Mason Wheeler

It depends on exactly what is meant by legend. The Wheel of Time famously used a very interesting phrase: "legend fades to myth." At some point, we as a society collectively lose track of the details of what happened in the past, replacing it with a glossed-over version of the high points, generally twisted to fit current conceptions in some way. And that point can be pinned at about 300 years: So if the Scouring has become legendary, but not mythical, that puts it at less than 300 years, probably significantly less.

Since Feather said she can't do a Splintercast Reads series for Oathbringer, I figured I'd step up to the plate. I've decided to call it Stormcast, and I'll be posting a response to each chapter as it's released, and then to larger sections once I actually get the book. (And due to a recent move to the Provo area to take a new job, I'll be able to be at the release party! Yay!) The prologue can be found here: Check it out and let me know what you think. Hopefully you guys will like it!

Isn't that the point of Adolin's scene with Kaladin, discussing how Amaram is a bad guy? Adolin basically says (paraphrasing here) "My father is the best man I know, but even he has some very serious character flaws that I'm fully aware of. But Amaram has this reputation for being absolutely perfect in every conceivable way, and that's just not how real people are, so you know he has to be using that to hide something really ugly."

Didn't one of Dalinar's visions, the one with Nohadon, specifically include a complaint that several of the spren types were less discerning than the Honorspren, and they were picking up some people of disreputable character to be Radiants?

Story-wise, there's just no comparison. I've tried several times to read A Game of Thrones and just never been able to get into it, whereas The Name of the Wind sucks you in right away with its beautifully sad description of the inn and its three-part silence, the innkeeper hiding a secret identity, and the traveling scholar's downright amicable waylaying by a group of highwaymen. And we've just barely had time to establish the framing story when Chronicler arrives at Kote's inn and they get down to business of telling the nested story, with tantalizing hints that Kvothe's own actions are largely responsible for the mess that the framing-story world finds itself in. Even without having read it, I know from simple cultural osmosis that the world of ASOIAF is bleak and ugly, with the author killing off any character who has enough redeeming qualities for the audience to end up caring about them. What this ends up leading to is a situation where you have no one to root for or care about, what TVTropes calls "Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy." A big part of what makes Kingkiller work, despite the essentially bleak premise, (the world's a big, screwed up mess and it's our hero's fault,) is the counterpoint from Bast: It remains to be seen whether or not the third book will make good on this potential. Personally, I really hope it does. There's already enough dark and ugly out there, and it's getting boring. We want to see something good and meaningful happen! I'm reminded of the author of the Paul Twister stories and his review of the (also needlessly-dark) Dawn of Justice: I agree completely, and I really hope, when the third Kingkiller book comes out, that Pat Rothfuss gets it right.

Bleh. You really should read the The Runelords series by David Farland (who, incidentally, taught a writing class that had Brandon Sanderson among its students) if you like The Demon Cycle. Brett essentially did to The Runelords what Terry Goodkind did to The Wheel of Time: produced an ugly, blatant ripoff of a better work by throwing it in a blender and adding a liberal helping of Grimdark Sauce and political allusions.

I secretly hope that, if it's ever discovered (which it may not be; he did a decent job of covering it up) that the king gives him a medal for it! Given the circumstances, Adolin absolutely did the right thing there. Sadeas had just proven that he had no willingness to change and he was going to continue to try to divide humanity at a time when it desperately needs to be united, all for petty personal gain. I can hardly think of a better definition of "irredeemably evil" than that.

I *did* get Lift's humor, and I find her awesome. For me... Probably Hrathen. He kind of has the same problem as Darth Vader: I'm expected to believe that a person who's spent years and years doing monstrous actions on behalf of an evil emperor can be instantly redeemed by doing something good at the end of his life? That's kind of hard to swallow. Edit: wait, this was supposed to be Stormlight only? Umm... I dunno, that's really a tricky one. I haven't really had any characters I couldn't stand, except for Sadeas, and he's *supposed* to be the guy you hate.

Nice! Looking forward to these little tidbits to tide me over until November...

I'm surprised no one has mentioned our best canonical interpretation Odium's Intent yet. From the first Letter: From the second Letter: The Intent of Odium is "the wrath of God," without "the virtues that give it context". Calling his home "Damnation," then, seems to be completely on the mark; he's the Cosmere's Satan-figure, and his Intent is to turn the whole Cosmere into a living hell.

So in the latest version, the characters have never hoid of him?

Why not? It's very interesting knowing where Dalinar came from and seeing how he's changed. And it's not as if we didn't know that he started out as a bloody-handed warlord who helped his brother conquer Alethkar. That's been clear since the beginning.

Relish, ketchup, and mustard. No shame and no onions please.

Does this strike anyone else as a little bit meta?

There are a lot of things that make Roshar look like a bigger, more epic Scadrial. (The Listeners being a race that draw upon the power of an evil god, who go to extreme lengths to be free of his influence, definitely look familiar for example...)

Are any previews out yet, or expected soon, for Oathbringer?

Hi Yami, good to see you on here!

Good to see it's back. That just makes me wonder even more what happened...

I just tried to load Brandon's site and got nothing. Ping and a few other checks make it appear that the domain name is no longer registered. Anyone know what's going on?

Argh! I totally missed that!

I just ran across this: Examples given: And so on. Of course, I immediately thought of the Cosmere. Thing is, it's kind of difficult to make it work for a lot of Brandon's books, because they do start with murders. ...and so on. See what I mean?

This comes back to something that's never really been explained AFAIK: What is the origin of feruchemy? We know you can become an allomancer by taking Lerasium, but how does one become a feruchemist?

Does it really count as a new joke when the author has flat-out admitted that he created the names for the sake of that particular pun?

You can infer that this is what's happening, though there's no solid indication as to which metal/power he used or who he used it on.

Yeah, figured that's what happened.