ccstat

My reading fare (within speculative fiction) is pretty solidly in the high fantasy genre, with regular excursions into hard science fiction and occasional forays into urban fantasy. However, I am interested in exploring what some have termed magical realism, and I'm looking for recommendations. I recognize that "magical realism" is a debated term, so let me clarify what I mean by it. Maybe someone else will have a better name to use. The setting is essentially our world, but incorporating fantastic elements (e.g. ghosts, ESP, curses) in a matter-of-fact (but usually unsystematic) way. This differs from urban fantasy, where the magical world is present and often well developed, but is hidden from most people. I'm looking for settings with no secret history and no special class of magical elite who are in-the-know. There are various examples listed on wikipedia, but I think I would prefer to trust recommendations from this group. A well-known title on the list is The Green Mile by Stephen King. I have read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, also on the list. It fits the criteria, but I consider it a bit of an edge case. Another I've read that strikes me as being in the right vein is The Card Turner by Louis Sachar. Your thoughts?

Yes indeed.

Good questions; more info from Brandon would be great. We do know that gems can come from either mining or gemhearts, and that mining on Roshar is particularly difficult (source). I assume that's because highstorms cause terrible flooding in mineshafts (Shallan comments on how hard it is to have a regular basement in a building), and because a continent covered in (regularly renewed) crem makes digging/finding mineral deposits hard. My guess would be that in non-mining eras all of the gemstones come from gemhearts.

A man is years late to an archery contest. He wins, then kills the other contestants.

That sounds uncannily like Gangnam Style

Thar she blows! You're up, Wilson

Since Delightful hasn't jumped in, I'll go ahead and kick us of again with this one: A man goes fishing but doesn't catch the one he wants. When he finally does, he dies.

Love the Eshonai pic!

So this wording gets me thinking about the whole "Who is Taln?" discussion we've had here since WoR. Similar quotes about "the man who says he is Taln" have had us second guessing his identity, compounded by the apparent sword swap. This new WoB is consistent with those others, however interpreted. Yet I wonder if the underlying point is that he claims to be one of the Heralds. Perhaps the oathpact is broken enough that they no longer count as heralds, and so saying "I am Talenelat'Elin, Herald of the Almighty" is an inherently false statement even if it was true back before Tanavast died. I'm not sure what I think yet. There is also a WoB that the oathpact (which my phone keeps trying to autocorrect as papacy) is not as broken as the herald think, so maybe they are still bound by some (all) of the terms.

Wow, that is excellent. I especially loved the lulluby sequence, but I'm going to have to listen to the whole thing several times to catch all the themes and through lines. I look forward to more from you!

Yes, the twist on superstitions is still there, but has been demoted from theme to recurring element. My favorite part right now is that I've been able to expand the treatment of superstitions to encompass the origins of luck, which I am tying to various creation myths.

Despite my hopes to the contrary, the Curiosity rover has determined with nearly 92% confidence that the surface of Mars is in fact made of rock, presumably sitting on top of more rock. Why they named it a "Mars bar" if the planet wasn't also chocolate-covered nougat I have no idea. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were also deceived, not acting with malicious intent to mislead. My desire to travel to Mars is, coincidentally, down about 92% from where it used to be. If things keep going this way, I don't know what we'll do. Modern science is even making me doubt the sublime nature of the Milky Way.

When I read a Sanderson book, often I will find related story or magic elements appearing in my dreams. I know from posts on the forum that others of you are the same way. So if you have a dream you'd like to share, post it here! Last night I dreamed about watching the season premiere for a new TV series called Cosmere Connections. The opening scene was Vasher (using a Windrunner power set) stealing Nightblood from a highprince, then encountering Shai in the slave markets. It was going to be very cool. The night before that, I was trying to fight off holographic chalklings (shaped like the Weasley family for some reason), but since I am a bad artist my Rithmatic defenses were not holding up well. Lines of Revocation saved me a few times, but I'm glad I woke up when I did because I was definitely losing.

I understood it to be a requirement of the system, probably based on the same XinWey's Doctrine that establishes the other rules of the system. Something to the effect of "Procreation must be a voluntary act, chosen by both parties." This would (in theory) avoid the morass of eugenics and pay at least lip service to natural biology. I suspect that the Wode is only allowed to create new embryos when certain conditions are met, and only from the parents involved. A convenient measure of volition and check box for the list is "did the parents choose to get together?" Hence the hoop jumping. In practice, the Wode's compatibility ranking means they basically all get to choose all the pairings.

I asked a similar question at the Atlanta Firefight signing, also RAFO. Glad to see someone else is thinking along the same lines. There have been a lot of both reasonable and wild hypotheses about crem in the past, especially before WoR (it is a gift from Cultivation, it makes up shardplate, it contains physical stormlight, it makes voidbringers, etc.) While crem seems mundane, its close association with Highstorms, which are indisputably magical, suggests that there is something more going on.

we have a winner!

The foster daughter of a thief is the winning half of a love triangle. The losing half is her former foster sister, who dies in the love interest's arms.

The Avengers (poor Agent Coulson)

Yes, I meant earlier in the book. I had thought there were some "he" references before that, but I'm not sure. That would tell us if it's an internal error or just bad assumptions. Edit: Kai thinks Melhi is male, so either Kai was mistaken, or there is an error.

I really liked it. The shorter length worked really well for me, for multiple reasons. I didn't pay any attention to the status bar as I read, so I had no sense of how close I was to the end, so the conclusion surprised me. I was expecting at least one more sequence, with surprising institutional revelations/accomplishments. Instead the story was about Kai. That's another point in favor of the length. A story about the society and discovering/subverting expectations would have needed more space, but for the more intimate story we were given it is just right. The other reason is mostly personal; work is super busy and I really shouldn't have bought this to read. Fewer words means less guilt about indulging in some recreational reading. I think the reason Melhi's plan is so satisfying is that it reveals a deep and unexpectedly insightful understanding of Kai. Melhi knew what would affect him, anticipated what he would do, and provided multiple levels of manipulation to get "revenge". This snaps Melhi into focus as a character, where before there was just a shadowy antagonist with boring motivations. For a story at least in part about the lack of interaction between people who live in their own perfect States, Kai and Melhi have a true connection. Agent, I was also under the impression that Melhi was male, but I don't specifically remember other pronouns. I'll have to go back and check when I have time, unless someone gets to it first.

Enhanced touch could let you feel for hidden seams in materials with secret drawers, etc. In a modern setting you could feel different wear (including direction of finger travel) on a keypad, thus deducing a door code (e.g.) Tactile sense is also a danger/proximity warning. You feel air movement on your skin (usually because you feel air moving your skin hairs) and know something is moving nearby and disturbing the air. Presumably tin could then help you be far more aware of your surroundings. You could gain more precision in your movements, since you can feel the exact distribution of pressure your foot is exerting on different parts of the floor. With practice this could lead to excellent dexterity, balance, and efficiency of movement.

My current world has progressed a bit away from this, but it started out as the story seed "Bad luck comes when a black cat crosses your path, but what happens when you cross his?" However, today's development came in a totally different story, one that I'd abandoned for a while due to some serious plot problems, mostly because on closer examination the villain motivations made almost zero sense. The new brainstorm is to have the (very exciting) kidnapping of our heroine be a feint of sorts, not really intended to succeed in itself. The good guys will send their forces to deal with it, leaving home base unprotected, bwa-ha-ha, and voila! Totally consistent plan for the evil power-hungry lady.

Gemhearts: To my knowledge it hasn't been confirmed either way, though I've seen speculation on both sides. Every gemheart specified in the books so far has been an emerald, but there over a dozen mentioned without any reference to color/type. There were several pre-WoR threads dealing with gem currency issues. One of them included economic calculations based on the number of gemhearts harvested and their use in soulcasting food, with the conclusion that only about 1 in 10 gemhearts could be an emerald if the Listeners were in danger of running out of food. However, we now know that Sigzil's guess about them soulcasting food was off; instead the Listeners use stormlight directly to help their crops grow. What that means in terms of gem type requirements and renewability I don't know. That shortage doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Shardplate: Personally, I find it most likely that the cousin-spren theory is correct, given the wording of several RAFO answers, especially this one. Prior to WoR I thought the spren-are-shardblades theory was ridiculous, a lazy connection with no textual support. Turns out I was wrong (added it to the list in my sig--there's been at least one major thing per series). To be honest, I was actually a bit disappointed when it turned out to be spren after all. Regardless, along with the reasons already posted in this thread, it seems most likely that living plate would be spren-forged as well. (Though it does make me curious what type of spren would be cousin to the Stormfather... )

Those are a lot of fun--I'm excited for the finished product. I particularly love Bastille's expressions. Thanks for posting these Weiry

Wayne trades something valuable for a pocketwatch with an aluminum case. If it is synchronized with a clock in the train station in the morning, will it still be synchronous at the end of a day filled with intermittent time bubbling?