Aethling

Teachers, by the very nature of their job, are held to a higher standard than the general public. All the teacher would have had to do was ask the school administration if it was appropriate reading in a classroom in that school and district. If they had said it was ok, the issue would have ended there because he would have gotten permission and a second opinion on the appropriateness of the material. If they had told him it was not appropriate, he could have chosen another book and the issue would not have occured.

I agree with above. Also, don't forget that Hawkwing came to Rand because he recognized him as Kinslayer, and he had been through the cycle several times. Also, they didn't fight until they had the Dragon banner out. Balzamon was just wrong. He wasn't there and just assumed that it was Rand that tooted.

Some sort of plotting inside the Ardentia probably is not too far off the mark. They do have a history of having done serious plotting in the past. Sanderson didn't need to include that tidbit, so it will probably turn out to be of some consequence.

Don't forget that at least dark-eyed rank can be bought. Ok, I actually found the source where Kaladin's father tells him that their rank was bought and worked up to get. It is on page 156 of the hardcover. There is at least some social mobility under the system, and even the nahn are hereditary. As for the Dalinar/Adolin issue, even in modern systems of nobility the parent and the child are at different levels. Elizabeth is a Queen, but her son is merely a prince. He probably has some actual title, but most people hear of him as Prince Charles. They are both of the royal line, but she is technically a higher station. The question to ask is if Dalinar gives up the highprince post, does he move down a dahn and Adolin move up. Also, Hoid alludes to there being a valid reason for the lighteyes/darkeyes system.

Cover of TGS shows him without his left hand.

There is anothe forum on here specifically talking about Other Books and such. Might want to check that one out. Numerous comments about different books there.

I just didn't feel that Omen Machine was up to his level that he established in the Sword of Truth series. He tried to make it more of a thriller type, and that clashed too much for me. Still, it was nowhere near as bad as I think Pillars of Creation was. TFC is definately one of his best. I still wouldn't rate it as high as Faith of the Fallen, but it is pretty close. Almost finished with The Great Hunt in my Wheel of Time reread. It is amazing the stuff you will catch on a reread. There is even a prophecy mentioned in this one that explains the AMOL cover, at least part of it anyway. The first two Artemis Fowl books are decent reads. I wouldn't say they are as good as any of the Percy Jackson books, but they are nice reads. Of course, I might be biased as Percy is an American while Artemis is Irish. BTW, Ce'Nedra becomes a major player later in the Belgariad and throughout the entirety of the Mallorean. One of the funniest scenes in either series involves her in the Belgariad. Edited for Ce'Nedra reference.

I broke down and bought a kindle and Goodkind's new ebook only. His last two books had highly disappointed me, but this one is like his redemption. If he keeps writing like the newest, he is back on track to me. It is far, far better than Law of Nines and The Omen Machine.

Even on Earth, not all crustaceans are completely aquatic. Some crabs can live on land. Crawfish, while they do prefer watery environments, can and do walk around dry land. Honestly, having grownup with crawfish a common food item, I alway envisioned the cremlings as wee versions and the chasmfiends as extremly blownup versions. Chulls I always though were some type of crab offshoot, though they could be closer to lobsters or crawfish. Nice ID reference there. I never thought about it like that, but it does fit.

Just because teachers are educated does not mean they have common sense. It also does not mean that school administrators have it either. History teachers have been sanctioned for having a Confederate flag displayed. Not the stars and bars, but the actual CSA national flag. Mark Twain has become a no-go in many schools due to political correctness. Faulkner was banned by many Mississippi school districts for years, and he was from there. The pledge of allegiance has been banned by some districts. Commencement addresses by valedictorians and salutatorians have been censored by administration to root out anything which might offend one person in a thousand. College classes have been denied discussion of books due to parents sending their 16 year-old kid to a college literature class. Female teachers have gotten into trouble for offering bonus points for openning their legs and having the kids write down the color of their panties. This came to light after one of the kids told his mother that he missed out on extra credit because the teacher only opened her legs to one side of the class. Teachers have handed out razor blades in their class at times when tensions were running high at the school. At the very least, the teacher should have gotten the book approved. There will be parents that complain about anything and everything, but there will also be teachers that think it is perfectly ok to read from the Kama Sutra in their class (as far as I know, none have been this incredibly stupid, but it is bound to happen one day).

I really liked the color based magic in The Black Prism. Instead of being catalyst like in Warbreaker, the colors themselves become physical and are used for everything from making grenades to building graceful structures. This is currently my favorite non-Sanderson. Early on, Jordan is heading toward an elemental based magic in his Wheel of Time, but he veers away from it and goes to a more gender based one. The elemental system becomes submerged. They still talk of weaves, but the focus becomes lost (at least to me). Elenium/Tamuli has a magic system where the powers come from gods through prayers. Mazalan's magic comes from different warrens. It becomes something like a faucet you can tap into and let go. I have only read the first 2.5 so far, but it is intriguing. The Sword of Truth series has additive and subtractive magic, but the main character that spends most of his time not being able to use his magic for one reason or another.

The thing where Sanderson said Hoid only moves forward in time could be a red herring. The shattering precedes all of the events in the current cosmere books. He could go from Elantris to TWOK to Mistborn to Warbreaker and still be going forward in time from where he began. That would be a very Aes Sedai way of putting it, as the statement is technically true, but also misleading if that is what actually happened (which is just a presumption).

I don't think there is any doubt that the Highstorms are super hurricanes. Anyone that has ridden out a hurricane can attest that the description fits almost perfectly. Even the reactions of the people are mostly right on target for a major storm. Growing up, everyone always talked about Betsy and Camille and how big/bad they were. These mentions have pretty much disappeared since Katrina swept through out small city. I don't know what he originally envisioned them as, but it isn't hard to think that the description may have been affected by events that went down a few years before the book came out.

Sailors have always been special cases as they tend to go all over and crews can be made up of different nationalities, especially in fantasy. I can just imagine them trussing her up if she tried to boss them around though, and she probably knew that. I do not think she is a bad character. She is just young, inexperienced, and used to getting her way due to being spoiled. Kaladin is approximately her age group, at least it appeared that way to me, and he has been hardened by years of war. One she gains experience, she will probably mellow out and become a favorite character, unless Sanderson takes her down the same road that Egwene went down in that she became MORE obnoxious and entitled the more she experienced.

Scale down the example then and have it as a yeoman farmer. They worked their own land for the most part, but were also widely respected, at least in the early republic history of the US. There is a book named "Masters of Small Worlds" that goes into that type or relationship. Also, while farming is extremely labor intensive during the cultivation seasons, if you live in an area that gets cold during the winter, you basically have a several month period between the reaping and the spring plantings that there is no planting or picking that needs to be done, depending on your chosen crops. If you are a small farmer, you have time where you are not as busy to study and learn. The perfect counter argument would be serfs, but we do not really know if their is really a serf type class in Shin.

He encourages her to do something. I can see that type of response. I was thinking more if she went to an area that did not give lighteyes the same level of respect and expected someone to pour her wine, clean her room, or make her bed, that type of stuff. She has been doted on by her family and been around servants for her entire life. As a more modern example. Say an English nobleman came over to the US and went to a small southern town and expected that everyone would do as he says and serve him just because he is used to that level of respect back home. I can almost guarantee that he would be shocked by the response if he just pulled someone off the street and ordered them to haul his luggage or get him his food/drink. At the very least, he would hear language his ears had probably never heard before. At the worst, he may be running for his life if he pulled off the wrong person. To me, Shallan still has the aristocratic veneer, but it is gradually being eroded by her situation. Still, I do not doubt she would expect darkeyes in the warcamp to kowtow.

Remember, the warriors do not start off as warriors. The warrior's script could be something as simple as stylized letters that are essentially the same, but look a little different. Until we know more, we just do not know how different it is from the regular text. Modern caligraphy is essentially a different script, but it uses exactly the same basic characters. I remember an incident where a German girl was explaining how hard it was for the younger generation (born 70s) to read the WW2 era print letters. The words are the same, but the print was more gothic. For all we know, the warrior script may be the precursor to their other written forms, that actually makes sense if you believe the have a link to the old radiant orders. IF you look at farmers in the sense of landowners with their ground under cultivation, they need not do the actual work in the fields themselves. Would you say that southern plantation owners were not farmers? Medieval landowners are probably more removed from the title of farmer, but they and plantation owners would have time to do stuff that many people just would not have the time to do. Any society that abhors violence would hold farmers at higher levels than warriors, especially in pre-industrial times. It might not be the best example but what about modern Amish? They dislike violence and find value in manual labor.

You have to remember that Shallan is: 1. A teenage girl-What teenager isn't wierd, prissy, or entitled? 2. She comes from a minor upperclass family. 3. She was protected as the favorite in a family. She would probably faint if someone actually told her to do something herself unless they were from a vastly superior family. 4. She has never been out on her own before. You put those things together with the stress of being the sole hope for your entire bloodline, and yeah, you are going to get a character that is just a wee bit messed up.

Farmers produce food, that is a pretty important vocation in any culture at any time. Remember, the prohibition against males reading is a tradition among the Alethi. Even they allow certain men to read without any additional stigma. It is seen as a non-warrior thing to do, but we do not have any listed instances of someone actually being punished for having the ability to read, at least not that I can remember. It is pretty evident that Szeth can read. He is given a hit list that includes fairly involved directions on how to pull them off. I have never been a hitman, but it would be a little risky to have another person read the hitlist and tell you what is required. Very early, he even writes something down after he kills the king. Not all planets have monolithic cultures. Even today, there are certain cultures on earth that discourage certain genders from reading and driving. Even in the west, it is a fairly recent occurence that women have had the right to own property. Voting for women is less than 100 years old in the US. Voting for 18 year olds is a Vietnam era.... Some people say we tend to focus on the main characters in the book. That is because they are the main characters and we know the most about them. We know what it is like for a darkeyed Alethi to grow up in a privileged family, but we do not have any clue what the Shin culture is actually like. All of what we know is second hand or through the view of one person.

Anyone can shoot a bow, but a skilled archer can do it more accurately and rapidly. Anyone can wield a sword, but a skilled swordsman is way more deadly than the farmhand that only picked one up earlier in the day. Training does matter. Sanderson has already shown us in his works that people may be born with an inate ability, but not realize it without proper training. All Elantrians can draw the glyphs, but it still takes training in the glyphs and addons to make a master. Vin had the inate abilities of a Mistborn, but she did not realize all of them until Kelsier trained her. Even with his training, she still spent time with each of the mistings to become better with each individual skill. Sanderson has stated that Siri and her sister both have abilities because of their Returned ultimate grandfather. Vivenna contained hundreds of breaths but was unable to use them until Vasher gave her training. Even Vasher is still learning. The commands are out there, they just have to be discovered. We know that Radiants were able to do things that current bearers simply are unable to do. It is not all that much of a stretch to say that properly trained modern shardbearers could do the same stuff provided they had the inborn talent.

Oddly enough, that is true, but it had nothing to do with the above mentioned issues. I just did not find it that interesting or well-written. I do own the first book, but I stopped reading a couple of years ago at around page 60. You could tell there was incest going on, but it had not been explicit before I lost interest in the series. Not all books are for all readers, but this one won numerous awards with that type of content. I can only think that it was a very slow year. I guess it falls back to adults needing to read a book before they allow children to do so. Sanderson, Jordan, Eddings, Chima, Sullivan, and Paolini have all shown you do not have to include graphic scenes in fantasy to be consdered a good read. With the exception of Chima, all of them have relationships in their books, but they are not graphic. Sullivan, at least, agrees that it opens up a larger audience for his books. Large audience means more readers. More readers means more sold. More sold means more money for the author and the publishing company.

See, I just don't get people saying American Gods just isn't bad. A prostitute sucks up a client through her vagina. Very graphic scene. A wife tells her husband that she died giving his best friend a blowjob and she thought he was a better lover. This comes up multiple times in the book One character runs around mindraping virgins to have sex with him. The main character has sex with a cat goddess (admittedly it is in a dream, but it is very graphic and the cat hints that it was not really a dream.) The main character has sex with his dead wife risen as a zombie. The gay sex scene has one character stating how much he likes the taste of semen in his mouth and bends over to keep going. I will admit that the premise of the gods moving is a good one. Indeed, Riordan has sold millions of volumes with essentially the same idea of the ancient gods moving to America. If you like depictions of prostitution, infidelity, necrophilia, bestiality, rape, and homosexual acts, then, yes, this book is perfect for you. If you don't like reading about any or all of those, stay far, far away.

Remember, when Kaladin saves Dalinar, his suit was glowing mostly from the cracks and the leaking stormlight. I am of the opinion that the current plate wearers are just not able to access the full capabilities. With proper training, I could see Dalinar and Kaladin. Sanderson has already given us an example of a magic system where everyone has the potential but it is not realized by all.

It would take some big convincing and evidence for me to believe that Hoid is evil. Not that I believe his is completely good either. Heck, I do not even believe he is human, but that belief is mostly just from an off comment in the Mistborn series.

Stick with Garion, Trizee. They really grow on you. Lately I have been reading a bunch of semi-YA stuff. Lawheads Dragon King trilogy is what I am on now.