, what kind of spren he really is, what it means for Renarin's bond and knighthood, etc.

I don't spend much time on shipping threads - just not my thing. I'm happy to wait & see who Brandon puts together. If a thread goes too far into theorizing future SA books, I'll stop reading it because to me it feels like fan-fic, and once again I want to wait for Brandon's "canon" story. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad folks have fun theorizing (I have some too & keep them in my head), and I get that posting to the forums adds to their enjoyment. But there've been times where someone's theory turned out to be a spoiler and ... I just don't want anything to spoil this wonderful story for me, ever, at all. If a thread starts having a negative or critical tone (not often, but occasionally happens), I'll stop reading and go elsewhere. Finally, I'm blessed with a really good memory, and if a Shard-er has posted rants, here or elsewhere with the same user name, I'll remember and tend to skip over what they post. Ranting is cathartic for the rant-er, but I personally don't find it entertaining to read - too much other great content out there!

I voted "Other" because the thing that keeps coming back to me is how BIG Roshar is. Anything we think we have figured out is based on only the small part of the planet and its peoples that we've seen so far. There will be whole cultures, whole races, whole ecosystems, whole systems of supernatural forces that we cannot begin to guess yet - - so much that's hidden, by who we don't know, for what reason we also don't know. Just such rich world building! Looking forward to lots of surprises in vols. 4-10.

Likewise, if I have time - otherwise, I'll just post re: the movie. The trailer looks good so far IMO.

I read the Southern Reach (Area X) trilogy a couple years back and started this thread here on the Shard about it: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/34790-southern-reach-area-x-trilogy-theories-spoilers/#comment-297001 My OP contains some theories about what happened in this weirdest-book-I-have-ever-read-and-am-glad-I-read-it-but-couldn't-tell-you-why. Would be interested to know your thoughts on my theories while the book is still kinda fresh in your mind.

There are a few other threads on this same topic here on the Shard, but they're probably a couple years old. The opinions in them run along the same lines as those who've posted here, IIRC. Here is my 2 cents. First, I fully admit that I am not at all the demographic that Jordan was writing for (which seemed to be teenage boys). Also, I only started WoT after Brandon took on finishing the series - - I wanted to read "everything" he writes. My WoT experience: Book 1 was a little juvenile but OK. Books 2-4 each got a little worse. Book 5 was just bad. By the middle of Book 6 I realized that I was literally forcing myself to read something I did not enjoy at all, just to get to Brandon's books. (I disliked all the main characters and literally wanted them to die gruesome deaths. The only character I liked was the wolf Hopper.) So at that point I switched strategies and just read Leigh Butler's re-read (I think it's on Tor.com), and used the online Wheel of Time Encyclopedia to help me remember what all the people/places/stuff was. That enabled me to read Brandon's volumes, Books 12-14, which were OK but nowhere near as good as his own stuff. Main WoT criticisms: Waaaay too many naked people hitting each other with sticks for no apparent reason. Worldbuilding for several of the societies was far too unbelieveable. Lengthy and excessively florid descriptions of people's clothing, hair, and physical appearances (literally, it would go on for a whole page, about dresses). Most of the characters were extremely immature and never changed much. All the female characters had basically the same personality with only minor variations. With all that said, I am really glad that there are folks out there who liked these books, and especially folks who've been drawn into the fantasy genre because of WoT. It shows a lot of perseverance to have read all 14 books all the way through - I couldn't do it, and my hat is off to anyone who could!

Summarizing the great tips everyone has contributed: Ask friends and family to let you know about job opportunities - don't be shy! They can't help you if they don't know you're looking. Temp agencies and job placement services can be a good way to get your "foot in the door" at companies. When you see "Help Wanted" or "Now Hiring" signs, just fill out an application; attach your resume if you have one. Take advantage of free resources like your library might have, for help with resumes, interviewing, etc. (New - just thought of this one) Find out if there are "job seekers" groups in your area and go to a meeting - they're usually free, and you can pick up great tips and leads for your local area Also, I forgot to say what I do for my job: I'm an instructional designer - that's a writer who creates training materials for the people who work at a given company, teaching them how to do their job. Typically you need a college degree to get into my field; it's not something that people learn to do on-the-job.

Check the local library near you. Libraries often run free career workshops: finding out what your skills are, finding out what types of jobs are out there and what qualifications you need, learning how to write a resume and/or fill out an application, learning how to conduct yourself in a job interview ... many libraries have free classes on all these things. It seems like this is the point you are at right now. Not having a job is frightening! But there ARE jobs out there you CAN do! May hope burn bright in your heart @Olenska!

In WoR, I totally missed that Zahel was Vasher, even when Nightblood showed up at the end. I guess I read it so fast that I missed the times when Zahel thinks (talks?) about a voice that used to talk to him. Thank goodness for the folks here on the Shard! In OB, for a long time I thought that the golden spren that was leading Kal's group of parshmen was some other kind of spren, not a voidspren, because it wasn't red. I kept thinking it might be Listener spren, like from one of the old songs - maybe one that would impart Artform, since the one character seemed like he was creating poetry. Sadly, I was wrong. But I still hope to see those Listener spren someday.

Likewise, a hearty welcome to you @Chadinthe801! Have an up-vote! TIP: If you're reading something older like Warbreaker, there won't always be spoiler tags here, so you'll want to be careful. But the 17th Shard is an amazingly positive community and people do respect each other's feelings re: spoilers. (Personally, I am with you: avoiding movie trailers now for films I'm really excited about.) And ... srsly you need to start Oathbringer as soon as you finish Warbreaker!! It's even better than tWoK and WoR, and it gets better than that the second time through, and that's all I'm saying.

If I avoid a story / book "because of the author," it's usually because I've read something already by that author that I didn't like on a literary or conceptual level. I've pretty much given up on Stephen Lawhead because he starts out great but just doesn't know how to close a series; a shame because his cosmology is similar to mine but I've been burned too many times now.. I really like Jack McDevitt's Alex Benedict series (sci-fi), but I got bored with his Priscilla Hutchins series and have found his books that are set in the present or near future to be more preach-y than good storytelling so they are a no-go for me. I really liked Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, but the next book kind of meandered and by halfway through the third book he (IMO) totally dropped the story arc and was just ranting "thereisnogodthereisnogodthereisnogod..." Boring and pointless, when the story started out so great. I probably won't read him again. Lately, though, it's less about choosing who to read / not read than it is considering the question, "Would I rather read auhor XYZ's book or just re-read Oathbringer again?" That has cut way down on my scope of prospective reads.

I voted Vader. But then I remembered that he doesn't have as awesome of a Twitter feed as (emo) Kylo Ren: https://twitter.com/KyloR3n So now I am conflicted ... just like both of them ... EDIT: A friend just reminded me ... Vader did have quite a MySpace account, ... back in the day ...

The last few comics have been so fun! Dwarf baby named "Kudzu"?!? "Church of Loki Childcare Service"?!? So glad there've been regular updates lately! :-)

This is really cool. In reading the comments under this poll, I think (though I might be wrong) that we are interpreting the description "least favorite" in a couple different ways. Some see it as meaning the Antagonist who they liked least / hated most as a character Some see it as meaning the Antagonist who was least effective (i.e., not successful at being a "bad" character). Some see it as meaning the Antagonist whose storyline or character arc was least meaningful / most irrelevant to the book or series. Some see it as meaning an Antagonist who was actually not an Antagonist at all but a Neutral or Good character. ... and a bunch of other things. Please understand, I am not at all saying that the poll was not worded right; I am saying that it was in fact very cleverly worded, to create some great discussion and allow each of us to decide for ourselves what "least favorite" means! Kudos, @Herald Of Justice!