ILuvHats

Now I'm struggling to create an account on Wells Books. When I went to create an account, all it asked for was an email, no password or username. And to sign in, you need a password of course. So then I tried to resend the password to my email so I could change it, but it's been 15 minutes and no email has arrived. Then I figured maybe it didn't actually create an account, but when I try to create an account with that email, it says that email's already in use. So I don't know what to do at this point.

The link for the signed RoW copies isn't working for me, even though it should have gone active by now. Is it already sold out?

I didn’t know that! I can’t wait to see the masks they come up with.

I have never purchased any non-book merchandise from Dragonsteel, but if they made some face masks, I’d be the first to buy them. I have yet to own a mask which is both comfortable and stylish by my standards, and I thought of this while thinking about an ideal mask. Something in the style of most of the shirts, with a stormlight or allomantic symbol on a monochrome background, would be perfect. I doubt it’s going to happen anytime soon since Brandon’s team is so busy with RoW and the Kickstarter, but maybe sometime next year when things cool down, they could work on something like that.

I think it was a strong story, and my favorite non-cosmere short story that Brandon's written. It's touches on a lot of different science fiction ideas without diving too much into any of them, which makes the world feel expansive even without having read Skyward (and I read it before Skyward so I can confirm). The downside being none of the ideas are dived into very deeply. I love the revelation at the end about the nature of the aliens' society at the end, and although I'm not a well-read scifi reader, it seems original to me. Also, Jason is great, and the moral conflict he goes though is very interesting. The main critique I have is that I'm not a huge fan of how his blindness is treated. And I keep writing out why I feel that way, but I don't I think I'm doing a good job of conveying why. So maybe I'll come back later and edit this post once I clear it all out in my head.

No, not really. True, AonDor has insane potential since it's basically a way to program reality. Debatably, Elantrians who have been training to use their skills in combat for hundreds of years would be insanely OP, but we know nobody like that. Raoden is the closest we've got, and he's only been using AonDor for a few weeks or months.

Yeah, the line chart is less misleading, particularly since the time intervals are consistently spaced. So what was so interesting about this mysterious article that inspired you to make the graph?

Awww, Shadows for Silence deserves at least one vote. It's my second favorite after The Emperor's Soul.

Yes please!

You assume I'll be innocent. Depending on the settings and number of players, I'd probably have a 1 in 5 chance of being the imposter. I like those odds. Also, for making that comment, I'm killing you first.

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I just saw this WoB. It sounds like this is Brandon confirming the predominant theory on the Shard about shardplate. And that’s of course the idea that each Radiant order has a specific type of subspren, a group of which can manifest in the physical realm as Shardplate. It is a little ambiguous as he doesn’t directly specify which theory, but is there really any other way to interpret Brandon’s words?

I've never played it, but I've watched videos online and it looks fun. If somebody gets a game together for the Shard and has an open slot, I'd be willing to download it and join, as long as you're cool with a noob playing.

Seeing as I’ve never heard of Heavenly Ones, this sounds like RoW spoilers. If it is, could you please put it in a spoiler box?

Just realized I posted in this thread without actually talking about Calvin and Hobbes, so here I am! Calvin and Hobbes is one of those brilliant comics from a bygone era when strips were still released in newspapers. I was born early enough that webcomics were still gaining momentum as a medium, and mangas were even more niche in the west than they are today. As for superhero comics, they were never my thing. So this was the kind of stuff I read when I wanted a break from pure prose. And I kid you not, I’m pretty sure Calvin and Hobbes made me smile or laugh out loud more times than any other single series. It’s so good. I’ve always wondered why the Peanuts and Garfield comics got more attention than it.

I’m guessing you haven’t read it because of a lack of interest or time constraints. But in case you didn’t know, it’s free on Brandon’s website, so you can read it whenever. Just a head’s up.

I... I have no words.

I’ll be honest, I cheated a little and read the prologue for RoW. I just couldn’t resist, and I figured since it was set 5 years in the past it wouldn’t spoil anything. But so far, that’s all I’ve read. I’m now 9 chapters behind what feels like the rest of the 17th shard, and it’s hard not to just binge them all at once, especially now that I’ve finished my reread of the first 3 SA books. I try not to read preview chapters because it takes away from the experience of binging the whole book all at once. Let me explain. A week is a HUGE gap of time between chapters for me. When I watch shows that are still streaming and releasing one episode per week, I forget enough while I’m waiting that often I’ll rewatch the previous episode again right before the new one’s released. Of course I still remember the general plot so far, but I always feel like I might have forgotten about small details that will prove important. And if I already feel that way about tv series, how much worse will it be for a Stormlight book considering how dense they can be? So what I’d probably end up doing is rereading the preview chapters when the full book is out, but then the novelty will be gone from a huge portion of the book, all of part one if the pattern set by Oathbringer is followed. And that’s what’s so great about reading a new book; its all new, and you don’t know what’s going to happen next. And I’d hate for that to be taken away, even only for a section of the book. So that’s why I’m resisting my carnal desires to devour the preview chapters. It’s the only way to keep my peace of mind. But it also sucks because I want to discuss everything on the forums, and by the time I read these chapters they’ll be old news. That’s the biggest drawback, but it’s not quite enough to justify taking away the novelty of a cohesive, first read-through. So I guess I’m making this post to see who else on these forums is also avoiding the preview chapters, and for what reasons. Also, if you are reading the preview chapters, does it not reduce the experience of the whole book? Or is it just worth it to be able to theorize and discuss ahead of time.

Interesting. I can sympathize without agreeing to dislike the books. Honestly, I didn’t realize the characters all ranged from the incompetent to monstrous until part way through book 3, and by then I was committed. I knew they weren’t great, but I had hope for improvement for some of them until then. The ending to the First Law Trilogy was so masterfully disgusting that I swore off ever reading Abercrombie again. So I used to regret reading it, but I somehow found myself reading A Little Hatred, the first book in the follow up series. And since doing so I’ve come to appreciate what Abercrombie did with the ending of the first trilogy. Guess we have different tastes. And by that I mean you’re normal while I must be a masochist since I somehow enjoy the pain I endure while reading the books. On a separate note, one book I regret reading was the second Lies of Locke Lamora book. It was just so meandering compared to the first one. There was no drive to the plot, and the ending was not satisfying enough to justify the time I sunk into it.

You can do a lot of crazy stuff with Abrasion. The one I could think of is causing the resonant frequency of an object to magnify vibrations near infinitely. I’m not a hardcore science person, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it should work. The mechanical oscillations caused by an applied force is basically a constant transfer from kinetic energy to potential and back again. Friction is the main culprit behind damping, which limits the amplitude of the oscillations. So, as long as you have enough stormlight to ensure all the surface area is frictionless, the damping should be extremely small. Factors like gravity may cause additional damping, but their effect is so minimal that they can probably be neglected. So if you’ve ever heard of Tesla’s device that could supposedly collapse a building by vibrating to its resonant frequency, you could basically emulate that with abrasion. Even a small, handheld device which vibrates could cause total structural failure in massive buildings or bridges. The amount of stormlight needed would be impractical, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.

I would have edited my previous post to respond to this, but I can't figure out how to quote somebody and add it to an edited comment lol. But yeah, the Bulgarian cover is absolutely gorgeous. What a brilliant idea to actually hold a competition for the cover art, and props to the artist for winning. For me though, something about Whelan's style feels distinctly Stormlight, like I imagine his style was for fans of the Wheel of Time when that was still coming out.

Same. Goodbye, WoK desktop. Time to make way for the new blood.