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Oathbringer: Stormlight Archives 3 (Spoilers)


Rhom

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I feel like Sanderson almost could have put a list in the appendix of his characters' crushes, past hurts, and current moods, laid out just like his magic systems. His characters are that artificial.

But damn was that Wax and Wayne series a fun read, wasn't it! Stick to pulpy characters, world-defining expositions, quick action, and as little internal monologue and teenage banter as possible!

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1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

I feel like Sanderson almost could have put a list in the appendix of his characters' crushes, past hurts, and current moods, laid out just like his magic systems. His characters are that artificial.

Wow... that is an excellent encapsulation of the problems in Sanderson's writing. He has a limited repertoire of character traits that he seems to mix and match to create, in the end, minor variations in each of his stories. It really can all be boiled down to an appendix list. Some rare characters do rise above this, but mostly this fits.

I was incredibly frustrated over the whole Shallan being attracted to Kaladin thing too. Especially since it went absolutely nowhere in the end. Why end up doing this to your character if there aren't any real stakes to this? It is almost like he just went through the motions for the heck of it.

What particularly frustrates me is that in this series, Sanderson is writing all his main characters as all having some kind of mental disorder. That can be greatbut Sanderson reduces it almost to a gimmick. Multiple personalities don't just pop up, and you do not have communication between them and control to the level Shallan has. I agree with whoever said that Radiant didn't even seem a real personality, an almost perfect example of a cardboard cutout character.

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7 hours ago, Ninefingers said:

This.

He needs to be reined in, but it may just be at this point he's to big to control. 

MASSIVE amounts of the Dalinar flashbacks could have been pruned. Yes, he did bad things in the past and it haunts him. WE GET IT. It's ok for things to happen off-screen. 

And while I'm complaining, why do Sanderson's female characters have to be torn between being in love with two people? He leans on this trope too hard, and it reduces what should be strong female leads to absurd levels. Men deal with saving the world, women spend their time trying to decide which man they like the best. Ugh.

/rant 

I know what you mean. I created a topic in the general forum about if female readers thought GRRM wrote realistic and relatable female characters. I wouldn't even bother to ask that question of Sanderson because the answer is a fairly straightforward no or a heavily qualified "sometimes." But he's not alone in that regard. It's something that's been getting better in fantasy fiction (at least in young adult stuff), but always room for growth.

I like Jasnah as a character but she hardly got any screen time. And I think as we get a better picture her character we'll probably be disappointed. He's at least implied she isn't interested in men, and that could be very iffy territory for him. I don't like to bring up his religious beliefs too often because that's really personal. It too often shifts from an honest critique of its possible effect on his fiction to criticizing him as a person. But I would gander his upbringing and religious tradition lends itself to how he conceptualizes women. He'll need to stretch his mind and work beyond heteronormative assumptions about sexuality to keep Jasnah as an interesting, dynamic female character.

7 hours ago, Ninefingers said:

Sure, but why saddle her with that trope?

Sanderson struggles with characterization, and this is a tool in his toolbox that's a bad one that he uses too often. His attempt to write sexual tension between Kaladin and Shallan falls miserably flat because it's just "lets have them say mean things to each other because secretly they like each other". What are they, 12 years old? Sheeesh. 

EDIT: Bottom line, it's an unnecessary add that diminishes Shallan and cheapens the story by making it read like fanfic. (If you couldn't tell, I'm not a fan of this.)

Haha, yeah, all that was missing was Kaladin pulling her hair or something. I also didn't really find her marriage to Adolin as something that needed to happen in this book. It felt really rushed. It really wasn't part of anyone's character arc or a part of any plotline.

6 hours ago, baxus said:

I'm not saying that Shallan/Kaladin, or Shallan/Adolin or any other example of sexual tension is done well. As was already stated, writing about romantic relationships is not among Sanderson's strong suits.

Regarding Shallan's attraction to Kaladin and Adolin, I got the impression that was another way of showing Shallan's issues with multiple personalities, not her indecision between the two.

I actually kind of thought she'd end up with Kaladin. They had some intimate moments while trapped in the chasm. I honestly didn't really get the impression she liked Adolin (beyond his looks) all that much until suddenly they were kissing all the time. But you're right, relationships are certainly not his strong suit.

I thought he did a decent job with Dalinar and Navani. Not perfect, but geared in the right direction. The scene in the beginning of the book where she was lounging on his couch started out very intimate. She walked up and she touched Dalinar with her safehand and all that, which gave a subtle (and tasteful) erotic tone. And, being a tad bit of a romantic, I like that Dalinar comments about his attraction to her beauty as well as her tenacity and intelligence. And that he doesn't think her beauty has faded with age. I mean, c'mon that's really sweet. And in flashbacks we see how long he's had feelings for her. I would say that this romantic pair is fairly well done considering it's not a strength of his.

Adolin is a essentially portrayed as a "dumb jock" and the only comments he has about Shallan's intelligence is essentially "Dude! You're, like, smart! That's, like, badass." It bothers me as a portrayal of men... which I don't think I've ever actually made that complaint before! The dumb jock approach to this handsome duelist cheapens his character a bit for me. And the "metrosexual" bits about him being very preoccupied with his clothes and appearance aren't terrible additions, but sometimes seemed a bit silly or absurd. I feel like he's missing a twist of something that would really bring his character to life. Perhaps we learn he used to be an ugly/odd duckling as a kid and we see that his self-esteem is easily shattered by rejection. Or perhaps in his thoughts and actions we get evidence that he is a person dependent on praise and attention to feel secure about himself. The latter would work really well considering his relationship with his father growing up. 

Did anyone else get the impression that he intends to ship Kaladin/Syl? I hadn't really considered it in the other books, but in this one I definitely got that impression several times.

16 hours ago, baxus said:

I quite agree with your thoughts on the rest of the stuff, but this is what sticks out the most. Sadeas' murder seemed like such a big deal at the end of Words of Radiance, and it was almost completely ignored in this book. It could've turned Adolin into a much more interesting character than this vain duelist bored out of his mind. Instead of a serious character development, we get Adolin who talked to his father's Ryshadium horse, finally named his sword and is about to get married. Oh, and he did kill dozens/hundreds of people with his Shardblade though without the Shardplate this time.

The whole Jasnah storyline was disappointing, too. It would be more precise to call it nonexistent, though. I mean, you get the sister of the King, widely regarded as heretic show up after being presumed dead for months at least and you don't give it more than a line at the end of book's part one? I wanted more from her. What did she do all that time? There should be enough material there for a separate story at the level of Edgedancer at least.

Even Shadesmar was treated as more of a hindrance than anything else. We did get some glimpses of that world but it didn't feel like enough. I mean, they did travel for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles (or the equivalent Shadesmar distance) and still managed not to give us a detailed insight of that world.

I'm glad I'm not alone. I read a lot of stuff praising his works and I felt like maybe I'm the only person out there that is less than impressed with some of the elements of his fiction. Clearly there are things I do like or I wouldn't have read Oathbringer.

You're right about the missed opportunity about adding some depth to Adolin to make him more than just a "dumb jock" trope. It's such a simple thing to add too. It's been explored a lot in fiction, so it's not like he'd need to think too far outside the box. Hamlet, The Tell-Tale Heart, etc.

I really like Jasnah as a character. She comes across as a very complicated and nuanced person, much more than many others.  I'm with you: I wanted much, much more from her in this book. It seemed so out of place that everyone just goes back to business as usual. If not her family, then at least her mother should have had a more pronounced reaction. She thought her kid was dead and now she's alive and well! It's another example about how he has an obvious  weakness in writing relationships between characters. The details about her using soulcasting in the final battle scenes were quite badass. I assume there will be a book that focuses on her as the central character and I hope we get more of that kind of thing. But, before then, I hope he grows more as a writer before then to maximize the potential he's built for her.

I found the Shadesmar chapters to be really dull. I could have done without them entirely. Like you, I felt like with the amount of text dedicated to characters in that setting we hardly learned anything useful or interesting. The lighthouse was an awkward scene... he slipped in a weak reason for Kaladin to urge everyone to hurry about and get to Dalinar. In the rest of the book he completely skipped a lot of traveling scenes (which I'm not complaining about) to cut straight to advancing the plot... but the Shadesmar chapters were a long string of traveling sequences that really bogged down the flow. I essentially dread the idea of having to read chapters in future books that take place there.

I also thought that Shadesmar had the sea of beads where land was in the physical realm. I feel like he contradicted himself a bit on that one. They traveled on land to get to the oathgate... which isn't floating in the ocean. I did end up skimming these chapters so I could have misread that part.

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2 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Wow... that is an excellent encapsulation of the problems in Sanderson's writing. He has a limited repertoire of character traits that he seems to mix and match to create, in the end, minor variations in each of his stories. It really can all be boiled down to an appendix list. Some rare characters do rise above this, but mostly this fits.

I was incredibly frustrated over the whole Shallan being attracted to Kaladin thing too. Especially since it went absolutely nowhere in the end. Why end up doing this to your character if there aren't any real stakes to this? It is almost like he just went through the motions for the heck of it.

What particularly frustrates me is that in this series, Sanderson is writing all his main characters as all having some kind of mental disorder. That can be greatbut Sanderson reduces it almost to a gimmick. Multiple personalities don't just pop up, and you do not have communication between them and control to the level Shallan has. I agree with whoever said that Radiant didn't even seem a real personality, an almost perfect example of a cardboard cutout character.

I liked the idea of the fragmented personality but I think it was clumsily handled and/or failed to make an impact. I didn't interpret it as multiple personalities in the clinical sense, but when I think a bout it more I can see some parallels. Especially when it comes to disassociation of the self as a defense mechanism. 

But I took it to mean that while we all use masks to play up how we want the world to perceive us (e.g., Jon Snow and his "lord commander" mask), Shallan can actually change her physical appearance to make a more complete shift or transformation. This confuses her identity, thus her character arc should be an exploration of finding her self/identity. But instead it's just her shifting to Veil when she needs to be cool or brave and engaging in self-loathing about her real Shallan identity and its weaknesses. He probably needed more identities for her to shift to in order to demonstrate the fight for identity; Radiant either needed to be nixed (she didn't even fight with her sword at any point! what was the point?) or edited and further developed. Definitely a cardboard cutout character.

The presence of Veil and Radiant in the final battle was confusing and odd to me. I was expecting a symbolic act of unification of her personalities (holding hands? hugging?) and Shallan becoming a unified person again rather than fragments of traits.

I'm also not sure that the story about the girl and the wall was as profound as Sanderson believed it to be... I mean he told it in detail twice. I honestly can't even remember what the moral of the story was.

In sum, he had something with a lot of literary potential but then dropped the ball. It could have metaphorically been compared to the idea of shards in his cosmere or something like that. But, instead it's mostly just Shallan falling to pieces (pun intended).

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7 hours ago, Traverys said:

I thought he did a decent job with Dalinar and Navani. Not perfect, but geared in the right direction. The scene in the beginning of the book where she was lounging on his couch started out very intimate. She walked up and she touched Dalinar with her safehand and all that, which gave a subtle (and tasteful) erotic tone. And, being a tad bit of a romantic, I like that Dalinar comments about his attraction to her beauty as well as her tenacity and intelligence. And that he doesn't think her beauty has faded with age. I mean, c'mon that's really sweet. And in flashbacks we see how long he's had feelings for her. I would say that this romantic pair is fairly well done considering it's not a strength of his.

Dalinar and Navani are a completely different than Shallan and Adolin/Kaladin. They are much older, more mature and they have waited for years, or decades even, to get together. They are going against the whole tradition and religious norms to be together. On the other hand, Shallan's feeling for Kaladin are nothing more than a teen crush, and not a serious one at that, while Shallan and Adolin are basically an arranged marriage that seems to be turning into something more.

7 hours ago, Traverys said:

Adolin is a essentially portrayed as a "dumb jock" and the only comments he has about Shallan's intelligence is essentially "Dude! You're, like, smart! That's, like, badass." It bothers me as a portrayal of men... which I don't think I've ever actually made that complaint before! The dumb jock approach to this handsome duelist cheapens his character a bit for me. And the "metrosexual" bits about him being very preoccupied with his clothes and appearance aren't terrible additions, but sometimes seemed a bit silly or absurd. I feel like he's missing a twist of something that would really bring his character to life. Perhaps we learn he used to be an ugly/odd duckling as a kid and we see that his self-esteem is easily shattered by rejection. Or perhaps in his thoughts and actions we get evidence that he is a person dependent on praise and attention to feel secure about himself. The latter would work really well considering his relationship with his father growing up.

I quite liked the Adolin as a vain princeling with nothing better to do than fight and duel and date different ladies. That was great for the first book or two, and it fit great into the whole narrative. The problem is that it couldn't last for the entire 10 books, Adolin would either have to die or evolve. This was his chance to evolve and become more than that.

Even worse, letting him off the hook like that is plain stupid. it turns out that killing a Highprince is no big deal and that it's a given Adolin would get a free pass. It could cause a full blown war between Kholin and Sadeas houses and at the very least it could cause some assassination attempts at Kholin family members. Not to mention that Adolin could face trial and lose his station, not to mention causing house Kholin to lose face and/or status.

The way things happened, it gives of an impression that Sanderson just needed Sadeas out of the picture and didn't care about the fallout.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Okay, so I finished finally. Wow. A bit of a slog, though it picked up around the middle of part three. 

Biggest takeaway: these books do NOT need to be so damn long. There is nothing justifying it, and it really comes to damage their overall quality. I feel there's a really exciting 600 page book here. 1300 pages is ridiculous and it's nowhere more important than in the first two parts. So much could have been excised or trimmed significantly. Dalinar's present day plot, and Shallan's, were nonexistent. The flashbacks could have been cut down by half and been more effective. Part three picks up, and has the most interesting stuff happening. Part four suffers though with Shadesmar. It sounded fascinating in book one and two but it's so poorly defined, an entire realm of spirits and we still have no real good idea how it functions, what it's like, etc. 

Part five is all right, though it suffers from a lack of tension and poor pacing of events. There's some actual tension when Dalinar is almost overwhelmed by Odium and made to be the champion. I can't help but think the book would be so much more effective, and the series as a whole, if Dalinar had succumbed. The entire book is spent setting up his weakness and trying to push so much onto a man that he breaks. You think multiple times he breaks (remembering Evi, when the Coalition falls apart, Amaram's men attacking Thaylen) and each time his will is too great. That sets up the best moment of all, the biggest blow: becoming Odium's champion. And finally failing is both fascinating from a story perspective, creates an actual interesting and threatening villain, and you can't even blame him after all the shit he's been through. It's a compelling twist.

But Dalinar, of course, overcomes it. And it's just not that interesting. Odium screeches Vodlmort style, an ageless God that is surprised and undone by basic human willpower. And right there is the climax of the book - yet it *proceeds* the like 150 page battle scene that follows. The biggest tension and climactic moment is resolved before the battle - so there is zero tension throughout the endless and rather tiring fighting because the main threat - Dalinar vs Odium in a battle of wills - has been overcome. It was just really poorly structured and made the follow up fighting feel perfunctory. 

Character wise, Shallan is one of the most irritating characters read recently. Her wit is awful, all the more so when people praise her for it. Her personality shifts were just poorly defined. I never got a clear vibe if it was genuine breaks in personality or more an attempt to hide/play dress up to avoid problems. Radiant was nonexistent; can anyone really define a character trait about her? 

Jasnah is a more interesting character, though she kind of seems Mary Sue-ish - insanely intelligent, in complete control, and effortlessly badass with her abilities. She needs more focus to take away from that perception. 

Dalinar is somewhat interesting, but he also honestly seems too perfect. THat's weird to say when he has a terrible past and even in his present falls to alcoholism - but I guess there's just never any doubt that he's going to do the rightest thing that ever righted, and be so awesome that everyone follows. Each book ends with him getting even more perfect. This one he basically becomes God. Dunno. He's interesting enough but lacking in tension.

Kaladin, strangely, is my favorite. He's pretty standard epic fantasy hero but I like him in that Jon Snow sort of way, just enough depth there for me to be old fashioned and root for the hero type. Szeth is interesting but his story arc was very poorly paced. WE basically have the insane villain of the first two books who's murdered countless people turn good and start protecting Dalinar without a second thought. His redemption was not defined well enough, and everyone's reaction was ridiculous. Dalinar/Kaladin never have a conversation with the guy who tried to murder them repeatedly? 

Odium is boilerplate fantasy villain, honestly. Super all powerful bad guy trying to destroy the world who surprises people by being kinda reasonable and kindly when talking about destroying the world. Nothing interesting going on there. I kinda really hope Sanderson pulls a

Spoiler

Last Jedi 

and kills him off somehow in favor of more human antagonists. But I wouldn't count on it. 

Overall, it would have been a fun exciting standard fantasy read if it had been 500 pages shorter. As it stands, I'll read the follow up but I'm not really pumped for it. 

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Finished up last night.  As is standard for a Sanderson SA book, the last 300 pages go much faster than the first 1000.  :stunned:  I do agree with @IllusiveMan that the denouement of the book was entirely too long.  Dalinar/Odium was the climax.  I was reading that part late at night and by the end, I was struggling to stay awake.  I had to reread Wit's epilogue just to even remember what happened.

I'm still wrapping my thoughts around the book as a whole.  I may come back and post more, but while I liked the book... I don't know that there's much here to drive discussion forward.

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Not to keep ragging, because there are some things i enjoyed, but it just feels like Sanderson has so many opportunities to do something different/interesting with this series and consistently takes the safest routes. He kills people off in shocking ways - Jasnah, Szeth - nope, they're fine, no threat. All the main characters of course end up superpowered Jedi basically, a la Wheel of Time. None of them are ever in any real danger and you know in advance who's gonna stay alive the whole time (unless it's an end of book heroic death which we'll also see coming a mile off). Kaladin and co just get more superpowered every book. The villain remains bland and typical Dark One type and there's never any tension or fear he'll win. 

I remember reading book two at the point where Kaladin is betrayed by lighteyes one too many times and is locked up and vows never again...and I remember thinking wow, wouldn't it be awesome if Kaladin was Odium's champion? He fits the bill, so powerful, and after two books and more of awful things happening to him, you could really see a genuine compelling arc of him becoming the champion. Of course, it doesn't turn out that way. 

Maybe I just need to accept that I'm not writing these, but I can't help but feel there's a far more interesting story underneath if Sanderson didn't play it so damn safe all the time. 

Last two things:

Honestly  I feel like Renarin is one of the most annoying and ill defined characters. I didn't even follow his little arc about being corrupted because I cared so little. And his whole visions thing turning out to be false was terribly done because it was literally introduced the second before they were proven wrong. To make that reveal work - that Dalinar can resist Odium, that things aren't set in stone - you need to set up the visions being foolproof way before, and establishing their inevitability. You can't bring them up at the end of the book, then in that very scene that you establish them show us that they're imperfect and have any kind of emotional effect on us. 

Lastly, is anyone else wondering how this is gonna be 10 damn books? At least if the Odium conflict is the central one. I mean Kaladin and co already are superpowered as all Hell and we're 3 books in. Odium has been revealed way too early, I feel. He's already hard to take seriously and been defeated - how are we gonna take 7 more books of him? I really hope there's a twist in there somewhere. 

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As I said, I was falling asleep pretty badly while reading the last 20 or so pages last night.  I missed most of Wit's epilogue entirely and went back to read it today.  So he broke into the castle to find the spren that Elhokar was getting ready to bond when Moash killed him?

Count me in with those who were a bit disappointed in Shadesmar.  Really, I think SA is a perfect example of a series where the mysteries were better than the realities.  I remember being seriously creeped out by Shallan's visions in TWoK.  Only seeing the cryptics from the corner of her eyes and in her sketches.  The slight glimpses of Shadesmar.  There was some good subtle horror going on there.  Now Pattern hums and serves as comic relief (NO MATING!  Come on guys... what do you mean Sanderson never talks about sex in his books?) and Shadesmar was just a lifeless travelogue.  Ah well.

He still writes great action scenes and there are still moments where you can say "Yes!"  Sure its cheesy, but that's what I come to Sanderson for.  I'm not looking for a hard hitting deconstruction of fantasy tropes.  I want to be entertained, and I mostly got that here.  I definitely feel like he could have easily split this into two books.  Finish with the cliffhanger in Kholinar and you have a perfect set up for later.  Instead, we transition from that high to arguably the weakest section of the book.

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17 hours ago, IllusiveMan said:

Lastly, is anyone else wondering how this is gonna be 10 damn books? At least if the Odium conflict is the central one. I mean Kaladin and co already are superpowered as all Hell and we're 3 books in. Odium has been revealed way too early, I feel. He's already hard to take seriously and been defeated - how are we gonna take 7 more books of him? I really hope there's a twist in there somewhere. 

I remember reading somewhere (don't remember where, though) that there would be a time gap (in books, not IRL) between first five books and the last 5 books.

I'm guessing that means we might get an additional set of characters and troubles or maybe an even completely different one.

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On 12/12/2017 at 10:19 PM, Traverys said:

I also thought that Shadesmar had the sea of beads where land was in the physical realm. I feel like he contradicted himself a bit on that one. They traveled on land to get to the oathgate... which isn't floating in the ocean. I did end up skimming these chapters so I could have misread that part.

The Shadesmar stuff was a slog, but the final Oathgate was at a port, which is why they had land nearby. 

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I have rated nearly 200 books on my Goodreads page.  (I don't do reviews, just give it a star rating.)

Oathbringer is the highest rated book out of all of them.  :stunned: 

I gave WoK and WoR four stars each and Oathbringer 3 stars.  But there are 20K people who have rated Oathbringer and it is sitting at 4.71 stars.  :stunned: 

Just glancing over my list, I think the next highest rated book is Return of the King at 4.5 stars.  Way of Kings is 4.64 and Words of Radiance is 4.77.  (Okay... nevermind... WoR is higher, but my overall point stands.)

To further the Sanderson bit, A Memory of Light is 4.5/Towers of Midnight 4.42/Gathering Storm 4.35 and the highest rated WoT book by Robert Jordan is Dragon Reborn at 4.23  :stunned: 

The highest rated ASoIaF book is Storm of Swords at 4.54.

I'm genuinely surprised... I like Sanderson, but to see WoR and OB as the two highest rated books by a good margin in my list is more than I was prepared for.

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Words of Radiance is the highest rated book on my Goodreads and the highest rated I've seen on Amazon.  But that doesn't surprise me at all.  It was one of my favorite books of all time, and Brandon has mass appeal.

I don't agree with Oathbringer having a rating that high, but Brandon is just one of those authors who will always get a high rating, even if the quality varies.  There are some other authors in the same boat.  Michael Sullivan, Peter Brett, Brent Weeks, Jim Butcher off the top of my head.

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On 1/5/2018 at 0:13 PM, IllusiveMan said:

 

Lastly, is anyone else wondering how this is gonna be 10 damn books? At least if the Odium conflict is the central one. I mean Kaladin and co already are superpowered as all Hell and we're 3 books in. Odium has been revealed way too early, I feel. He's already hard to take seriously and been defeated - how are we gonna take 7 more books of him? I really hope there's a twist in there somewhere. 

It won't just be Odium. He'll get defeated/marginalized and someone else will rise to take his place.

My real concern is character development. We're now three books into Kaladin beating him self up because he can't save everyone. I'm not sure how much more brooding about it he can do before it becomes a joke like Jordan's braid tugging. 

 

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8 minutes ago, Ninefingers said:

It won't just be Odium. He'll get defeated/marginalized and someone else will rise to take his place.

My real concern is character development. We're now three books into Kaladin beating him self up because he can't save everyone. I'm not sure how much more brooding about it he can do before it becomes a joke like Jordan's braid tugging. 

 

I think this is the series that will tie pieces of the cosmere together, if I was to guess any way that these books had enough content for a 10 book (1000+ pages) series.

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Well, I at least made half of my Amazon purchase back by re-selling the hardback to a local store. It was in mint condition, as I only ever got somewhere around halfway or a bit more. Reading the spoilers here, I'm glad I quit. I'll continue to follow his work, but the guy just isn't for me any more. I'd absolutely recommend a lot of his stuff to younger fans, though. A coworker recently started the Mistborn series on my recommendation. I hope he churns through them, then explores other authors before spending 4000 pages of time on the Stormlight Archives.

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1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

Well, I at least made half of my Amazon purchase back by re-selling the hardback to a local store. It was in mint condition, as I only ever got somewhere around halfway or a bit more. Reading the spoilers here, I'm glad I quit. I'll continue to follow his work, but the guy just isn't for me any more. I'd absolutely recommend a lot of his stuff to younger fans, though. A coworker recently started the Mistborn series on my recommendation. I hope he churns through them, then explores other authors before spending 4000 pages of time on the Stormlight Archives.

I love Sanderson as a quick light read and an escape from the grimdark novels that I also enjoy.  Its why I liked Mistborn and Warbreaker and (to a lesser extent) Elantris.  But the quick read structure I like so much in those books is obviously nowhere to be found in SA.

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Absolutely. If anything, I really only recommended the original Mistborn (I pretty much disliked every character in that series except Sazed, but very much liked the setting and where he took the plot) because I enjoyed the absolute crap out of the Wax and Wayne books. They're just so fun to sit on a summer day and breeze through. I could read ripping yarns about cowboy sorcerers for hours. One reason I'm so excited for Abercrombie's new big trilogy! I want semi-industrialized tech in a fantasy setting. Hell yeah.

I never did read Warbringer, but I'd probably like it more than the Stormlight Archives. Most of my books-to-read for the cold season are sci-fi stuff, which I've sorely ignored for too long.

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