Inkthinker

That could probably have been expressed just as effectively with like, 30% less sarcasm. I can read about a page a minute. 1000-page book pulls in at about 16 hours, but it's rare that I would read a book in one marathon session. I know I pushed through A Dance With Dragons in about 3-5 days. I usually blast through a Butcher book in two, sometimes in one, which is a combination of frustrating and satisfying ("oh, that was good. Too bad I gotta wait a year or more for the next one"). Same thing with Hiaasen. Some authors are easier to burn through than others, but I usually consume two or three novels in a week as a general rule of thumb.

I would seriously disagree that "everything leading up to the climax" is empty. Characters are introduced, they develop, we see them as one thing and then learn they are another, and they learn things about themselves. Neither Kaladin, Dalinar or Shallan are the same characters they were at the climax of their plot arcs as they were at the beginning, and that happens because of all the events leading up to that climax. Without those events, we'd have no context for their developments. ASoIaF is a slightly different beast, but even there we are witnessing character development. In fact, offhand I can only think of one epic fantasy novel I've read in recent memory where "everything leading up to the climax is empty", and that would be Book 10 of The Wheel of Time. Now there is a novel where almost everything about the characters at the beginning remains unchanged by the end, and that was damned frustrating.

Jim Butcher just did a fairly good time jump in the most recent Harry Dresden novels, effectively moving his world forward 6 months and flipping the table on almost his entire cast of characters.

I'm calling 1:5 odds that it's just a rock. -EDIT- Wait, when did it glow from within?

Well, part of the problem for Martin has been (as I understand it) a plot blocker that he had trouble getting around, something he called "The Meereenese Knot". I'm not sure that it was ever clearly explained, but from what I could glean here and there, he was stuck because he'd written Dany into a corner and couldn't figure out how to get her and some of the others where he wanted them to be in a way that felt true to them and good to him. He also has a problem because he wanted to do a time-jump originally, and age some of the characters (like Arya) but when it came around, that option no longer felt viable. Hence we get a book without Jon, or Dany, or Tyrion... because George was having an 11-year case of writer's block. Again, this isn't something I think Brandon has to deal with so much, because he outlines and plots before he "discovery writes". Or, as I think he's put it before, he's an "outline writer" when it comes to plotting, and a "discovery writer" when it comes to characters. Sometimes this does take him in interesting and unexpected directions that change his plot outline, but it means the odds of him finding himself in a corner because he wrote (and published) his characters doing something, and then couldn't figure out how to get them to the next place, is greatly diminished.

The book is a nice reference for the series, meant to function as a companion to the trilogy in addition to providing the basis for a game. It's chock-full of notes direct from Brandon, as well as details on the people, the magic, and the world. That being said, if you're not down with dropping the $35 for a book just to get a short story, I think there's a PDF edition that's $15. In the end, it was written to specifically accompany the book, and I don't know of any plans to publish it elsewhere just now.

It is frustrating that the cast of Martin's series tends to be spread out quite a lot, especially now... as I've said elsewhere, it often feels like I'm reading 4-6 different books at the same time, rather than one consistent, coherent novel. It's no surprise that some folks read them by character rather than page order... you can go through and read nothing but Jon or Dany or Arya chapters, and get a single storyline without missing much. Even Tyrion, in the most recent book, is now off on his own thing (though if he doesn't end up with Dany by the next book, I'll be quite irritated. I quite reading Jordan with the infamous book 10, and by god I'll quit on Martin too if he writes 1000 pages of non-progression). That being said, I think it's less of a problem for Stormlight, especially given how Book 1 ended. Kaladin has alreayd been put together with Dalinar. Jasnah and Shallan are on their way to the Plains, which will put all four of them together for at least a little while. Szeth's nature is to bounce around, but he's also bound to head for Dalinar. Rather than set up each character on their own arc, Brandon's set them all up to collide, and soon. It helps as well to know that we're looking at a planned 5-book cycle (followed by another, but the first five should create a coherent arc), rather than an open-ended epic saga bound to go who-knows-where. I have a great deal of faith in Brandon's ability and willingness to plan ahead. It's also nice to know that he's been reasonably reliable in terms of output... there should not be any 3-5 year gaps (or more) between novels, as we've gotten with Jordan or Martin.

Oh, I know the arguments. Still standing my ground. -EDIT- For clarification, I'm sure she was present at the event or shortly after, and for some reason she feels responsible. But I don't think she actually did it herself, and I'm betting she's not as culpable as she feels.

Well, I'm also an outlier on a lot of the local theories. For instance, I don't think Shallan murdered her father (or even had a hand in killing him through intentional, conscious action), I think she's suffering from a misplaced sense of guilt that we don't fully understand. So, y'know... I'm nutty like that.

I hear the kool-aid is amazing, try some!

Because Kaladin and Dalinar approach combat and fighting from different perspectives. It's capitalized because Dalinar has formalized the concept in his own head. Bear in mind, I could be wrong... I have no insider knowledge on this particular subject, it's one of those things where I'm as much into the mystery as any reader, and I don't plan to burn what little time I get speaking to Brandon asking him about it, so I'm with everyone else in making guesses. Do we see anyone at all refer to it by a formal (capitalized) name other than Dalinar? I remember him speaking with Andolin about it, but even that's in the context of Dalinar's viewpoint.

I'm thinking that the Thrill isn't anything other than a formalized name for the surge of adrenaline and other emotions that are associated with getting into a life-or-death combat. It's the sort of thing you hear about all the time from soldiers and professional fighters.

Are there ARCs for paperbacks? 'Cause now I want to see a picture of this.

Nope. I'm Inkthinker,and I'm most definitely not Isaac. Easy to confuse though, since Isaac uses the name "Inkwing" for branding purposes, I use "Inkthinker", and we both draw for Brandon. In the Mistborn material, I've done the Broadsheet for Alloy of Law and the cover/interiors for The Mistborn Adventure Game. Isaac did the maps, the symbols, and anything else that appears in the first trilogy (I joined the team as the third book was being published). We both worked on The Way of Kings. Isaac worked on Legion, I'm working on The Rithmatist. But he's much prettier'n me.

Isn't a year about standard? I mean, I know there's some stretch, but a year always seemed like a good round figure for the hardback-to-paperback conversion.

Paper when I can, but ebooks are rapidly taking over my "new books" section, which used to be about the hardbounds. Ebooks are cheaper on same-day release and weigh a LOT less than a new hardback book. Still, given the same price point, I'll go for paper most times.

The power being displayed? Well, that's part of the central question, ain't it? It's clearly possibly that he could be an outrageous genius with a schizoid disorder that helps him deal with it by assigning false personalities to the various specialties he masters. Though I doubt it's as easy as that, it's entirely reasonable that it might work out that way. I'm disinclined to go with "spirits" or some other form or incorporeal personalities that are drawn to him, if only because he's conveniently capable of creating/attracting new ones when he needs them (with the downside being that once they're created or drawn to him, he has to keep them). But who knows what's really going on there... we would need Brandon or someone else to expand upon this nugget of a beginning. Personally, I think it'd make a wicked good TV show. It's perfect for an ensemble cast, there's a nice central theme and hints of a through-line plot with plenty of potential for problems-of-the-week. Plus, it's a pretty clever concept that I don't think has been done before, and that's always a nice thing to see on television.

Fun stuff! Like a schizophrenic Watson with a host of hallucinatory Holmeses.

Just wrapped up Mieville's latest, Railsea. Excellent stuff, probably my favorite of his since he stopped writing about Bas-Lag. Fascinating world-building, good characters, and only a passing pastiche of Moby Dick. Almost done with Dan Abraham's A Shadow in Summer. Very cool, he does some interesting stuff with character behaviour that helps to emphasize the foreign nature of the society being described. Crazy psyched up for Abercrombie's Red Country, but we got a bit of time yet to that.

"Failure" is a flexible term, and I'd argue that it's most applicable here in the sense of "cost-effectiveness" and "sustainability". Steel Inquisitors, Koloss and Kandra meet both criteria, but there's a wealth of opportunities for "failed experiments" that might have gone on for a couple hundred years (considered a failure only in hindsight), or even if they only produced a handful of results they might still represent a threat to characters in the moment. That 1000-year gap leaves a lot of room to play in. That's why it's the time period for the video game and the suggested setting for the RPG. Because of the stagnation of development that The Final Empire enforced, even if you go back a couple hundred years you still get a world very much like that of the novels (possibly a little fresher, even) but you can remain separate enough that any events which take place have had time to fade into background noise, or be covered up by the Ministry (which controls information flow).

On page 282 of The Mistborn RPG, Brandon encourages players to use Hemalurgy to create monsters, stating that "Hemalurgy is poorly understood, even by its practitioners. Many creatures can be crafted with the dark art, and only a few are commonly found in the Final Empire" The semi-canon contribution of the RPG is the monsterwraith, a mistwraith that has absorbed a koloss corpse which still has its spikes. Granted a four-spike Blessing of Potency without the two spikes that grant the Blessing of Awareness, you get a creature that combines the amorphous shape-shifting ability of the kandra with the psychotic rage and strength of a koloss. Scary stuff. So long as you're following the logic of The Treatise Metallurgic, I'd say it's a pretty open field. With 1000 years of history to play in, there's plenty of room for experimentation on the part of TLR, the Ministry, and the chance evolution of threats.

I always rolled with the idea that a cape stays behind the shoulders, a cloak comes all the way 'round to the front.

Shoot, that's stuff I wish I had known. Good find!!

I actually took "tassel" to mean the strips themselves, as an alternate term. A tassel being defined as "a bunch of loose threads or cords bound at one and and hanging free at the other", it could be taken to refer to the way the strips are bound at the mantle and hang free. At any rate, I've never seen anyone put tassels at the end of the strips, but again... no reason not to! Ahhhh, sweet vindication. As for felt, isn't that usually wool or cotton? -EDIT- Nope, "felt" refers to "a nonwoven fabric of wool, fur, or hair, matted together by heat, moisture, and great pressure." Though what he was probably thinking of was the sort of stuff you can buy in a fabric store, which is usually (I think) wool or cotton. Also... eeeewwww, hair/fur mistcloak. Ew.

I think your sentence missed a beat. Felt what was closest? Sam Weber's cover to the e-book is the best one I've seen (other than mine of course ). I really like the way he did the neck.