Baon

Hahaha. Its just that after being raised on Tolkien and Lewis and then reading about 100 Forgotten Realms books in middle school, it was just about time that I needed a change. Thats not to say that I read any fantasy book that is a "darker" (and I prefer greyer than darker). I think that Lawrence, Brett, Weeks, and Scholes are all very poor attempts at doing so. I still read traditional historical fantasy (Mark Hodder and Felix Gilman are my favorite here) and historical fiction (Cornwell is my favorite by far, followed by Penman). That being said, I do enjoy the morally greyer books of Cook, Lynch, Morgan, Scalzi (Old Man's War and The God Engines), Martin, Abercrombie, Abraham/Corey, and Bakker the most. On the other hand, I still read all of Sanderson, Rothfuss, and Hobb's books and those are all much more traditional. All in all though, it comes down to the writing and every author has his or her's weakpoint. Hobb is strong on characterization but has a glacier pace. Lynch's first novel was great, but it appears that it might have been a fluke when you consider his second novel. Abercrombie is great on humor, woldbuilding, and plot twists but he has uncomfortably awkward sex scenes. Martin's books are near flawless, but he takes forever to write a novel and might have to extend the length of his series again as there appears to be too much that still needs doing...oh, and he might die before finishing the series. So, I guess my point is that: no, I wouldn't say that greyer fantasy is better than traditional black and white fantasy novels, simply because it is greyer. Rather, that it comes down to the writing; however, if the writing were on equal terms in both types of fantasy, I would prefer to read the greyer one. I hope that makes sense (its the night before my second advanced financial accounting midterm and I really can't think of anything else ). Cheers!

Hi! I've been a fan of Brandon Sanderson since he first published Elantris. I have read all of his works (except for the Alcatraz series and the WoT books that he wrote) including Aether of the Night, his sci-fi short story, White Sand, Mythwalker, Mistborn Prime, Scribbler, and the first three chapters of the Liar of Partinel. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to get an inter-library loan on Dragonsteel from the BYU library, but to my knowledge it has been stolen or removed (also, interlibrary loans are fairly difficult to secure, to my knowledge, on my campus). I was a member, but not particularly active, on Timewasters, Stormblessed, and Adonalsium. I have hardcover first editions of Elantris, the Mistborn trilogy, Warbreaker, The Way of Kings, and Alloy of the Law that are all signed by Brandon. I have been to two of Brandon's signings (one at Comic-Con). Further, I have over a 100 pieces of Ado-based fan-art saved on my computer. While this might seem like Brandon is my favorite author, sadly, he is not. Brandon is incredibly talented; however, I prefer Martin, Abercrombie, and Bakker's darker and greyer version of speculative fiction. I knew of this website when it first went up and was reminded of it some time ago when Brandon blogged about moving his forum. I came to the 17th shard because I wanted to ask where Hoid's appearance was in Alloy of the Law. I seemed to have missed it. I plan to post about that next. Cheers!