[QuickTidal]

JPK, on 08 January 2025 - 04:44 PM, said:

I know several of you have been working on the newest Stormlight Archive book for awhile now. Without spoilers, how're you liking it? Has there been any improvement to the common criticisms regarding slog and bloat that arose back around OATHBRINGER or is he continuing to double down on his bad habits as an author?

I may be about to jump off the SLA entirely...I'm slogging through it worse than I did with RoW. There is stuff to enjoy, but the change in editors between OB and RoW is still so evident here and letting Sando just run without a tether is hindering him. Like a certain character has the same internal revelation thought about 6 times...I was like "Didn't they already come to this realization?"...there's a repetition here that is similar to Kal's CONSTANT repetitive "revelations" about himself in RoW on his way to Therapy-land....it's an editing problem.


The "ten day" narrative confine of this one is doing it no favours as well as it constrains it a LOT.


There is only one truly entertaining storyline and even then it's not WoK or WoR level...there's a lot here that is setting the table for the cosmic cosmere fight and it's losing me as a result. I liked this series more when it was about Roshar and its individuals alone and I liked the intermittent "so and so shows up from Mistborn or Warbreaker" before, but it's become a rather dominant aspect now and I think the series is moving into a spectrum I care less about?

I dunno. The good news is that it's going to be a decade before books 6-10 start coming out, so I'll have a long ass break after this...but so far WaT is as much of a slog as RoW was if not more of one...YMMV. I think Abyss is enjoying it, so his take may be different from mine.

I think these are 600page books pushed to 1300 by a lack of bravery on the part of the new editor.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 08 January 2025 - 07:14 PM

[Macros]

So basically his working on WoT turned him into Robert Jordan

[Tiste Simeon]

I've got the first 4 SLA books and plan to stop them later this year. I hope it's not a slog in the same way that WoT was.

[amphibian]

 Macros, on 08 January 2025 - 07:45 PM, said:

So basically his working on WoT turned him into Robert Jordan

It's more like the process of many ocean life forms evolving into crabs - a prolific, best selling author without a great editor turns into Robert Jordan or Anne Rice.

[polishgenius]

polishgenius, on 07 January 2025 - 07:12 PM, said:

Now started The Forge in the Forest by Michael Scott Rohan, sequel to The Anvil of Ice which I read aaaaaaages ago then re-read last year. This one's new to me. It's part of the Winter of the World, a series consisting of this original trilogy in the 80s and what appears to be a set of standalone follow-ups in the late 90s into 2001. It's an entertaining setting, harking back to pre-Tolkienite Conan-esque fantasy but in a world, as the name implies, in the midst of an ice age. I really enjoy the setting, got that mysterious, unexplained magic feel that a lot of modern epic fantasy avoids.

Finishing this, it did rather clarify Rohan's strengths and weaknesses as a writer. He's superb at sense of place and atmosphere, and very good at setting action in it. He's also got a knack for character interaction, even though dialogue isn't a huge strength. He is, however, not great at structure and pacing.

So Forge in the Forest contains a genuinely spectacular extended central sequence in the titular woodland, almost like a Moria-in-trees with a trippy interlude in the middle, and another strong moment of journeying shortly after. And it's also just likeable for the most part. The actual result of the central quest, though, is pretty odd for multiple reasons, one of which is it feels rushed not just in the book but in the whole trilogy, since it wraps up the two major questlines that had been built up.

That did make me curious about wtf the third book would be about because, well, wtf, and a quick scan of the blurb and some reviews suggests I'm gonna be annoyed coz it's gonna kick off by having the lead do something it's really not in his character to do, and then deal with unpleasant results after. But I will read it to (1) find out where he's going with this, it's been a fun journey so far and (2) get to the standalones, coz I feel like a more focused singular story might suit MSC's skills better.




Next up: High Vaultage, a book which I now find out is in the rather weird position of being a debut novel but a sequel, as it's the follow up to a podcast audio-drama called Victriocity the pair created before. Looking it up, the book is a direct follow-on, but since I didn't feel anything was missing at all from the introductory chapters, the authors have done a good job writing the book as its own beast.

Anyway, it's a comedy private-detective story set in a huge, chaotic, rather mad 'Even Greater London' filled with electric automatons and other such weirdnesses. The co-leads are a down-on-his-luck gumshoe and an interepid reporter teaming up to form an agency, and, well, I'm enjoying it a lot so far. Comic writing can be tricky, of course, but they've got the warmth and good vibes down in a way that means I'm enjoying it even if I'm not laughing out loud- which I have a few times anyway.