Argent

The first few are the most basic, if people give up on the series, they give up there. I personally loved everything about the series.

It's the ultimate book for book nerds.

Cool stuff. I wonder if the spren's inability or difficulty or reluctance to travel to other worlds has something to do with the cognitive "emptiness" between planets - maybe there is nothing, no thought, to sustain them there, if they need sustenance.

Exciting!

True. I still believe that if a thread in the general forum is marked as spoilery, there should be no need for the tags, but I can settle on people simply denoting the book(s) the spoilers are coming from.

If nothing else, I ought to thank you for doing all this. I try to do my own signing reports, but this one happened during a particularly busy time for me, so I didn't have as much time as I wanted. It was also longer than the average, as far as I know, so it was extra work.

Guys, when literally the entire thread is about spoilers, there is no point in marking every post individually. Also, it doesn't help if you just stick something inside the spoiler tags and don't tell us what it spoils. Ahem. On topic now. It might not count entirely, but Syl's (temporary) death hit me the most. I've spoken about this before somewhere, but it's worth saying again - even though I expected her to return, I was nowhere near she would. Kaladin's story could've easily been one of the man who was nearly a Radiant and then lost it because he couldn't grow into the role fast enough. I think it would've been a terribly fantastic story, especially with his struggle against depression. But Syl makes me genuinely happy and I didn't want her to be gone.

Guards! Guards! may have been my first Pratchett book. Here's a lovely wallpaper, for no reason whatsoever. Good memories, though not many (it was over 10 years when I first read it; I have more memories from Death's / Mort's subseries). And speaking of Pratchett, I am done with Sourcery. I had forgotten that the Three Pedestrians of the Aprocalypse get stupid drunk in there, that was gold. As is, of course, literally every scene with Death. Started Faust Eric earlier today, and looking at how short it is, I expect to be done with it very soon.

I don't know about Horror State. The States need to offer you, the Liveborn, an opportunity to grow and be accomplished, do something meaningful - it's not just an adrenaline ride. As for the other types, probably anything anywhere from recent (for humanity) history will fly. A warlord taking over the world, a barbarian chief, a nobleman or -woman, a king, a scholar, an artist (from practically any age), a merchant, a politician, a scientist, an explorer...

Done with The Light Fantastic. Not as good as The Color of Magic, I felt, but hey - Cohen. On to Sourcery.

Given that we are in the Calamity subforum, I see no reason for spoiler tags. A few assorted thoughts: Knighthawk Foundry has a nice ring to it. I like the way it sounds. We, of this age, are officially awesome. David says so. "If there was one thing I’d learned in Babilar, however, it was that I needed to rein in my hotheadedness. I needed to be like . . . half a hothead instead. A hot chin?"

The novella is pretty clear that the Liveborn are just "brains in jars", hooked up to their own simulations where everything is designed to make them feel empowered and accomplished. If anything, it's all single player games, not necessarily RPGs, not an MMO. Also, the Wode calling Mehli "she" is not a typo.

Well. This would be exciting, but the Cosmere is not a fair field for evolution - all the Shards creating humans skew things. So it could go either way.

From page 22: And then 24:

From the last page:

I've read it, it is not Cosmere, it does mention Earth. There is a dedicated (spoilery) thread somewhere around here...

Aaand it's out.

It's good

I was finishing up The Color of Magic last night, trying to make sure I was done with it before Perfect State come out, and - as luck would have it - about 15 minutes after I had turned the last (digital) page of The Color of Magic, I received an email from the Google Play Store that my preorder was ready. I jumped right in, read half of it before going to bed, and the other half in the train to work. It's hard for me to be negative about Brandon's works - not because I feel some kind of reader-writer loyalty (though I certainly do), but because I legitimately see very few issues with his books. Take this one, for example. Inter-character relationships worked out wonderfully - Kai and Shale's conversations show the type of banter I've learned to associate with Brandon's writing, and it works really well for me. Kai and Sophie talk in a way I wouldn't at all mind talking with my future hypothetical date, girlfriend, or wife. The ideas (mostly) she brings up are thought-provoking in our world, and they would be even more relevant as we advance technologically. I think I would side with Kai, were I in his position (i.e. achievements are real even if the circumstances that led to them were not), but I am not sure. And that's the beauty of it - I did pause to think about what I would do if I had been the main character; that, to me, is one of the most important measures of a story, be it book, show, movie, song, etc. Speaking of Sophie - loved the twist in the end! I should've expected it, I should've known that Brandon wouldn't write a book where the climax was "the hero defeats the monster by being extraordinarily clever," this is a boring ending for his books. Melhi's* plan to play with Kai's emotions, and potentially sanity, was pretty surprising. I don't know what to say about it - I liked it, but I can't find the words to express exactly why. Most of all, however, I felt the lack of things. 40 pages are, I think, just not enough for Brandon to show us everything he has developed, and that leaves me wanting for more. Much more. Molly, Kai's - I would guess - first love. Lancing and Lancesight - gods, how it smarts to not know anything about how the magic works in one of Brandon's books! Melhi - did he really do everything he's did because of an insult? And the world! How did humanity get to the place it got to? What are some of the other Liveborn's States like? Who are the Wode? I have to admit, I felt that Brandon's other novellas offered more closure than this one, even though I (think I) liked this one more than the others. Melhi is a male, right? The Wode use "she" on the very last page, but that's the only time, so I think that may be a typo. Or another plot twist.

Something like that, I would imagine, yes.

Again, for reference: The smoking man killed Asmodean. Re: the name of the world of The Wheel of Time What marks the end of a Desolation involves the departure of the Heralds (which we already knew) On being referred to as BrandSand On what it would take for fantasy to be taken seriously Is Rand a god? <headcanon>Led Zeppelin totally confirmed for Mistborn Era #2</headcanon> Coppermind recommendation On Kelsier coming back: there's always another secret. I am starting to feel we need to take this phrase (there's always another secret) and turn it into the new RAFO. TAAS. Favorite Pratchett book On two people Investing an item with Breath & (Firefight spoilers) reincarnating Epics dying of old age I omitted a couple of replies that were essentially a "thanks for reading".

Double post time! Finished The Color of Magic last night and started Perfect State. Finished Perfect State a few minutes ago, my thoughts are in the Goodreads review. Fun fact: as of right now, only 10 people have rated it before me, and my review is the only one. So I'll just leave this here. So there. Bragging rights. I am at work now, but once I get out, I'll start The Light Fantastic, the second Rincewind novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

This guy received the ARC. Bear in mind, this is before Brandon's standard 20% cut, so it's actually going to be a little shorter.

And so it begins. Currently reading: The Color of Magic (Rincewind #1) by Terry Pratchett. Going to wrap it up in a day or two most likely, then a (scheduled) break for Perfect State, then another (unscheduled) break for The Skull Throne, and then jump back in the Discworld.