Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

Yeah, Elantris would have been the first and last Sanderson book that I would have read too. I was a Sanderson fan after reading the gathering storm, getting the wheel back on track and on time was a major undertaking, and he finished the series up beautifully. Next I read Way of Kings, and after that I made the decision that I would read anything that Brandon wrote. With the exception of Elantris he hasn't disappointed.

Totally agree with you, it was a bit jarring going from Ralph Lister (who did an amazing job with the first 3 books (with the notable exception of Cropper, holy cropper, I had to set my play speed to 2x to get through the cropper bits)) to Michael Paige. His Karsa is really good, and I love his Kalam too. And, more importantly, he does an AMAZING Tehold Bedict and Bugg. It's interesting listening to audiobooks, I either want a narrator (like Jim Dale) to do all of the voices flawlessly, or them to not try and do voices at all like the narrator for Dune (it was about 20 years ago when I heard it, but the guy sounds like a text to speech program). Best case is an amazing actor (like Jim Dale, Ralph Lister or Roy Dotrice) that can vocalize the whole cast. Barring that it's best to have a narrator that can read the book (preferably with a cool accent) but not try and do to much to differentiate the characters, so your imagination can take over).

In that case I would totally vote for stick... Actually that is an awesome idea, much better than the Kickboxer Jean Claude Van Damme style fight to the death that I imagined would happen in the case of tie breaker. This is totally me: (The nose bleed part)

Granted, unfortunately before installing your awesome placard the Nightwatcher moved your habitation to Antarctica. Here's a detail of the sweet placard you got: That's right, it's a shard blade guitar. Rock on my frozen friend, rock on. I wish that there was a shampoo that could actually shampoo as it conditioned. Pert plus, holy crap, what a bunch of phlooey. This is advanced, intelligent nanotech kind of technology. You can't have a single emulsion that both removes oil and dirt from your hair and then reapplies the oil to your hair at the same time without the intervention of miniaturized agents that can seemlingly accomplish two discrete steps simultaneously (when in reality they are doing both steps in rapid succession).

Right back at you, and to think you did it all in the clutch. Rad, rad rad.

I think Elantris is not a very good book. The practicality of using Aons for combat, come on, that's super dorky. Hold on while I do a little drawing in the sky. It would be like watching people fighting in virtual reality when you can see the reality that they actually exist in. Like imagine a climatic battle scene where the protagonist has to move a Wii controller in a certain pattern to beat the bad guy. This is a dishardic planet and you get Etch a sketchers, dancing fighters and dudes with beefy bones. Really? Hrathren was great, elements of the book were pretty ok, but it's really the story I like least in the cosmere. Raoden is a super boring protagonist too. I like Lift, Lopen and Wayne. I love Brandon's comic relief characters. I know they can be polarizing, not everyone likes them, but one of my favorite chapters from any of Brandon's book is the chapter where Wayne sets out on his epic odyssey to say goodbye to Ranette. Others scoff, but I say brilliantly done. I liked Amaram. I wished that he had a redemptive arc in Oathbringer. Also, unlike a lot of people, I thought his denouement as villain was really good. It wasn't until my re-read that I thought this though, the first time through I was pretty focused on the major rust going down, and the Amaram Kaladin confrontation seemed like a distraction, but the second time through it was awesome. Kaladin's line about being the spear that didn't break was SO GOOD. I feel bad for Amaram even now, like how can you hate someone knowing that if given slightly different nudges in life they could have gotten past the things that hold them back from being decent human beings. But this is really the essence of tragedy. Poor Meridas, your mom should have read to you more as a child. I love the arc of Szeth in Oathbringer! His training as a skybreaker apprentice, his swearing of the 3rd ideal to follow Dalinar, and how quickly he was accepted into the inner circle. Unlike some others, I think this makes perfect sense. He brings the equivalent of a nuclear weapon to a battle that the good guys are definitely loosing, of course he's a good guy now. You can fill in the small off-screen dialogue of how Szeth explained that Mr. T was holding my oathstone so despite how much it was killing me inside, I did what I was compelled to do for an oath, but now I have sworn my 3rd ideal as a Knight Radiant to follow you Dalinar. How could this admission not inspire with anything but confidence. I hated Eshonai, and I am super glad that Venli will be the POV for book 4. Eshonai, RIP, but I am glad that Ixli harvested your plate, because venli might need it.

Ummm, don't the Heralds in SLA qualify as archangels? They were given enough of Honor's investiture to become deathless cognitive shadows, given special pieces of himself (splinters of honor) in the form of Honorblades, and they represent divine attributes. I might be missing something, but the 10 heralds on Roshar seem to fit the bill of your question, and to take the parallel further, they are the angels and the fallen angels in one. For sure they don't seem to gain some attributes of ascension (expanded mind/deep cosmeric knowledge) but they were able (for a time) to access honor's investiture directly. Sounds like an archangel to me.

Hahahaha, awesome. Autonomy got his upvote!

With age comes wisdom, and I, being somewhat old am also, I like to believe, somewhat wise. I have noticed, during my many revolutions about the sun this truism: "A fat dog, is a happy dog". Some philosophies would like to take this further, but really simplicity is best when looking at one of the true axioms of the universe.

Awwwww, give that buddy a biscuit, he's adorable!!!

Yours was great! If you look at the upvotes (the exit polls as it were), it was close all around. Really great roasts @Inklingspren and @Sunspren (what's the deal with everyone changing their username to something with spren in it, by the way?)

Wow, that's crazy! I had to vote for Mraize just because I know the guy who wrote that roast, and he's got a really cute dog...

This is non-discriminatory type of thread, cute pictures of all pets are welcome:

So the title sums this up nicely, this is a place to share cute pictures of your cats, dogs, birds, mice, gerbils, ferrets, etc. and to take a stab at trying to express their personality in a single characteristic. To start things off, here are a couple pictures of my dog Chewbacca when he was a puppy, each expressing a slightly different shardic intent. CURIOSITY: and TREPIDATION: as he's gotten older, he's encompassed more intents (Gluttony, Slothfullness, Obdurateness, and most convincingly of all Sleepiness). Amazingly enough, when these individual intents are combined, his unitary whole is "The Good Boy" go figure. Also, if you just feel like sharing cute pictures of your animals, then this is the place to do it as well. Looking forward to seeing the animals behind the sharders.

As the dad of an incredibly good boy, who happens to be a black lab/akita, I think pictures of black lab puppies are the cutest. Here's a couple pictures of my 4 year old dog, Chewbacca when he was just 8 weeks old (spoilered to not turn this into a cute dog thread, and also because I don't want to be responsible for you exploding from cuteness, don't click the spoiler tag until you are prepared for some epic cute):

Hahaha, we'll put. Thanks again, I really have liked most of Malazan and it was your well reasoned promotion of the series that got me into. I think my problem with book 10 is really was just Paige fatigue. Badalle is like every pretentious poet I've ever known, combine that with a vocalization that's equivalent in annoyance to listening to Gilbert Godfrey reading the phone book and it's a hard slog.

Blha I watched it like 15 years ago though, what was so creepy about Vash? Haven't seen that one, will definitely check it out! If you like funny anime with big robots, you should check out Full Metal Panic it's a great show. Also, another one to add to the list, which is one of the first animes that I watched, is Vampire Hunter D. It's totally a weird ride,but the character design is awesome (Amano, the same artist that did the character design for the Final Fantasy Franchise through FF9), and if you can get past the protagonist's talking hand, is a remarkable movie. I didn't put this one on the original list, but Akira and Memories by Katsuhiro Otomo are amazing. The manga for Akira is far better than the movie, but the movie is amazing, especially the bike fight against the clown gang. That is some ridiculously good animation. Not to mention the mechanical design, totally top notch.

The problem is you haven't seen the 3 best Miyazaki movies. Laputa (or Castle in the Sky) is one of my favorite movies of all times. It has one of the best robot designs of all times, floating cities, sky pirates and the protagonist Potzu is one of the best heroes ever. Nausica the valley of the wind is another amazing movie. The art is great, the music is amazing and Lord Yupa has the best mustache in the history of mustaches. One of the best action movies ever made (and also one of the funniest) is Castle Cagliostro. The protagonist is a thief, Lupin III, and the story is amazing. The pacing is great, and it's one of the best movies of all times. Kiki's delivery service is a HORRIBLE movie I saw a 3 minutes ad for it the showed the whole plot of the movie. It's a movie to watch only if you have a kid that loves cats. Porco Rosso is just ok. The plotting is strange and doesn't really make much sense, I think Miyazaki made it because he loves planes from WWII. There's actually a book, Daydream Notebook, that collects all of the WWII comics he did for the magazine Hobby Japan that is phenomenal, but Porco Rosso the movie is just kind of dull. Spirited Away is good but way better with the subtitles, the Japanese voice actors are great. The story is pretty peculiar, but the art is really good. I could see if you're not a fan of miyazaki's movies how some of the character designs might throw you (like the giant headed witch). Princess monoke is a good movie, but pretty violent and also pretty heavy handed with it's environmental message. It's like is Captain planet and the planeteers were Punisher style rogue vigilantes. I still like it, but I think it's just pretty good. Totoro is an amazing movie, but it's a movie without conflict. The scariest part of the movie is when Mei is threatened by a bleating goat. I have 2 daughters that are a year and a half apart in age, and it's really a movie about the golden time of childhood. I can see how it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I personally love that movie. For all of the people who were saying they don't like anime try watching some of the best series/and or movies, if it's done right it's absolutely amazing. Ergo Proxy Rahxephon The Rose of Versailles (about the French revolution) Cowboys Bebop Trigun The Galaxy Express 999 movie Starblazers (seasons 1 and 2, skip the comet empire season3) Unpopular opinions: The Tim burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie should never have been made. I love Tim Burton, but the original gene wilder 1970's version was perfect. The Harry Potter Audiobook are WAY better than the books or the movies. Jim Dale knocked those out of the park.

More good news, thanks!

@Shusun these entities are called the Svrakiss, here's a link to the coppermind article: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Svrakiss

@AngelEy3 bless you, you have given me the strength to carry on. I was going to finish it, but I was not looking forward to it. This is way better news than I was expecting, I can soldier through the Badalle parts now.

So I've read through the first 9 volumes of Malazan The Book of the Fallen, and I'm about a half way through The Crippled God, and I just can't read it anymore. This is my first time through the Malazan books, and I've been listening to the Audiobooks mostly, and Michael Paige's voice acting for Badalle and all of the characters that make up the Ribby snake are so bad that I have a hard time listening to what they are saying. Also, the whole plot line of the Ribby snake bothers me. I understand the need to up the horror visited upon survivors of war, I thought nothing could be worse than the Pannion Domin with it's starving locust like army of Tenescowri, but Erickson can always up the ante on the cruelty visited upon humans by their fellow humans. But the Ribby snake bit just falls flat. Badalle the poetry espousing seer is so annoying, Held the baby with the strange metaphysics of the born bothers the crap out of me, and the unceasing horror upon horror that they go through seems futile and pointless. Also, with the introduction of the K'chain Che'Malle and the Forkrul Assail as major antagonists cum allies in Dust of Dreams, The Crippled God seems to be angling towards an ending that's going to leave a ton of loose ends. I started reading/listening to this series largely on the recommendation of @Ammanas, and up through Toll of the Hounds I loved this series. So my question is, does The Crippled God give a good resolution to this series? Right now, it seems to be angling towards something that is going to be deeply disappointing, I'll be upset if Badalle (a minor and annoying character introduced in book 9) plays the most critical part in defeating the forces intent on destroying humanity (the Assail, the Grey Helms, etc.). Toll of the Hounds is one of my favorite books of all times, this has totally been worth the journey going through the Malazan book of the Fallen, but I really didn't like Dust of Dreams and the Crippled God is shaping up to be one of the least enjoyable books that I've read in a long time (I actually dread reading it almost as much as I dreaded reading White Sand Volume 2). Erickson's endings are always amazing, the idea of convergence is a great plot device to ensure that all the characters you care about are there and that all of the forces at play come to bear at the same time and place, but I guess my real question is do you guys like the ending of The Crippled God, and can you make a case for the ending without spoilers?

Sounds dangerous...Inadvertent finger to the brain...yikes Yeah, a whole lot of nice people on the shard that's for sure. But then again, everyone here loves Brandon's work, so it's a subset that has been created due to discriminating tastes. It was hard writing the roast for Lift, it feels a little bit like the Cosmere equivalent of picking on this guy:

I'm going to this signing, but I'll be coming up from Eugene OR (about a 6 hr drive). I'll record the signing line if no one else can do it, but I probably won't make it to the UW campus until about 1:00 pm. If any sharders are going to be there, let me know and we can meet up. Hopefully I can get my buddy to go to this too (one of my only friends irl who is into the Cosmere).