Cracknut

He gave them everything needed and helped them as much as was needed. He's still helping them in AoL. Seriously, what else could he have done?

Yeah luck should work only in present and affect things after its taped but you still have a chance to find something lost long ago. You don't make that guy lose it. You just find it. Without using chromium someone would lose that item anyway though you wouldn't find it. Luck is random. Maybe Spinners can't control it? Maybe it just affect things randomly with or without Spinners knowledge. Spinner may roll the dice and lose while taping luck even if he wanted to win, because if he won something would've went wrong. Chromium just does whatever in the end is better for Spinner, not what Spinner wants. Imo that would've been most interesting and balanced way to do it.

Started reading this yesterday. Having cripple heroine in a world like that is awesome but I hate her personality :| Shouldn't she be a little bit harder after living like that? She feels too ordinary even though she has extraordinary backstory... I'm 25% in so it may turn out well but at this point I'm really disappointed...

Yes but first you should be lucky right? You can't store something you don't have and fortune/luck is totally random in every way. I just stated up there that if you could store 'luck' even when you are unlucky it would've worked other way. Yep, thats true but if chromium works that way it'll ruin whole series. I'm sure there are limits to what Spinners can do with their luck. And one of the limits I came up with is that you need to be lucky when you're storing fortune. Second one is that Spinners affect different things in different ways depending on how much connection those things have with Spiritual Realms.

I believe Harmony/Preservation can use only so much power to create Mistings/Mistborns. He could make everyone Allomancers but their powers would've been far too weak and most likely useless. Nice... was thinking about new possible metals/alloys and never though about that...

I don't think its that much overpowered. Lets say you're lost in desert and need water. Luck won't create an oasis before you. It will lead you to already existing oasis which you may missed if not for luck. I don't know how it would affect other people though... And how would storing luck work? Its totally random. There are times when you're unlucky so would storing 'unluckiness' make you luckier? + If it has no limit(there shouldn't be any limit of how unlucky/lucky you are as far as I know...), can Spinner store 1000 years of 1x luck in a day? Only way it makes sense is that Spinner should be lucky at the moment when he's storing luck, therefore making himself 'not lucky'(not unlucky). Though I don't know how would that work, would they be able to know if they're lucky or not at the moment? Or do they just turn on storing and start rolling dice, every time it must've been something needed(highest number isn't always lucky) it gives something unneeded but luck gets stored? Edit: Chromium is Spiritual so it may matter how much connected to Spiritual Realm is object. It wouldn't work on humans as much as it would work on things with less spiritual power...

Have you read other BS books? What kind of things are you "missing"?

Anyone read this? Finished second book several days ago. One of the best reads I had in a time. I always wanted to read books from villain's povs and Jorg is my favorite villain from now on =))

Read pirated version, if its worth 50$ then pay for it.

Stone-Shamans sound like they're connected to Voidbringers and there are several good points but its still off the wall idea I don't remember Voidbringers being from west... It was City of Knights Radiant(Urithiru?) in west and place where Honor was strongest or something like that. And I always thought that place was Aimia?(thats an island on map). You can't go there by foot because of sea. And it really feels like an island from Hoid's story(I don't remember if it was Hoid's...) where people were doing something for fear of their king but he was dead in his tower all that time or something like that... King is Honor. People have just forgotten who their king was and are doing something for him he never asked... I need to reread WoK... I just thought about honor being westward... From what? It could be clever twist if whatever was westward back then now is eastward - Shattered Plains. BS did something like that in Mistborn already though...

And how would tattoos work?

What's Lerasium's Feruchemical ability? If its storing spiritual power or something like that it could work...

I liked Best Served Cold least, there were several characters I really liked though. Nicomo Cosca was one of my favorites from trilogy. Friendly and Poison-guy were both awesome. Though trilogy was far more interesting and Heroes was most badass thing I've ever read. I'm not saying I never cared for those characters. I cared for most of them but in a book where favorite characters start killing each other its a bit hard to root for someone. And why you didn't cared about story/characters there is mystery to me... because for me if plot and characters are that awesome I start caring about them, not other way around.

Why is everyone talking about caring? Even though there are lots of characters in Joe Abercrombie's world I cared for its not what made me like those books. It is one of most entertaining series I've read so far...

And how would Mistborns help rebuilding civilization?

Yes but that also leads to what I'm saying. You can't change future without seeing it/knowing it. Atium has same effect free will or not. Vin's shadow split into two because she saw future through Zane's actions, not because she had free will EVEN if she had free will too.

Nope, program just reads humans and exactly knows what will happen to them/what they will do. Not that IT forces them to do something, but whatever human does program knows beforehand. Future is whatever becomes present and then past. Everything else is for parallel universes. Therefore you can't change future without knowing exactly what it is. Why? Because otherwise whatever you do is whatever your future was originally. Its a bit hard to understand but with enough information from sci-fi movies and out-of-box thinking it makes sense.

Free will is also part of program.

Thats just my assumption. As far as I know its not yet clarified. Though you should read other books by Sanderson - Mistborn, Warbreaker(free PDF is available on Brandon's site) and Elantris. They're connected to each other and you'll get a lot of answers on other things. Mistborn reveals most though.

I always thought it was about uniting Humans and Parshendi... I don't think its about uniting Knight's Radiant because there are no more Knight's Radiant. They need to be created anew, not united. And imo just uniting Highprinces is too simple for Sanderson.

So you agree with me that Erikson's characters aren't flat two dimensional characters but you think they aren't interesting enough and/or you can't care about them because you can't associate with them? I can't agree with you there because this book has a lot more interesting characters then any other book I've read(Of course there are other awesome characters I like more then Erikson's characters but I haven't read book with so many awesome characters together). Even though its hard to associate with them its still possible but its not necessary. I cared about several characters there but of course they died... So I'm trying to care less to give them chance on living and just enjoy masterpiece. In the end its about readers personality and taste.

Nah we won't prove anything to each other this way. You're saying Erikson's characters aren't acting according to their backstories and don't develop further therefore they are flat two dimensional character, right? I'm saying they're acting according to their backstories and they also develop further with new decisions made. As James stated up there backstories are revealed later in story and after you learn about them more, everything made by characters starts making sense. Also they develop further, James has several examples for that in his post. Nobody forces you to reread or even read Malazan. Me? I love books that require thinking on my part. I find it entertaining when figuring out awesome mysteries is left to me. And entertainment is the only reason I'm reading books so...

I don't hate it. I just don't read books I hate. I'm still going to read WoT. Surely there should be something great there. Point is that I was disappointed. I was waiting for next favorite book and it wasn't that, at least first two books. About Malazan... not knowing their backstories doesn't makes them two dimensional. For me that makes it even more interesting. For others it may be hard to follow. Actually now that I think about it, it works same way as Sanderson's worldbuilding. First we get world but we don't know how it works or why, then its mysterious backstory is revealed and it all makes sense. In Malazan we have characters but we know little about what is driving them, then its gradually revealed and in the end it all makes sense. Though I should confess, I haven't read that much yet to know it for sure. Still thats what I'm expecting from it and I don't think I'll be needing in three rereads to see how awesome it is. Btw I knew Ganoes-Whiskeyjack thing from the start and it was awesome! I won't dare read first spoiler though.

Yes I wouldn't be happy about that but theres a fact: I won't save the world. I die anyway and with me all those people - family, friends and everyone else. So what annoyed me there was that whole two books Rand was crying about having his life taken away. I mean there should be some time to think it out and get ready spiritually or whatever to deal with it and take that burden but two books? Yes sadly thats true but it took to much time and from realistic it went to annoying. Yes there were other several good characters but sadly story isn't about them. They are important parts but its not their story. Rand crying about him being torn from his life. Not because I wanted unrealistic hero who would instantly turn into knight with shining armor. No. Because it took to long even after he realized he had no other choice. Save the world and die. Or die with it. And most annoying part was that he cried about other people he wouldn't see again. That will happen anyway dude, but if you won't try to save the world they won't even be existing anymore to see them again. Yes but there are a lot better books at that like Mistborn. I'm sure everyone here has read it. Anyone objects that it was good at that? Mhm, but world is going down. Characters have to act according to that. Or just do something else and die. + They're chosen ones, right? Its not fully their decision or wish. Without 'little' facts like that these characters never would have left their village. First Law, Malazan book of the Fallen - real character driven books are these. There are no great quests, prophecies, etc. We have bunch of characters, all of them different in every way. [Not that I'm saying WoT has similar characters. Thing is characters from Malazan have years of adulthood, they have made lots of choices and each choice brought them further from each other. WoT on other hand has young characters which are just starting making hard choices and their personalities are not so developed yet. Yes, that leaves space for further development but I've read books with adult characters who still keep on developing their personalities. Lets take Dalinar. How old was he when he stopped being Blackthorn and started living by the codex? There are tons of characters like that, if you at least try to see them.] And each of them is doing his/her own thing but at some points their paths cross and as a whole it creates something great. Not to mention how entertaining it is. Of course its matter of taste in the end so you can enjoy something I can't and I can enjoy something you can't. How much of it have you read? Most likely you can't see character development because they aren't blank pages. Most of them are mature enough to have their personalities already developed. Though there are changes even after that.