Inkspren_K

When all you can think when seeing this headline is "I am a stick"

So I came across this article about someone who does rock stacking at that reminded me of Yumi's art. So I figured I would share it here for my fellow readers to appreciate! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-66985809

I guess I was maybe thinking he was telling a space age audience a story that happened in more of a Era 3 time period. So I was referring the period it happens in, not the period that it's being told in of that makes a difference.

It definitely seems like the audience is Rosharan. I'm not sure if they're specifically Shin or not, this is late enough in the Cosmere that Shin use of -nimi could have spread, at least easily to the rest of Roshar. I'm wondering if this is similar in time to Mistborn Era 3, with the existence of early space travel, tvs, limited phones, or at least this seems similar to the tech level we've been told see there. Not sure where 1700 years earlier put those events though.

I don't see an asterisk or 3. Maybe you have a different version?

On page 184 in the pdf, there is a footnote 3, but in-text 3 for it to refer back to. I need to know what's in Canada!

For anyone who hasn't seen yet, every month this year there's a new free "printable" activity connected to the Year of Sanderson boxes on Sanderson's website (https://www.brandonsanderson.com/secret-novels/). This month's is Hoid Libs (like Mad Libs), and I thought it would be fun to see what others on this site came up with if they did the activity. Here's mine (spoilered in case you don't want to see the template before filling your own in).

I think one of the books (though I could be misremembering) said that the Aethers predate the shards/shattering. In this case maybe Autonomy copied parts of what she saw in the Aethers in the system for Taldain? That's my current theory at least.

I think the audience is from first of the sun too. In addition to the quotes mentioned above, there's a reference to Aviars in chapter 24, which likely means the audience is at least familiar with Aviars

When your nephew asks what words start with ch and one of the first words that pops into your head is chouta.

What's the time gap to era 3? Could Marasi be a governor/leader on Scadrial in that era?

Not super high quality, but I felt like this format was perfect for this.

Except on the second to last one, I feel like nightblood eating amulets of investiture makes more sense than nightblood eating omelettes. I thought just having the first two lines of that one without the rest was better. But these were fun, thanks :).

It's fine if you disagree, it's just my unpopular opinion :). I can't enjoy Skyward, but like the others. But for a bit more to support my opinion, first of all, all good fiction draws from other sources. What makes a good book is combining elements in different ways. The inspirations that you pointed out above for Starsight are diverse enough that I think the combination is still enjoyable. Second, what stood out to me more than the plot in Starsight is the social commentary on how we interact with those who are different than us, and overcoming assumptions about others. There are lots of other books like this, but I really appreciate when themes like this can be explored in Sci-Fi and fantasy, as I think taking themes like this out of our polarized world and exploring them in a fictional space allows readers to be objective and reflective about them. Skyward lacked deeper theme because of the lack of diversity in the characters - they are all humans from the same spaceship, living in the same underground community. Yes, there's a little bit with some coming from different classes, but they still all have all grown up so strongly in the same culture that the interpersonal elements of the plot loses any real tension - in the end of course they are all going to come together to fight and defeat the aliens and that's it. I knew from the beginning exactly how the whole book would end up. In Starsight though, there's real conflict knowing that in the end, these characters will likely need to fight against each other. There are cultural differences that might not be possible to overcome with the superiority and how should that be coped with? How do you come to see a group that truly a are your enemies as real people and still fight against them? It's the reflective elements that there are more and more of as the series progresses that I like. In the end, maybe the problem for everyone is just how different Skyward is from the others. Skyward has more action, but I find just action to be flat in books. But I understand that someone who likes action might prefer it. Yes, the actual action moments in Starsight and Cytonic aren't that interesting, but it's all the non-action moments in between that make the sequels land for me and not the original. And again, the point of this thread is unpopular opinions. I know this would be unpopular, but it is my opinion, so I'm just putting it out there.

I'm sure this will be an extremely unpopular opinion, but I'm sick of seeing posts like this, and this thread is supposed to be for unpopular opinion so... Skyward is by far the worst book in its series. When Cytonic came out I reread all three books in order. The entire way through Skyward, my reaction was "Why did I ever like this series?". It is 100% YA tropes, is completely predictable, and doesn't even have much as far as interesting twists - all those come later. Then I got Starsight and realized"Oh yeah, this is where all the original, interesting stuff starts". And after that, I thoroughly enjoyed Cytonic and am looking forward to book 4. However, I don't think I can make it through another reread of Skyward itself.