[Terez]

I will probably eventually give my extra copy to someone else. Might get it signed by Brandon first, probably at JordanCon in April. I also might get to go to WorldCon in Reno...

[Varan]

I have to say, i've never thought of Sanderson as a good author, passable the mistborn book was too 'clunky' for me, i didn't really like his writing style.

But this book staggered me, I dont think since Scott Lynch's GB i've liked a book as much, very enjoyable read

[QuickTidal]

Varan, on 22 December 2010 - 04:37 PM, said:

I have to say, i've never thought of Sanderson as a good author, passable the mistborn book was too 'clunky' for me, i didn't really like his writing style.

But this book staggered me, I dont think since Scott Lynch's GB i've liked a book as much, very enjoyable read

Agreed. I think he really upped his game with TWoK, and it shows in spades.

[Coco with marshmallows]

bought this on the 24th, just finished reading it today.

flat out excellent. Haven't enjoyed a 'first book in a series' so much since Butcher's Codex. Got a tremendous sense of depth with the use of only a few characters. Just an entertaining read all round.

[Stalker]

I agree as well. Got it on Christmas and just finished it.

Absolutely one of the best books that I read this year.

[Knight of Darkness]

Warning: don't read this if you haven't finished the book.

Spoiler

At the end, we see that Szeth is given a task to kill Dalinar, and we see that Kaladin & Bridge 4 is appointed as Dalinar's bodyguard. Is it just me, or do you guys think we will see some shiny Surgebinding wrestling between the two in the next book? That would be AWESOME

[QuickTidal]

Knight of Darkness, on 02 January 2011 - 03:08 PM, said:

Warning: don't read this if you haven't finished the book.

Spoiler

At the end, we see that Szeth is given a task to kill Dalinar, and we see that Kaladin & Bridge 4 is appointed as Dalinar's bodyguard. Is it just me, or do you guys think we will see some shiny Surgebinding wrestling between the two in the next book? That would be AWESOME

Oh hells yeah that is happening. It's gonna be EPIC.

[Cause]

Cobbles, on 13 December 2010 - 11:25 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 01 December 2010 - 03:08 PM, said:

Yes, but Cobbles, if you try to tell me that back when you read TEoTW (and it was the only one you'd read in the series) that you KNEW all of those characters and places mentioned in that first book would surface later on...then I say bull. No effing way. In fact, if you look at TEoTW as a book all by itself, it comes off as a pretty straightforward fantasy (farmboy needs to defeat the evil) without much in the way of extra plot threads and arcs at all. It is only once you get to the 3rd and 4th books that all the stuff Jordan put into it for the future arcs becomes apparent.

Thus, my point is that since there is only ONE book in the Stormlight Archive series out so far there is NO WAY...none at all...to talk about world building on a wide scale until later on in the series and we see what threads can all be tied back to the first book, of which I am positive there will be many. That's above and beyond the obvious once I mentioned in a previous post.

Think about Mistborn....and how much can be tied back from Hero Of Ages to that first book....while the first book works completely as a standalone easily...Sanderson threw in a bunch of things that don't really come to fruition till later books, but I never would have been able to sort them out beforehand.

Ok, this is what I said in one of the spoilers which I think started the discussion:

Quote

I cannot imagine how this series should span 10 books unless the scope is widened by a large amount. I think we saw a bit of that in the interludes. But having a story focus only on those four characters for ten books will become very tedious, I think.

I never said that this one book should be wider in scope. Just that the scope needs to be widened in later volumes (such as WoT or Malazan did). There's a bit in the interludes, but not really much more to see in this one book.

Malazan wouldn't be great if it were just Whiskeyjack campaigning through Gennabackis for ten volumes. WoT would be much more tedious if it were just Rand and the gang taking out one Forsaken at a time without all the other stuff going on (although some of that is pretty boring, too). Stormlight archive won't be great if it's just those four main characters for ten volumes. That may be enough for a trilogy but not for 10 volumes. Trust me there has to be much more going on in later volumes.

A very good point you make, I did not see it till you brought it up. Ten novels does seem like quite a bit. I imagine exploring the past and what truly happened though will be a huge part of the narrative. The key is obviously hidden there. The ten orders of knights radiant, the voidbringers, parshendi and sprites and chosen will all be connected.

[alt146]

The thing that I disliked the most about this book is that the second one isn't out yet

By far Sanderson's best work. Some valid criticisms about things like the slightly predicatable nature of some of the storylines and a bit of repetition with regard to emotions and imagery, but not enough to detract from a great book. Despite the length of the book it is very well paced, the last 'book' especially sucks you in the way very few books manage to.

I doubt the story will stay focused on only the four main characters - I see Hoid gearing up to be a main character in a book or two, and I got the distinct impression that the characters in the interludes were being set up to be POV characters in future books.

[QuickTidal]

I still say....

Spoiler

That moment when Kaladin realizes the nature of the Parhsendi jewel beard/hair wearin' accessories for what they are....and fucking hail-mary leaps that chasm to get only midway across and then suck in the stormlight to force push himself the rest of the way, goddamn well floored me. That last desperate battle with Dalinar and Adolin being nearly killed and overrun only to be saved by a Stormlight-infused Kaladin was suitably triumphant and EPIC. Gods what a great book.

[moridin]

QuickTidal, on 11 January 2011 - 04:51 PM, said:

I still say....

Spoiler

That moment when Kaladin realizes the nature of the Parhsendi jewel beard/hair wearin' accessories for what they are....and fucking hail-mary leaps that chasm to get only midway across and then suck in the stormlight to force push himself the rest of the way, goddamn well floored me. That last desperate battle with Dalinar and Adolin being nearly killed and overrun only to be saved by a Stormlight-infused Kaladin was suitably triumphant and EPIC. Gods what a great book.

Everything you just said. Plus I love that his weapon of choice is the spear, its just such a cool weapon, IMO.

[End of Disc One]

QuickTidal, on 11 January 2011 - 04:51 PM, said:

I still say....

Spoiler

That moment when Kaladin realizes the nature of the Parhsendi jewel beard/hair wearin' accessories for what they are....and fucking hail-mary leaps that chasm to get only midway across and then suck in the stormlight to force push himself the rest of the way, goddamn well floored me. That last desperate battle with Dalinar and Adolin being nearly killed and overrun only to be saved by a Stormlight-infused Kaladin was suitably triumphant and EPIC. Gods what a great book.

Best part of the book.

[QuickTidal]

moridin, on 14 January 2011 - 12:59 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 11 January 2011 - 04:51 PM, said:

I still say....

Spoiler

That moment when Kaladin realizes the nature of the Parhsendi jewel beard/hair wearin' accessories for what they are....and fucking hail-mary leaps that chasm to get only midway across and then suck in the stormlight to force push himself the rest of the way, goddamn well floored me. That last desperate battle with Dalinar and Adolin being nearly killed and overrun only to be saved by a Stormlight-infused Kaladin was suitably triumphant and EPIC. Gods what a great book.

Everything you just said. Plus I love that his weapon of choice is the spear, its just such a cool weapon, IMO.

Agreed. Spear=cool.

@EODO: Yeah, I agree def the best part of an awesome book.

[Terez]

I meant to post about this the other day but I forgot (just came across it again while working on a blog post about ch. 20 of TEOTW):

Quote

Brandon on Twitter - 6 January 2011
First non-Rand viewpoint is Perrin, at about the 38% mark. RJ's juggling of viewpoints is something I didn't see until I was older.
Brandon
Many a new fantasy writer, fresh off a WoT book, plans and plots a huge epic with 20 viewpoints. That can be overwhelming to start.
Brandon
Both WoT and GRRM ease into it more than you realize. In most cases, it's better to build to complexity.

Also, just to note, he has read the early Malazan books at least, and was impressed with them (he had an account here at one time), but I get the impression that his career was beginning to take off when the books started getting popular, and he probably realized after book 5 or so that he just didn't have time for it. It's not the kind of thing you can really appreciate to its fullest by reading once, and every time a book comes out you feel like you need a re-read. You might even say that's an extension of the above point by Brandon.

WoT is like that to a degree - Brandon really only had time for that when he was younger, and he's had to do a lot of catching up - but I think most of you would agree that it's pretty different in that regard. GRRM at four books was already showing the signs of bogging down, and here we are however many years later wondering about the other half that was supposedly already written. RJ had 3-5 slow-ish books, but they still came out more regularly than that. (roughly 2-3 years apart after LOC). Hell, it was only 4 years between the release of KOD and TGS, and there were some significant hurdles to overcome in the meantime, to say the least.

Brandon keeps a pace similar to Erikson's pace with Malazan, but even Erikson got pretty burned out. There were some other contributing factors to that, but doing an 800-page book a year is no joke. Doing more is...well, I imagine it can be fun for a while, but it will inevitably get old. Brandon put out two of them last year. TWOK was one of them, though it was a revision of an earlier novel. Revision is no joke, and I gather that Brandon did some major overhauling with this one. TOM was the other, and though he was working with some material already written, and the plotting mostly done for him, WoT is basically like a research project for him, despite his history with the series. Both TWOK and TOM showed some signs of frequent revision and a lack of fresh editing eyes near the end of the process.

Anyway, Brandon gave a little speech on this at a book signing in Atlanta that I happened to attend, and he talked a little bit about his plan for the series, and how he tried to address in his plotting the inherent bog problem of epic fantasy. I can't remember what he said about it, though. It was a small signing so I would have felt weird sitting there with my laptop taking notes. I'm great at organizing other people's reports but I suck at reporting.

[Illuyankas]

Got it to read on my train trips this week while I more or less vanish from the forum for a few days, will let you know how it turned out when I finish.

[Flawed]

I picked this up today. I have read about 30 pages in an otherwise million paged book. I already ike how it is written and it was giving me the same feeling i had when i first read Gardens of the Moon. A sense that this was going to be an epic journey that was not just a book to read but something more for me to ponder, then the day to day existence of my semi broing life.

I think its going to be a good one

[QuickTidal]

Flawed, on 20 January 2011 - 05:22 PM, said:

I picked this up today. I have read about 30 pages in an otherwise million paged book. I already ike how it is written and it was giving me the same feeling i had when i first read Gardens of the Moon. A sense that this was going to be an epic journey that was not just a book to read but something more for me to ponder, then the day to day existence of my semi broing life.

I think its going to be a good one

Yeah, it certainly is one of those.

[Illuyankas]

Finished it a day after I started it. I liked it.

[Flawed]

Thats some heavy reading thereIlly,

Im about 40 pages from the end and i have to say that this book is very good. I think i have found something to replace the world of malaz when the time comes. Its a ten book series apparantly. i am pleased

[Trull's son]

I wasn't going to splurge on the hardcover, then I leafed through the book and noticed the maps. Like, have you seen those maps?! I don't even look at them, usually. Anyways, I bought it. Hope it's worth the money.