king of nowhere

A few weeks ago I got a new job as high school teacher of chemistry, and I would love to insert some sanderson-inspired problems in my lessons. Problem is, I can't think of any. There are a plethora of physical problems - especially dealing with gravitation for the roshar system, again gravitation for scadrial moved in orbit, even irradiation on scadrial when going from one orbit to the other - but very little concerning basic chemistry. I could maybe use the rosharan atmosphere for some gas-phase reaction - like "earth's atmosphere is 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen, and it contains X nitrogen oxide, at equilibrium. the imaginary planet roshar has the same atmospheric pressure, but it has 35% oxygen and 64% nitrogen; calculate the pressure of nitrogen oxide in roshar's atmosphere". the way I see it, allomancy is pretty much out of the question; putting aside that metals and metal alloys are not in most high school programs, mostly because a chemical description of transition metals and their alloys is too complicated, if I ask a question about metals and composition then bringing in additional informations about allomancy would require long explanations, which would be distracting and, for anyone who's not a sanderfan, lame. Most importantly, it is still a lesson, I'm not going to turn it into prolonged fantassy discussions. Ideally I should just drop a name into an otherwise perfectly normal problem. Does anyone have some ideas of some such problems?

doesn't sound very similar to me. it merely starts with the same two letters.

The funny thing would be that most television spectators will assume that all those nude scenes were deliberately added by the executives to boost shares with fanservice. Heck, I'd think it, if I hadn't read the book.

very interesting. I'd like to comment some, but I'd either spend a full day doing it, or I wouldn't do it justice.

I'm already picturing Lopen "Ho gancho, I have this cousin who would really like to join the radiants, do you mind putting a good word for him with your spren?"

still, as that article points out, it wouldn't be that bad if it went beyond sanderson.

you should have mentioned in advance that you hadn't finished. you risked getting big spoilers as we discussed the issue believing you already reached the end

but i seem to remember that the priests confessed to siri that they would rather use the children of the god emperor as the next emperor, so the priests know what must be done to make a returned fertile. and whatever it was, they were probably doing it to susebron offpanel

that's great news. if nothing else, hopefully we'll get to see the virtual reality at some point. the only thing I'm worried about is the technical times of the adaptation. clearly if they do it like game of thrones they will make a season for every year, two at most. but brandon writes a stormlight book every 3-5 years. with 2 books written and 8 to go, the tv will soon outpace brandon, and then it will either go its own way, spoilering future books and possibly diverting from canon, or it wiill be put on hold, with the risk of losing public, and there is also the problem of aging: if we took a 20-years old actor for kaladin and a 60 years old for dalinar, by the time they make the last season kaladin will be 40 and dalinar may even be dead. So, not sure it is the right time for a tv adaptation. unless they want to make big movies like lord of the ring, but anyway there's the same problem with actors aging too appreciably by the 5th book. that said, there is another thing that leaves me dumbfounded: they say about brandon " His literary work has sold some 15 million copies " I mean, what? brandon wrote definitely more than 15 books, so that's less than a million sales for every book. it's one american in 300 if he was only selling in the usa, and since he isn't, that's even less. is brandon's popularity really so small in a vast and uncaring world ? or maybe 15 million copies were only referring to the stormlight archive? well either way we should go to the nearest bookstore and buy some more copies of sanderson books we already have just to raise his stats, because 15 millions books sold does not give the man justice.

We know to imbue a spike with power it has to be driven through the heart, killing the subject and stealing a piece of its soul. planting a spike through someone's heart generally is lethal, so nobody asked what happens in case it just isn't. I'm not talking about using feruchemy to heal, as that also restores the spiritweb, plus investiture vs investiture is always a mess. No, I'm curious as to what will happen if we do that with science. say we take the subject to an hospital, in a specialized operation room for heart transplantation. we stop his heart, put him into extracorporeal circulation, then we pound the spike through his heart, then we remove the spiked heart, implant a new heart, and send the patient to reanimation. I see three options - the subject dies the moment the heart is spiked, because being spiked rips the souls, and that's the cause of death, not blood loss - the spike fails to kill the subject and it does not acquire any hemalurgic power; for it fails to steal the soul from a still-living victim - the subject survives, but the spike still steals part of his soul. the subject is mentally unstable and/or phisically diminished ever after.

virtually every time they mentioned previous conversation tensoon was elusive. and tensoon was working as hard as he could to make vin suspicious of the rest of the crew. it was good for him that vin got along so poorly with oreseur: if she had been closer to him, tensoon would have been discovered, as they'd have had many more private conversations in common, and tensoon had limited time to question oreseur. tensoon, on his part, was good to disguise his changes as character development; that's what saved him.

I also had troubles getting into the story the first time I read mistborn. I think what was putting me off was that it was too streamlined: the protagonists set off to do something, and it worked. then they set off to do something else. I got into it when the skaa rebels got themselves killed, so when the first serious wrench is thrown into kelsier's plans. on the other hand, vin was pulling hard on my protective instincts, and I liked kelsier as a mentor and visionary, so I at least hadd them to carry me through the first half of the book. After I got to appreciate the whole picture, I enjoied the first part of the book too. sanderson's books are often like that: you appreciate them more in retrospect. the first read goes with a bang, but in subsequent reads you can look at all the fine details you missed.

brandon likes to experiment with different books, with different atmospheres, and they are fairly different from one another. Still, there are some things he is fond of using, indeed things that are his style: - highly consistent and organized magic systems - extensive worldbuilding - several background characters with complex agendas that won't be clear until close to the end, if by then so, let's see your points: - you didn't like that the start was slow and it took a while to understand the world. that's unfortunately inevitable. as every book is a unique setting, brandon needs time to introduce you to the setting. since magic is essential to the story, and understanding how it works is essential, brandon has to explain it. it takes time and pages. - layered mysteries are another staple of sanderson. he likes his books to contain big mysteries. that said, not every sanderson book is about a big mistery like mistborn, but in all of them some of those misteries are central to the plot. you won't get a straightforward "you must destroy the ring - oh, now you destroied the ring, mission accomplished" plot. most of us like it that way, but what can I say; love it or leave it. I would point out, though, that those misteries aren't a way to hook readers and get them to turn the page. If that was the case, once you reach the end and get the answer there's no reason to go back reading it again - actually that's my problem with crime stories. No, the misteries are just part of worldbuilding. As for there being still questions unanswered by the end of the story, the reason is twofold: first, brandon has bigger plans in his head than a few books; he is setting in motions things that will be explained decades from now. Second, his magic works like science, and in science for everything you discover you realize there are more questions unanswered. - humor: varies among books, but many of those have a character a bit like wayne. all sanderson books contain some humor, and probably the original mistborn trilogy has less than most, owing to the darkness of the setting. So, can't really say if you'll appreciate them or not. sanderson is somewhat borderline for your tastes. still, if you ended up enjoing mistborn, why not give the rest a try? Just be advised that it will take a while, in the beginning, to figure out what is happening. P.S. are you aware that there are two more books of vax and wayne? plus a fourth (and final) will come out in maybe a year. planned are also two more mistborn trilogies, one with a contemporary setting, the other in a sci-fi setting.

@maxal re: links: thanks, not everyone here knows all the right forum (for example, me), so links are never wated. re: whitewashing: well, it really is ridiculous that in a fantasy setting where most people never moved more than 50 km from their home there would be multiethnicity, except maybe in large cities or near borders. there is no need to change stuff to give wot a multiethnic casting anyway: if I got the descriptions right, the altarans are arabic/greeks, the sea folk are black, the seanchan are chinese. re: min's unlikely scholarship: it's unlikely, but there's always the whole ta'veren business. damnation convenient for an author: whatever contrived coincidence is needed for the story can be justified by saying ta'veren. I tip my hat to robert jordan for having found a way to put something so conveneint for him in a way that made sense into the story. Anyway, books and printing exist in randland, so it isn't too far-fetched to assume min got some culture by herself, and/or in the time she spent in the white tower.

hard fantasy and sci-fi are actually rather similar, with magic taking place of technology. of the two, i tend to prefer fantasy because (when well-written) it makes more sense. I mean, I know a lot about science, and I like to overanalyze things, and any sci-fi book will have some inconsistencies in the way it describes science. also, science carries several implication about the overall tech level. one thing that I never could really digest about star wars is that for all their technology, they had actual people aiming turrets. even in our time we have radar-aimed machine guns that can destroy a missle mid-flight; certainly a computer is cheaper and more accurate than a human operator for that task. I see luke and ian going to the turrets to repel the enemy fighters, and I can't avoid thinking "with the tech level they have, there's no plausible justification for them not having auto-aimed automated turrets. it's like an itching in a place i cannot scratch. with magic instead the rules are completely arbitrary. you can have a magic that lets you teleport without letting you fly, and it has no consistency problem. try writing a sci-fi with a civilization that can make teleports but not airplanes.

dual wielding a two-meters sword and a spear? terribly impractical. if we go by D&D rules, it would be like a -13 to hit. if we go by real world rules, it's still terribly impractical, as both weapons need two hands to be used correctly. unless kaladin somehow grows another pair of hands....

I just got both stories with the humbe bundle, and they really leave me with a feeling of suspended business. There is this whole "Sandra" matter, and whether he is losing control over his illusions, certainly the husband of the indian linguist popping out was something big, but also audrey developing new skills... everything about the protagonist seems fluid, moving. generally a story starts with a character at equilibrium, then something breaks that equilibrium, and in the end a new equilibrium is reached. except, i see no new equilibrium. does it means legion will have more stories?

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a guy where I argued that we are too concerned with safety even when the potential harm is minimal. My argument was that the bother of following uncomfortable safety practices could end up outweighting the potential safety risk. As I read that story, I feels it showcases my point perfectly. I want to get that guy to read it and say "THAT's what I want to avoid!" Can't be 1 mort = certain death. being outside earned about one tenth of mort per hour. I don't see ten hours spent outside to be fatal. No, I figure one mort is more or less the chance of death by chocking on your hot dog.

arcanum unbounded is a collection of short to mid-short stories. you should wait until you've read words of radiance before you read edgedancer, the latest novella in the book. and you should read at least the original mistborn trilogy, and possibly up to shadows of self, before you read mistborn secret history. and you should read elantris before you read the hope of elantris. I can't think of any other spoiler in there.

ok, since the idea of kidnapping is getting traction, maybe we could open a kickstarter to fund it? the kidnap brandon's family to force him to work full time on stormlight fundraising: the goal is 200,000 $, at the goal a mobster will be paid to kidnap his family and keep it for one month. Stretch goals: 250000: longer captivity. The mobster will be paid to keep them an additional two weeks 300000: premium mobster. Instead of a random mobster, the sicilian mafia will be hired for the job. More skilled, more professional. 350000: coffee. mormons don't drink coffee, so another mobster will be hired to force-feed it to brandon to keep him working longer 400000: more hostages. the mobster won't stop at kidnapping brandon's wife and children, but will take his parents and brother too 500000: deluxe mobster. the russian mafia will be hired for the job. sicilian mafia mobster stil have human feelings. they will kill you, but they will regretfully inform you that it is only because of business before pulling the trigger. instead, a russian mobster with eyes of ice and no trace of pity will be in charge of the hostages 600000: cocaine. That's for the russian mobster, to keep him more aggressive. 800000: lawyers. Since the operation will inevitably blow up at some point, this stretch goal will hire the best lawyers to try and claim mental illness for all the organizers of the plan.

I got the impression instead that it was part of the point jordan was making. it certainly was with the forsaken: there is a post by him explaining that even the most apparently monolithic dictatorship had in truth a lot of scheming and backstabbing, and failed in large part for that - he used nazis and soviets as examples. So my read on it was that people with power tend to get magalomaniac and will actually act like squabbling petty children when fighting for control. even if they can be great people otherwise. from the politics we see on the news, I'm tempted to say that jordan was spot on, and his books have very realistic political interactions. I recall men in power behaving better, but only because they were borderlander leaders, united by the constant fight against the common enemy, or aiel. and regarding the aiel, it is worth noting that while wise ones could almost always present a unified front, because when one managed to get enough ji in front of the others, they would follow her (exception: shaido. 'nuff said), of the aiel men almost half decided to take weapons against rand. aiel don't look like idiots who spent energy infighting when the world was in danger solely because they did all their infighting between books 4 and 5. and the battle at cahirien was about as bloody as all the wetlander wars fought during the books. aiel don't play politics, they follow you or they stab you. overall, I'd say that men and women in power, after differences among countries and different backgrounds are taken into account, behaved equally bad P.S. thanks for the explanation of what that announcement meant. I missed that other post.

your concern is founded, but there is really nothing we can do about it but hope. I mean, it is entirely possible brandon will say a couple years from now "screw it, I got tired of writing, I already earned enough to spend the rest of my life in comfort anyway", and there would be nothing we could do about it. ok, we could kidnap his family to force him to finish what he started, but I doubt he'd write particularly good stuff under duress Would make for a great news story, though. The thing is, we can only support him and hope he never comes to that point. there are authors of webcomics that got tired and stopped posting because the audience grew increasingly restless, demanding more and more stuff until the authors just quitted business. the more fans push to get stormlight sooner, the longer it will take, and the greater the chance we won't actually see the end of it. on the other hand, someone may ask brandon at the next signing if his interests are shifting with time...

to be fair to min, she was caught into rand's taveren swirl. she didn't want to end up like that. she was a strong, independent woman with her own agenda. even later, she does not become meek and submissive; in fact, she's one of the very few characters who can influence rand to change his mind sometimes. and I'm not convinced people like her because she drops everything for a man; as I said, there are plenty of reasons to like her above the others that have nothing to do with her dropping everything for a man. vin, sarene, jasnah are also strong female characters who have the positive traits of egwene and they are well-liked. I keep thinking that for the vast majority of people liking min more than egwene has nothing to do with perceived gender roles and is simply because egwene is a jerkass and min isn't. Also, at least rand treats her well. egwene treats gawin as utter crap all the time, and yet gawin keeps loving her. she was treating also rand as utter crap all the time when they were together, by the way. I think if they had inverted genders you would have found their relation much more irritating than the one between rand and min. In general, if egwene hadn't been a strong female role model, but had she instead been a male, would you be so forgiving of her(his) other flaws? finally: please, someone come with updated informations or direct sources and bring this conversation back on topic. alternatively, someone open a new thread for this discussion.

I always liked Min because she is one of the very few open-minded characters in the saga. whereas most characters (of both genders) are mule-headed, going their own way regardless of everything else, and completely dismissive of anything that doesn't fit their worldview, min was one with whom you could have a real conversation with a real exchange of ideas. Now I can't recall any specific instance, I can't even recall where min was through most of the story, but I remember this attitude from her. I also liked Elayne for the same reason, she did try to understand others and she could be reasoned and bargained with. By contrast, egwene would manipulate you into doing what she wanted, nynaeve would bash you into doing what she wanted, and aviendha would call you her enemy and kill you. Well, ok, I'm exaggerating a bit here, but you get the point. Rand, Mat and Perrin instead would probably reject anything you say that doesn't conform to their ideas and go on with their plans expecting you to do as they expect. I say we need less people like that, and more people like min. less people who want to lead at all cost, who want to be right even when they know nothing of what they are doing, and more people who are willing to support and help others. we all know the wheel of time would have been a trilogy if the good guys had cooperated more. the real world is equally hampered by needless infighting and butting egos. we do not need any more of that. This comes from mistaking bullying for strenght. A lot of people make that mistake. A bully looks strong when he bullies others. feeling strong is a big part of the bully's motivation. There are people, of both genders, who are specifically attracted to bullies for the air of strenght they project. Women in the wheel of time are both strong and bullies. I love egwene when she is strong; when she is abused in the tower but never gives up, when she leads the aes sedai in battle. I hate her when she is a bully, wanting the world to conform to her wishes and forcing others to comply. I cannot speak for society as a whole, because I am aware that there are many segments of it that are still culturally backwards on many aspects, but for me liking Min and not the others has nothing to do with genders. I also liked Lan a lot, and Lan is a man who put his whole life behind a woman. Had he not been willing to put down his ego for the sake of something greater, both him and moiraine would have achieved little of value.I generally like characters who can step down and help others over those egocentric megalomaniac who must lead at all cost. In most fiction, I end up liking the supporting cast more than the main protagonists. Though I respect leaders who lead through vision and skill, rather than tricking or forcing people; leaders like raoden or kelsier, for example. P.S. maxal, I would not say that there are no rants about " dismissive towards women, brash, mouthy and arrogant male characters ". I have seen plenty of rants against male characters in the wheel of time. they just were not related to the whole "gender" aspect. They were rants against " dismissive towards others, brash, mouthy and arrogant ___ characters ". egwene bullies mostly other women, and yet she is probably the most disliked, which doesn't hold well with the whole "sexism" interpretation. nynaeve mostly browbeats males, but she seems better recieved, probably because her altruistic reasons are clearer or because she has a more honest way to go about it. Unfortunately, injustice and unfairness are still commonplace, but ever since we became conscious of discrimination issues, then unfairness of men towards men, or women towrds women, or even women towards man, is "alas, this sucks, but that's the way of the world", while unfairness of men towards women is "omg! sexism! someone alerts the press and the minister for equal opportunities". Same problem with enthnic and religious discrimination. By what I hear, social class discrimination used to be treaated like this too. EDIT: with this, I do not seek to claim that there are no problems with discriminations, because there really are. But I do claim that they are made to seem bigger and more pervasive than they actually are as regular human nastiness is often mistaken for genuine discrimination whenever the perpetrator and victim falll into the appropriate categories. EDIT// I was originally going to write, in place of the last paragraph, a rant about male characters insisting to protect women and keep them out of danger when said women are actually more qualified than they are, of how it shows them no respect and no honor, but now I'm not in the mood anymore P.P.S. I still haven't seen an answer to my original question: how serious is that announcement? how much committment does it shows? how likely does it make that they are reallly working towards it?

I checked on the sony pictures official site, and there is nothing about wheel of time. it does not necessarily means anything, but i think they would post a notice if they were sure of making it