[Aptorian]

Spoilers! I was looking forward to the epic sorcerous showdown between the dastardly fanatics and the valiant woman of Theod!

[Salt-Man Z]

Yeah, my vague memories of ELANTRIS are very little of action, more of Sanderson building up an intricate logical puzzle for the characters to solve. I remember finding the ending quite clever, and thinking Sanderson showed promise as an author. And yet since then I've had no real interest in picking up any of his other books. The only other one of his I've read was THE RITHMATIST (on my wife's recommendation, I believe) which I absolutely could not put down. (And currently my teenage son is practically begging me to read MISTBORN, lol.)

[Aptorian]

Elantris is my runway to picking up the Stormlight Archive books.

I've been weary of picking the books up because I wasn't that happy with the Mistborn books and I didn't like Steelheart either. I feel like Sanderson has great ideas but the execution and overall story leaves something to be desired.

But people talk about the Way of Kings as the greatest fantasy book of the last decade, so I feel like I should give it a try.

Edit: Also Sanderson writes books that are a 1000 pages long which should really be a crime. When I become King of Earth I'll issue a decree that no book should be longer than 300 pages. 400 pages if you get dispensation from the ministry of petty book opinions.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 05 January 2022 - 07:15 AM

[Morgoth]

Aptorian, on 05 January 2022 - 07:09 AM, said:

Elantris is my runway to picking up the Stormlight Archive books.

I've been weary of picking the books up because I wasn't that happy with the Mistborn books and I didn't like Steelheart either. I feel like Sanderson has great ideas but the execution and overall story leaves something to be desired.

But people talk about the Way of Kings as the greatest fantasy book of the last decade, so I feel like I should give it a try.

I think it's maybe the greatest fantasy book of the last decade for those who already really liked Sanderson.

[Aptorian]

Yeah, that's my worry as well. I think I'm getting influenced by the BookTuber Daniel Green who is a massive Wheel of Time and Stormlight Archive fan.

[Macros]

Beetle juice
Beetle juice
BeetleMaark!

[amphibian]

I generally have good intentions towards Sanderson, but I'm extremely certain that Sanderson himself would tell anyone that there have been many better fantasy works than Way of Kings in the last ten years.

Really liking something doesn't mean it's the greatest thing.

[Aptorian]

Probably not the greatest fantasy but the things that are highlighted as strengths about the Stormlight Archives, is tons of world building and intricate magic systems and awesome scenes of the characters utilizing said magic systems. Which is stuff I love in my fantasy.

I'm optimistic but it'll be a while before I get around to Way of Kings.

[Maark Abbott]

Elantris is aight. The Chernobyl of early Brandobonk books. 3.6, not great not terrible.

As to stormbad, the worldbuilding is slapdash and random and the magic system was, at least as far as I read, basically non-existent. I was so excited for that book and it just pissed on me like a drunk Macros on St Paddy's Day. And I don't have a piss kink either which did not help at all.

[Tsundoku]

Maark Abbott, on 05 January 2022 - 08:56 AM, said:

and it just pissed on me like a drunk Macros on St Paddy's Day. And I don't have a piss kink either which did not help at all.

Oh, he doesn't need a special day only once a year to do that either.

Branderson for me is very good workmanlike writing.
He has no pretensions, doesn't overly muck about with romance subplots, does a good plot, decent characters with comprehensible (eventually) motivations, excellent worldbuilding and pretty good action scenes.

It's like that 3-3.5 star restaurant you really like because it's great value, you know what you're going to get and like it, and they don't faff about. Basics done well.

Actually that reminds me I need to get back to RoW which I am about 1/3 of the way through. Not because I wasn't enjoying it, but because I was getting headaches from the font, page contrast etc as it's a real dead tree book and those things are giving me problems more and more these days. I'm tending to use my PC with Calibre, but I kinda like to sit and watch the cricket and read a book, so I may have to invest in a tablet and put Calibre on it. Stuff getting an e-reader, not worth the $$$ for only one format.
Or can I use Calibre to convert everything I have on the PC to one specific e-reader format ... ?

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 05 January 2022 - 01:01 PM

[worry]

Tsundoku, on 05 January 2022 - 09:10 AM, said:

Or can I use Calibre to convert everything I have on the PC to one specific e-reader format ... ?

You sure can!

[Puck]

Aptorian, on 05 January 2022 - 07:21 AM, said:

Yeah, that's my worry as well. I think I'm getting influenced by the BookTuber Daniel Green who is a massive Wheel of Time and Stormlight Archive fan.

This guy wouldn't know a good book if it hit him in the face.

No offence meant, I just really disagree with most of his options. He's got serious book reviewer syndrome: if it's not immediately accessible to a goldfish, it cannot be sold to his audience. And Sanderson is accessible to goldfish while writing looong books, so it's the best thing since sliced bread.

The thing with BookTubers is that they need to churn out content fast and a lot if it to stay relevant, so they naturally end up favouring books that are easy to read and digest. Even with Daniel Greene this evolution is evident if you compare his content over the years.

This post has been edited by Puck: 05 January 2022 - 11:25 AM

[End of Disc One]

I think the thing with Daniel Greene is that he's young and for the most part has been excited to devour any book that he comes across. He's starting to show signs of burnout, just like every sff blogger back in the day. The ones who stick around, like Wert, were never the ones to gush.

I'm one of the bigger Sanderson fans here but I the first Mistborn book is one of my favorites, so take this with a grain of salt. I felt like with The Way of Kings, Sanderson was holding back on his worldbuilding concepts to not overwhelm new readers. As a Malazan fan, I wanted him to drown me. But the last 10% is awesome and it shows that Sanderson can nail the emotional high points.

Book 2 of Stormlight is my favorite Sanderson book and awesome from start to finish. 3 and 4 are more bloated, but the emotional high points are still there. And it's getting deeper into Cosmere and realmatic theory which I love.

This post has been edited by End of Disc One: 05 January 2022 - 01:41 PM

[Salt-Man Z]

worry, on 05 January 2022 - 10:25 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 05 January 2022 - 09:10 AM, said:

Or can I use Calibre to convert everything I have on the PC to one specific e-reader format ... ?

You sure can!

Yep, this is what I do. I've got Calibre installed on my PC with a DRM-removal plugin enabled. Every ebook I acquire goes into Calibre, and from there I sideload 'em all onto my Kindle(s), converting formats as I need to.

[Tiste Simeon]

Salt-Man Z, on 05 January 2022 - 04:14 PM, said:

worry, on 05 January 2022 - 10:25 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 05 January 2022 - 09:10 AM, said:

Or can I use Calibre to convert everything I have on the PC to one specific e-reader format ... ?

You sure can!

Yep, this is what I do. I've got Calibre installed on my PC with a DRM-removal plugin enabled. Every ebook I acquire goes into Calibre, and from there I sideload 'em all onto my Kindle(s), converting formats as I need to.

Hmm this sounds good. I take it I can do this on a Chromebook?

[Salt-Man Z]

Tiste Simeon, on 05 January 2022 - 04:19 PM, said:

Hmm this sounds good. I take it I can do this on a Chromebook?

A quick Googling shows that Calibre does not support ChromeOS natively, but if your Chromebook supports Linux apps, you should be able to install the Linux version of Calibre onto your Chromebook.

[QuickTidal]

Book club: SHOGUN, Prologue and Chapter 1 down. Love this book.

[Tiste Simeon]

Salt-Man Z, on 05 January 2022 - 04:49 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 05 January 2022 - 04:19 PM, said:

Hmm this sounds good. I take it I can do this on a Chromebook?

A quick Googling shows that Calibre does not support ChromeOS natively, but if your Chromebook supports Linux apps, you should be able to install the Linux version of Calibre onto your Chromebook.

You're saying words that I understand but I'm not sure I've got a clue what you're talking about haha

[Maark Abbott]

Tsundoku, on 05 January 2022 - 09:10 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 05 January 2022 - 08:56 AM, said:

and it just pissed on me like a drunk Macros on St Paddy's Day. And I don't have a piss kink either which did not help at all.

Oh, he doesn't need a special day only once a year to do that either.

Just a fiver and a kiss of his blarney stone.

[polishgenius]

I tend to have a live and let live approach with Sanderson these days- he's not for me, but his work isn't offensively bad or anything and he hasn't been caught up in any #metoo scandals or islamophobia, so whatever- but I do sometimes get a bit baffled as to why he in particular is so massively popular when writers like Adrian Tchaikovsky, Chris Wooding, Robert Jackson Bennet, a Django Wexler maybe - guys with a similar sorta vibe and level, but at least in my opinion without Sanderson's prose and dialogue clunk- never broke out of the fantasy ghetto in the same way.


Anyway, I've got a bunch of new stuff I need to get onto, also finish The Fall of Babel, but currently I'm re-reading Gears of the City by Felix Gilman, the second of his Ararat duology. I think fans of Bancroft would like Gilman actually, y'all should get on that.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 06 January 2022 - 04:11 PM