Yamato

Hmm. I really, really wanted to like these books, since I want to support all self published authors as much as I can, but this book just grated on me for some reason. Probably that the chracter voices didn't differentiate that much. It felt like the author wasn't shifting his writing style when writing different characters. All plot issues usually go over my head until I read a book the second time, which explains why I don't remember them here.

MIIIINNNNNEECRRRAAAFTTTTT!!! I havent played for a while, might pop in sometime.

Fot some vaguely strange reason, I cannot stop playing Lego LOTR co-op with my brother. There's just something so funny about hearing Gandalf's voice come out of a lego person. Plus, Gimli and Legolas have even MORE of a bromance in this game. (It's based off the movie, not the book) Really pleasantly surprised with the Halo 4 Community Forge test Playlist too. Some really great maps.

I'm rererererererere-reading Wheel of Time. Just astounding how much beter it gets every time. I actually understand stuff now!

Hmm. I really agree with you on most of the points here. I personally think that immersion comes form consistency, as much for the reader as the writer. The characters must be consistent for the world, the world must be consistent for the world and the characters must be consistent for the characters. In my opinion, world consistency is more important, I can kind of forgive characters sounding like modern people, because it's easier to identify with, and hard not to do. Of course, this is only one vastly important part of writing, a consistent book with cruddy characters and a terrible world will always suck, but for me, I have never loved a (fiction) book that was not consistent as much as one that was. That doesn't mean that I dont like books that are not consistent, it just breaks the immersion for me. EDIT: HM looking back, this seems rather obvious... what I meant was it all has to mesh. The second thing is behind the scenes stuff. One of the reason I love huge epicifyingly awesome doorstopper fantasy is because the behind the scenes stuff makes it feel like a real world. Books that feature the plot too heavily over the world are cool, but they make the world feel like a construct, which is never good for me. Sure, the plot can pull you in, but for me at least the world is what makes me feel like the author has crafted something important, or created a world in the pages. With a plot overmuch based book, it can be an awesome book, with a well constructed world and things happening behind the scenes is what gives the book a sense of magic, and a sense of reality. One of the reason I like Mistborn so much is that it focuses on plot, but also features a superb world that has tons of stuff going on if you really look. (This is all my opinion. I may have stated it a little to much like it was fact.)

How long was the book, Reader? I'm hoping not Way of kings, otherwise you are a new species that will dominate us puny humans with your speedy excellence.

That's a very interesting point Straff, I totally agree with you. Didn't mean to sound argumentative. My parents named me what they did through a process of elimination, so no real meaning there. Zenith, I didn't mean 6000 as a specific date, I was just saying it to mean a long time ago. Still awesome that you know that though.

Straff, what I mean is, probably 6000 years ago, all of our names probably had meaning. Tribes named things to have real meanings, right? Correct me if i'm horribly wrong. Observer, it sounds like it would be awesome if it worked. Same kind of idea as not telling your kid their gender so they don't grow into stupid gender roles.

Our original names probably had more meaning initially; when names are first created they have more meaning, since you can always remember the reason for naming it what you named it. Even if the name is random, you still have the reason for the juxtaposition of syllables used to create it, or the fact that you know it is random..

I have a weird story about this. First of all, I am s SUPER japanese obsessive, so I knew I wanted a Japanese term. I love the game Okami, a japanese mythology videogame, so I also wanted something from that. (my picture portrait is from Okami). In Okami, there is a place called the Ark of Yamato. I looked up the meaning of Yamato, and figured out that it stood for 4 things: a battleship in WW2, a sense of "japaneseness", the name of Japan before the year 672, and the province in ancient Japan where then imperial family first came from. Naturally, having figured out that this was the ULTIMATE term of japaneseifosity, I was obliged by my own obsessiveness to choose Yamato for my username.

I have the power to eat vast quantities of food without getting fat. Also, the power to randomly spout vast quantities of information that is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

I read it in the store, then bought it just to have. I just couldn't wait until I was at home, since my parents left me there for an hour, but I wanted a copy anyway.

I just read it today in my local Barnes and Noble, and I was very impressed. I love asian stuff, so the really cool cultural things were the highlight for me. TONS of easter eggs for the Cosmere aware, everything from country shape in magic, actual descriptions of Realmatic theory, The Imperial fool, and those rocks that fell from the sky. Some really cool anecdotes on art and the ethics of magic, loved that. Forging is absolutely brilliant. I read the acknowledgments, and it seems like Brandon really did get the idea from ancient Chinese stamps, just like I thought. The one piece of art in it was beautiful, the symbols in the top looked like chinese characters do when used on a stamp. Just a thought, are MaiPon and Jindo like China and Korea? It's interesting to get some tantalizing details about the larger cultural world. Maybe the Tull... something are like the Japanese? Strong warriors in a harsh culture? Or maybe i'm just extrapolating because i'm trying to fit Japan into this, just like usual. Anyway, I am a little peeved that this isn't longer. FAR more interesting than Elantris in my opinion, and I liked Elantris. I'd absolutely love some travel in the Elantris sequels. , Anyway, If Mistborn is 47/50 and Elantris is 40/50, this is 42/50. I hate novellas, because their too short, so a score this high from me is really quite amazing. I might have liked it as much as Mistborn if it had been a full size book. Kudos to Brandon for making me like Sel 500 times better.

Well, They also use chemicals, and not all of the companies use paper from legitimate companies, paper is obtained from illegal loggers and companies who disregard the environment. It's impossible to tell which is worse, so I use some of both, since I don't want to stop reading.

Hm... World wise, Roshar mostly. On Scadrial Elendel sounds pretty nice, but trips to Roughs would be awesome. Roshar, I would be a super world traveler. Places I would like to see : Kharbranth, Khlolinar, Kasitor, Rall Elorim, the Purelake, Ssemelax Dar, That place with the criminals with bloody cheeks, and lots of other places. Sel, Elantris of course, but also Jindo and Fjorden. Nalthis, T'Telir is the obvious choice.

Heh. Good point. I was just trying to talk about my preferences, and the reasons for my decisions, and I got worked up, just like always. I might just take that suggestion.

Seriously, I think you guys are still not considering the much greater cost to society. Environment is a factor too! Even if Ereaders cost society, the vast amount of paper books produced creates an even larger detriment to the environment, and thus people everywhere suffer. A lot of traditional practices no longer work in a crowded world.

Actually, libraries are experimenting with that. They do this duuuumb thing where they only have limited copies of the book, when in ebook form a big advantage would be to make it so library waiting lists no longer exist. Since this system is sooo stupid and soooooo badly implemented, I agree about the libraries not becoming ebooks, at least anytime soon.

Hmm... very good point. That puts me in a dilemma though. Do I save money, or do I help publishers? Personally, I get a lot of books through the library, but I also buy a lot of both mass market paperbacks, ebooks, and some hardcovers on special book releases. I probably overstated my ebook buying habits. That said, it saves the environment to do ebooks, as the total cost to society is more when buying paper books, as the cost of processing trees, killing them, and using chemicals and plastics for the covers is environmentally huge. I'm not going to say my initial decision to buy ebooks was environment based, as that would be a dumb lie, but the reason I keep buying some is because partially the price, but also the additional societal costs that I am learning more and more about. Yes, I would love to see Tor get their fair share, but I would advocate opening up their own ebook store as opposed to making paper books. I also think that is stupid and greedy for a company to expect the same money for a book that costs so much less to make. Yes, Amazon is most definently NOT giving enough, but i don't see how it is anything other than greed when Tor wants the exact same price as solid form for a commodity that costs so much less to produce. I feel like publishers need to band together to get Amazon to fold, rather than relying on paper, since ebooks are actually great for a modern society, since we take up too much trees to ever promote paper books in a society far larger than when they were created.

The price is most definently the biggest thing for me. I charge my kindle every night, so it's never a problem. I never buy Sanderson books on Kindle. Except for Mistborn 1. Most people I know who use paper books don't read nearly as fast as me. I spend a ton a month on books even when buying ebooks.

YAY FANTASY IZ GOOD! Actually, Cosmere books were the first books to hook me on fantasy. I had read some before, but never was really satisfied with most of them. I've always been a huge reader, but never read more of one genre until I got hooked on fantasy. Hmm I am the king of off topic.. anyway heres my favorites. all pretty obvious. 1.All Brandon Sanderson books that have and ever will be written in all universes. Including all in book books. INCEPTION!!!! 2. Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick ROTHFUSS THE MAN. 3. Song Of Ice And Fire and MAIN CHARACTERS DYING. 4. Gentlemen Bastards and other bastards by Scott lynch. 5.Wheel Of endless spinning in one direction indicating the passage of Time by Robert Jordan 6. Im putting Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide on this list because what he does is NOT sci fi. By that definition, it is simultaneously all genres at once. Adams logic. :D :D :D

The thing about paper books, only the book enthusiasts really have a fiery dedication to them, the new generations have a rapidly declining interest in literature. The people who don't grow up with paper books, and had fond memories of cracking open a book on a rainy sunday (or for me, sunny saturday) will not buy many paper books, unless they read so little that buying paper books is actually LESS than the cost of paying for a E-reader. Even me, someone who loves reading more than anything in the world, I buy Ebook because I read so much (9-12 books a week) that the cost would be (and has been) astronomically more. Now that I have things besides books I want to buy, I am loath to pay 5-13 dollars more simply for nostalgia. I still spend most of my money on books, so why pay so much more for new books? On the other hand, there are some books I will NEVER buy in ebook form, no matter how cheap, because the memories of reading them in paper form are so powerful. Basically, we need to make more people read. Otherwise, the paper book industry, and the book industry at large is doomed. And I literally could not live without books.

Cool! speed readers untie! (Goddamn it, you know what I mean). It's really great, because all the people in my classes are complaining about increased workload in 11th grade, but I actually have far LESS work, because we get way more readings. I actually slow down waaay more than that when disinterested, I can go from 6-30 seconds reading a page i like, to 10 minutes reading a page out of a math thing, even though math books have half the text. I go from 10-15 times faster at everything to 2wice as slow at everything. Man, I like ranting. math (CAPATALIAZING NOT ALLOWED) is fun to hate.

Brendan: Thats just how fast I read. A combination of practice and my dad's genetics makes it that way. The Way of kings was my overall record, in 2 and a half hours. I can study English, History, Japanese, and Economics about that fast, since I'm interested in them, but math makes me read waaay more slow. Like history textbook: 3.5 hours, 850-900 pages. math textbook: 6-7 hours, 500 pages. I could probably read that textbook fast If I tried, as my speed is genetic more than anything, but I get so disinterested that I literally doze off. I can process info fairly fast, so I never stop while reading either. Unless it's math. I also refuse to capitalize the word math, too much respect. Edit: I realized I had capitalized the word math!!!!!