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Stormlight Archives 4: Rhythm of War (SPOILERS)


Rhom

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Rhythm of War is #1 New York Times bestseller. Tweets from Jabberwocky Literary Agency:

https://twitter.com/awfulagent/

@BrandSanderson has another #1 on the NY Times bestseller lists with RHYTHM OF WAR, both in hardcover fiction and print/e combined.

According to NPD Bookscan, the first week hardcover sales for @BrandSanderson RHYTHM OF WAR were up 56.3% from the first week sales for the OATHBRINGER hardcover three years ago.

That’s stunning growth for an established series. You might do that from Book 1 to Book 2 as a series takes off, but from a 3rd to a 4th book, without any external event like a movie or TV show to help make it happen - doesn’t happen very often.

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200 more pages in or so and Detective Kaladin McClain is making a move to steal the walkie talkie from the terrorists occupying Nakatomi Tower of Roshar.

I hope he starts writing names on his arm as glyphs as he taunts the blonde haired Pursuer and Hans Raboniel.

Could Lift be the black cop from Family Matters?  They both like to eat...

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3 hours ago, Jussi said:

Rhythm of War is #1 New York Times bestseller. Tweets from Jabberwocky Literary Agency:

https://twitter.com/awfulagent/

@BrandSanderson has another #1 on the NY Times bestseller lists with RHYTHM OF WAR, both in hardcover fiction and print/e combined.

According to NPD Bookscan, the first week hardcover sales for @BrandSanderson RHYTHM OF WAR were up 56.3% from the first week sales for the OATHBRINGER hardcover three years ago.

That’s stunning growth for an established series. You might do that from Book 1 to Book 2 as a series takes off, but from a 3rd to a 4th book, without any external event like a movie or TV show to help make it happen - doesn’t happen very often.

Nation is shutting down again... maybe lots of people have more time at home to read Die Hard: With a Rhythm.

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@Rhom I'm thoroughly enjoying your commentary, but thinking about Die Hard as told by Sanderson is somewhat of a nightmare. I imagine the first movie would be 3ish hours long and focus on the day to day and totally unrelated lives of John, Holly, and Powell in the days before the ill-fated Christmas Party, it'd feature lengthy flashbacks detailing the breakdown of John and Holly's marriage and have entirely unrelated scenes of minor characters sprinkled in. It'd end with John getting on the plane to LA, and the post-credits scene would tease Hans Gruber and co arriving in the states.

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1 hour ago, Poobah said:

@Rhom I'm thoroughly enjoying your commentary, but thinking about Die Hard as told by Sanderson is somewhat of a nightmare. I imagine the first movie would be 3ish hours long and focus on the day to day and totally unrelated lives of John, Holly, and Powell in the days before the ill-fated Christmas Party, it'd feature lengthy flashbacks detailing the breakdown of John and Holly's marriage and have entirely unrelated scenes of minor characters sprinkled in. It'd end with John getting on the plane to LA, and the post-credits scene would tease Hans Gruber and co arriving in the states.

Three hours might be short for that.

Otherwise, you are so very... very... right.  Also, an actor from a different Bruce Willis movie would show up to imply a shared world.  

(Maybe Hudson Hawke would be the equivalent of one of his failed worlds that never quite was good enough to earn its own book... :lol: )

On the subject of the status as a Number 1 Bestseller, it serves as a reminder of the echo chamber this board has become.  I’m sure if I went to Goodreads right now, this book would be sitting near the top of all the cumulative ratings of the books on my shelf.  Around here, we have Joe Abercrombie with multiple active threads; but this number one best seller has only moved a couple pages in the week and a half it’s been out.  Somewhere there are people reading this thing and talking about it. :lol: 

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12 hours ago, Rhom said:

Three hours might be short for that.

Otherwise, you are so very... very... right.  Also, an actor from a different Bruce Willis movie would show up to imply a shared world.  

(Maybe Hudson Hawke would be the equivalent of one of his failed worlds that never quite was good enough to earn its own book... :lol: )

On the subject of the status as a Number 1 Bestseller, it serves as a reminder of the echo chamber this board has become.  I’m sure if I went to Goodreads right now, this book would be sitting near the top of all the cumulative ratings of the books on my shelf.  Around here, we have Joe Abercrombie with multiple active threads; but this number one best seller has only moved a couple pages in the week and a half it’s been out.  Somewhere there are people reading this thing and talking about it. :lol: 

Honestly, I think what tells you is that there is a HUGE appetite for fantasy novels rather than supporting a strong claim in favor of quality of this particular book.  Mapped over time BS satisfies that need better than virtually all of the big-name novelists.  Nobody is writing big immersive fantasy anymore like he is and people want that.  

 

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1 hour ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Honestly, I think what tells you is that there is a HUGE appetite for fantasy novels rather than supporting a strong claim in favor of quality of this particular book.  Mapped over time BS satisfies that need better than virtually all of the big-name novelists.  Nobody is writing big immersive fantasy anymore like he is and people want that. 

Yeah I think one thing BS really satisfies is the desire and appetite for heroic epic fantasy.

A lot of the books and authors this board has praised or at least discussed at length are, even when epic more on the grimdark side of things. These days there's a lot of grimdark, lower magic fantasies, more intimate/personal fantasies, and the shelves are bursting with urban fantasy, but actual high magic heroic fantasy, classic epic fantasy? it's thin on the ground. I think that's a big part of what's made Sanderson so successful - ignoring the trends over the last decade or so in favour of carving out his own niche, modernising and evolving but continuing with the classic heroic/high fantasy epic genre.

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2 minutes ago, Poobah said:

Yeah I think one thing BS really satisfies is the desire and appetite for heroic epic fantasy.

A lot of the books and authors this board has praised or at least discussed at length are, even when epic more on the grimdark side of things. These days there's a lot grimdark, lower magic fantasies, more intimate/personal fantasies, and the shelves are bursting with urban fantasy, but actual high magic heroic fantasy, classic epic fantasy? it's thin on the ground. I think that's a big part of what's made Sanderson so successful - ignoring the trends over the last decade or so in favour of carving out his own niche, modernising and evolving but continuing with the classic heroic/high fantasy epic genre.

This.  And one of the things I've noticed in the BS fan message boards etc like 17th shard that his readership seem to be younger (my guesstimate is 15-22).  I  assume most people on this board are a bit older.  Let those amongst us who haven't spent their teenage years reading doorstopper fantasy novels of indifferent quality (the endless magic of Recluse series in my case) cast the first stone.  

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Now Navani’s making homemade traps... so maybe she didn’t get the message about Die Hard and she’s going Home Alone?

Really, if we wanted to do that, Raboniel and Pursuer as the Wet Bandits and all; it seems Lift would be natural Macaulay Culkin.

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This book could have been 350 pages. Part 5 is the only part that moves the grander story forward. The plot moves at a Robin Hobb-level of slowness, except without the character development.

Also, there’s a scene that implies heaven exists and there’s little point for doing anything since everyone goes to a better existence. No surprised given the author’s background.

That being said, there’s no question in my mind that, no matter how the cards are stacked against the good guys, the bad guys will always lose. After all, it’s ultimate evil against ultimate good and his readers don’t pay to see the black hats win. 

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14 hours ago, Garlan the Gallant said:

This book could have been 350 pages. Part 5 is the only part that moves the grander story forward. The plot moves at a Robin Hobb-level of slowness, except without the character development.

Also, there’s a scene that implies heaven exists and there’s little point for doing anything since everyone goes to a better existence. No surprised given the author’s background.

That being said, there’s no question in my mind that, no matter how the cards are stacked against the good guys, the bad guys will always lose. After all, it’s ultimate evil against ultimate good and his readers don’t pay to see the black hats win. 

So, the best thing for everyone would be to commit suicide? And there are no penalties for evil deeds, like murder and rape? Then why do people even live? Especially slaves and commoners. 

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in-universe there's multiple religions, and their conceptions of the afterlife vary, the Vorin religion of the protagonists believe good people go to the Tranquiline Halls and bad people go to Damnation 

from the readers' point of view, we know these are wrong as the Tranquiline Halls and Damnation are both planets, neither are where dead people, the Halls are Ashyn, rendered largely uninhabitable by surgebinding and Braize, a planet full of spooky ghosts

The Beyond, the actual afterlife, is a ???.  There isn't necessarily a heaven, Kaladin speaks with his brother's spirit but that doesn't mean his brother is in heaven as there's also the possibility of joining some kinda spirit-gestalt-one-with-universe Force type situation (one of the more 'Cosmere-aware' religions believes in this).  Tien might be one with the Force and manifesting like a Force ghost, not in heaven. 

 

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Spoiler

“This is wrong,” Kaladin said. “I’m supposed to hold you. Protect you.”
“And you did. As I helped you.” He pulled Kaladin tight. “Why do we fight, Kal? Why do we keep going?”
“I don’t know,” Kaladin whispered. “I’ve forgotten.”
“It’s so we can be with each other.”
“They all die, Tien. Everyone dies.”
“So they do, don’t they?”
“That means it doesn’t matter,” Kaladin said. “None of it matters.”
“See, that’s the wrong way of looking at it.” Tien held him tighter. “Since we all go to the same place in the end, the moments we spent with each other are the only things that do matter. The times we helped each other.”
Kaladin trembled.
“Look at it, Kal,” Tien said softly. “See the colors. If you think letting Teft die is a failure—but all the times you supported him are meaningless—then no wonder it always hurts. Instead, if you think of how lucky you both were to be able to help each other when you were together, well, it looks a lot nicer, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not strong enough,” Kaladin whispered.
“You’re strong enough for me.”
“I’m not good enough.”
“You’re good enough for me.”
“I wasn’t there.”
Tien smiled. “You are here for me, Kal. You’re here for all of us.”
“And…” Kaladin said, tears on his cheeks, “if I fail again?”
“You can’t. So long as you understand.” He pulled Kaladin tight. Kaladin rested his head against Tien’s chest, blotting his tears with the cloth of his shirt. “Teft believes in you. The enemy thinks he’s won. But I want to see his face when he realizes the truth. Don’t you? It’s going to be delightful.”
Kaladin found himself smiling.
“If he kills us,” Tien said, “he’s simply dropped us off at a place we were going anyway. We shouldn’t hasten it, and it is sad. But see, he can’t take our moments, our Connection, Kaladin. And those are things that really matter.”

He says everyone goes to the same place. 
 

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Sure, but that isn't necessarily heaven, in the previous books the Iri religion is described in some of the interludes, they believe in an afterlife where you become one with God.  Same place could also be interpreted as 'death' rather the afterlife itself.  Also the argument "everyone goes to heaven, so why bother doing anything" is precisely against the major deontological themes of the story, you know, the whole "journey before destination."  Dalinor vs Taravangian is basically deontology vs consequentialism. 

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3 hours ago, jurble said:

Sure, but that isn't necessarily heaven, in the previous books the Iri religion is described in some of the interludes, they believe in an afterlife where you become one with God.  Same place could also be interpreted as 'death' rather the afterlife itself.  Also the argument "everyone goes to heaven, so why bother doing anything" is precisely against the major deontological themes of the story, you know, the whole "journey before destination."  Dalinor vs Taravangian is basically deontology vs consequentialism. 

That's a little harder to swallow when the destination is Heaven. 

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On 11/23/2020 at 9:44 AM, Poobah said:

I don't think this is yet a full spoiler thread.

One thing I want to offer a counterpoint to since I've seen it mentioned a couple of times one way or the other as a negative is that I quite appreciate the way Sanderson has handled mental health in this series. It's obvious from comments he's made on reddit and from the books themselves that he's put effort into getting feedback and guidance from people with the actual mental health problems he's portraying and that he's attempting to represent them in a respectful manner. Speaking as someone who has struggled with severe depression their entire life I think, with some caveats that he broadly succeeds on this, at least for me, and I think it's a positive and important thing to do. In recent times there's been plenty of discussion of portraying non-white characters/protagonists (which Sanderson's done in many of his books, but especially Stormlight) but characters with mental health struggles, especially portrayed sensitively, are as invisible and ignored in the genre as mental health tends to be in real life. There's no magical cure that's instantly going to solve depression and fill every day with sunshine.

The book definitely could have been significantly shorter. This is the first book where I really felt the bloat

Much of the Navani stuff should have gone in some big Stormlight/Cosmere Lore book because it really feels like it's only there for the hardcore fans who spend time arguing/discussing the minutia of Sanderson's various magic systems. Also a lot of it also feels like Sanderson way overcommitting to "show don't tell" - so many of his plot revelations across the Cosmere come down to someone making some big discovery or new understanding about the magic system in their world and I think he feels like he needs to make sure this doesn't feel like bullshit / deus ex machina or whatever but there's a balance to be found. I think that more than enough time and words have been put in to establishing that his magic systems are internally consistent, scientific, and so on that there's plenty of credit earned to just pull out new things and explain them later and briefly. Especially when your books are this long and you've done that work it really isn't gonna break my suspension of disbelief to just be told that magic scientist lady has had a magitech breakthrough or made a new device or whatever rather than have an a half-dozen chapters showing iterations of that device and dozens of chapters of her experimenting and theorising. The weird thing about the Navani chapters is I really liked her interactions and tension with Raboniel who, for a single book character from Sanderson got quite a lot of depth and development, so it's not like there wasn't a strong core to Navani's segments, it's just that that core got surrounded by a lot of fluff and padding.

Shallan and Adolin's arc I found to be the most well put together, every chapter felt like it served multiple purposes offering some good moments, a bit of action, progression to their character arcs as well as the plot thread they were in on the book, and the ongoing bleed-in and escalation of Cosmere crossover/easter eggs.

Kaladin yeah spends a lot of time sorta treading water and not doing much. In his case I think some of it is quite necessary though it could certainly have been done with less words. I especially think some of the repetition in the structure of the chapters with the occupation could have been eliminated without much loss - why does there have to be 4 nodes with Kaladin making an appearance to fight at 3 of them? Cutting one or even two of them and cutting the fat from both Navani and Kaladin's segments while condensing the important bits down into what was left seems like it could tell the exact same story a lot faster and not lose any of the key moments. As I mentioned earlier I did think the presentation of his mental health struggles was mostly good, though since I don't really feel the inclination to go on a deep dive into my own lifelong struggles with depression right now I'll leave it at that. I'd be curious to hear from anyone who's suffered from combat related PTSD on that aspect of his portrayal but I appreciate that that'd be a similarly difficult topic for them to discuss. 

I think with Rhythm or War Sanderson was hamstrung by his adherence to the structure he laid out for Stormlight. The flashbacks, as I believe I mentioned earlier, felt excessively unnecessary and brought in almost no new information barring some lore and another couple of easter eggs, but since this book was theoretically the Willshaper book with Venli as the focus character it had to have flashbacks focused on her, for reasons. Unfortunately it seems that in writing the book he found out that it wasn't really that much about Venli at all - I mean she's there, and she contributes, and it seems like she's eventually going to be a somewhat important character, but this clearly wasn't "her" book and shoving in a book worth of flashbacks doesn't change that.

I finished up last night finally.  Overall, I enjoyed the book but I completely agree that there is a really good 600ish page book embedded in the pages in here somewhere.  As i suspected, when I went over to rate it on Goodreads (I gave it a 3 star) the current aggregate score is 4.72 stars which would rank it as one of the highest books out of the 300 or so on my bookshelf.  The book is fine, it is not that good however.

I was working through my thoughts last night and went back to read the spoiler thoughts from a couple pages back and I think I pretty much agree 100% with @Poobah on all points.  I was thinking about how the flashbacks added nothing to the story (but at least they were a much smaller part of the book this time) and the interludes were thankfully much more connected than they have been.  The only one of the Interludes that I thought completely came out of left field was Chirri Chirri.  I would have been completely in WTF mode if I hadn't taken the time to read Dawnshard.  That was obviously a very short part of the giant book,

Things I Liked
I also really thought Raboniel made a fantastic villain.  As Poobah said, its a shame that she will be a one off; but I did think Brandon largely nailed her as a sympathetic villain with a believable purpose and made her interact well with Navani in a way that felt natural.

Adolin/Shallan's story in Shadesmar with the Spren.  I thought there was some great visual images of the alienness of Lasting Integrity as well as the cultures of the Spren that were represented.  I think its illustrative that this storyline was entirely absent from one segment of the book, and I think it was stronger for it.  Brandon could have easily thrown in a couple of chapters of Shallan checking out the humans in LI looking for Restares, he didn't and I think it made this part of the story better.  Lessons could definitely be learned.

Dalinar's evolution into coalition leader instead of battle commander.

I will also give credit to Brandon for attempting to tackle mental health issues.  While the Shallan multiple/dissociative personality disorder kind of came off as cartoonish to me, my understanding is that he took time to really research and talk about it.  Kaladin's efforts to rehab the PTSD victims on the other hand did feel very authentic.  While I personally have been very fortunate not to deal with it, I do live just south of Ft Knox which was the former home of the Warrior Transition Unit.  Many of my employees' significant others have dealt with it.  From seemingly little things like not being able to sit and enjoy fireworks after a concert I treated my staff to; to the darker side like always sleeping with a gun under the pillow; the darkness is real and I did feel like the very few scenes of it with the recovery group in this book were real.

Fight scenes with Kaladin vs the Pursuer.  I have to imagine that when Brandon talked about writing a scene he first envisioned in the early 90's he was talking the "arena" scene in the climax.  There were shades of a bright/optimistic version of Cnaiur urs Skiotha coming out of Kaladin there taunting his opponent.  The PG version of declaring himself to be the Breaker of Horses and Men.  :lol:

The Die Hard parallels that I first started writing about were kind of fun.  I almost feel like some of them had to be intentional.  The barefoot leaving bloody footprints that the Pursuer tracked.  The crawling through the vent.  Intercepting the enemy communication devices.  They all could have been lifted and adapted directly from the movie.  (I also was going to make a joke about Dalinar and the Stormfather swooping past the tower being like the two FBI guys flying on the choppah around Nakatomi, but couldn't quite make the quotes work out to be funny enough at the time!)  Honestly, I think its something he dropped too soon.  There could have been definitely some more fun scenes of Kal in there.

Things I Didn't Like
It was just. So. Damn. Long.  As I said above and others have said, there's a really good book in here if he could trim the book down to 6-800 pages or so.  Still really long, but more manageable.  I still have no idea how some of you were able to have the book read in just a couple days.  I had more time than usual over the Thanksgiving Holiday because we didn't have a lot of family coming and there was less football on... and it still took me two solid weeks of good reading to get it done!

Repeating Kaladin's mental illness.  Yes, I praised the approach above for the recovery group.  But Kal wasn't part of the recovery group and it was just rehashing the same theme that we have seen since his first morose days and attempted suicide in WoK.  Yes, its a disease that will always be there... but lets find new ways to show that maybe.  According to the Coppermind wiki, there are Five Ideals for each order of Radiants... Kaladin just swore the fourth.  I worry that we are going to do this again as he goes to Shinovar to hunt down Ishri and find his way to the fifth ideal. :stillsick:  

 

Overall, when you read a Brandon Sanderson book; you know what you're going to get.  Its not quite paint by numbers, but the broad strokes are there and easy to see.  I enjoy it for what it is and I will keep reading his works even if I do have to sort of psych myself up for them sometimes.

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