Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Brandon Sanderson => Topic started by: SpencerEllsworth on April 27, 2009, 06:47:28 PM
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I get the feeling there has already been a lot of talk on this, but I want to reiterate the pleas: Brandon, Harriet, Tom, PLEASE change the name. Calling it "The Gathering Storm" is like calling it "Nothing Really Happens In This Book, But Wait Till You See The Next One." Plus, it's the title of one of the books in Kate Elliott's series.
For a series with awesome names like A Crown of Swords, The Path of Daggers, The Dragon Reborn and The Fires of Heaven, we really need a better title. PLEASE!
Also, glad to be on the forums. I loved Elantris and am excited to plunge into Mistborn after I finish Temeraire.
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Oh yes this has been talked to death over at Dragonmount and unfortunatly The Gathering Storm is what were getting. That doesn't mean nothing is happening in the book.
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"Nothing Really Happens In This Book, But Wait Till You See The Next One."
Besides, that particular title was already used on books 8 and 10.
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I think it's actually not such a bad title. It sort of fits with the others. The Shadow Rising...The Gathering Storm. Not a bad title. But the tentative title for the next book...was it Swirling Clouds? No way.
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It was Shifting Winds, and don't worry about it. Brandon has promised to come up with something better for that one now that the AMOL with subtitles idea has been abandoned.
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It doesn't really matter what the titles are, anyway.
Fans of the series will read it no matter what you call it, and if someone picks it up off the bookshelf and says 'wow, that's generic', they shouldn't be starting with the 12th book in the series anyway
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It does matter, though. I think 'The Gathering Storm' is fine. Not great. But fine.
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"Nothing Really Happens In This Book, But Wait Till You See The Next One."
Besides, that particular title was already used on books 8 and 10.
bwa ha ha ha ha!
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"Nothing Really Happens In This Book, But Wait Till You See The Next One."
Besides, that particular title was already used on books 8 and 10.
bwa ha ha ha ha!
Plenty happens in Book 8 :-P
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An example is…
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An example is…
The Weather getting fixed for one. The Bowl arc is DONE.
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OH YEAH!!! I totally forgot about that!!! I love that part!!!!!!!!!!!!
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*nods* and then Elyane kills a bunch of Seachan with an unravled gateway, Rand kills a slew more with his Callador rage, etc. Stuff does happen, maybe not in the dramatic way were used to but this isn't a book that you can skip.
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You can't skip any, really. They're way too long. :D
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Not to mention, one of the best lines from Rand comes from Book 8, haha, right before his Callandor-genocide.
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Do tell.
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Anyways 8 was so much better than 9...9 bored be a bit but then again so did 10..KoD was bad ___ though
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I liked Knife of Dreams.
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I did too i censored my post....duh!!!! :P ::)
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Oh…hehe :-[ right.
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I think I liked the Saidin being cleansed more then the Weather getting fixed, so I enjoyed book 9 more.
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I never said it was all bad but the book over all dragged, so did 10...
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10 really did drag so no arguement there really, however I didn't find it that way with book 9. I know I was impatient for Rand to be done with Far Madding but other then that things went along more interestingly then PoD.
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I loved the Far Madding bit.
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I tend to be very lenient (almost fanboyish) with this series overall, but I will admit that the POV sections of the people who were challenging Elayne for the throne seemed pointless to me. We really didn't need to get to know these people that well, did we? who cares about their jockeying and scheming? Only the cool old guy who was pretending to be crazy (as was his niece) gives this part some point, but I doubt RJ needed to spend so much time introducing him and his successor just so we could have yet another person around one of the main characters who we may not be able to trust. This part more than any others made me believe that RJ loved this story so much that he just didn't want it to end.
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Yeah the problem is that some might find that intriguing with all the politicking they were doing. He seemed more interested in filling out as much detail as possible rather then streamlining the story.
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I found book 8 terribly boring. 9 had the cleansing of the Source which was a nice change from the sitting around people were doing. 10 was a great concept, but the execution didn't do it for me.
Book 11 should have been awesome, but I was left feeling "meh." It was better than the previous 3 books, but not on par with the first 3 books at all. The manor house scene started awesome, but didn't go crazy enough for my liking (3 new weaves is all? When it started it was sweet, but then it was repetitive). Overall, I think the prob with Book 11 (honestly books 7 - 11) is that I don't feel any sort of worry for the characters. None are gonna die, so I have trouble feeling emotionally connected to them. The sense of wonder has fled.
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Overall, I think the prob with Book 11 (honestly books 7 - 11) is that I don't feel any sort of worry for the characters. None are gonna die, so I have trouble feeling emotionally connected to them. The sense of wonder has fled.
Or for the Forsaken, for that matter. In fact, as far as some aspects went, the first six books seemed to be a different series in a way. Rand's exploits seemed to be building in a logical manner (training, gaining the support of the Aiel, conquest and consolidation, which should have then led to Tarmon Gaidon), but then he gets... well, sidetracked. He doesn't just sit around for the next 5 books, but I don't feel that the progress he made, short of the cleansing, was really anything... significant. The White Tower stuff starts to come to the forefront, which while that isn't bad... nothing really seems to happen there until book 11. Perrin gets hauled off on a sidequest. Mat's portions were cool the whole time, I think. But my point is, we lose the hunt of the seals, Rand's conquest and consolidation kinda falls apart, Perrin sits in a tent moping...
There are still some interesting storylines being carried out, it's just that the main ones feel stalled and tossed aside. And with Rand, perhaps irredeemably so.
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Well in a way isn't that realistic we never go about things the way we plan them....details we forgot ect. throw us off while i enjoyed the first 7 more (yes i said 7 not 6) to me it makes the story even more real...he hit a road bump. Yes i do agree that they need to get on track again though...
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I think KoD got back on track, we had several things wrapped up and finished allowing us to move on to the aspects that will lead us into TG.
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Anyways 8 was so much better than 9...9 bored be a bit but then again so did 10..KoD was bad ___ though
Eh? 9 was awesome, Rand is great in it!
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I was talking to a friend about how I wish the same binding had been used on all the volumes. She thought I meant all 13+ volumes in ONE binding. She insisted it would be done when BS is finished. Can you imagine the 2'X3' tome with 10 point type?
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I don't think that would even fit in my room.
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That Reonard would take up a shelf by itself and any person over the age o 40 trying to read it would end up with a hernia...
I stand by my previous post 9 and 10 were meh...even not associated in comparison to the awesomeness of the serious... in comparison they blew chunks... (a couple of scenes can not redeem a book, those books had me thinking he was milking the series for cash)
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Cleansing Saidin was NOT a couple of scenes it's like half the freaking book!!
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Half of a book can be a scene. Granted, that makes for a boring book, but still.
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Not the case at all (here).
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Well I wasn't bored with the Cleansing.
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I agree that he started to drag it out a bit, but I don't think it was for cash. He had two more prequal novels and outrigger novels planned that could net the cash after the story was done. I believe he just loved the series so much he didn't want it to end. I disagree about book 9; I thought it was pretty good. I admit that I was first introduced to the series just after book 10 came out, so like a lot of people have said, my reading the series all the way through with no time in between may color my perspective. I certainly sympathize with those who have been waiting almost 20 years to see the end of this thing.
The cleansing was awesome, especially the Dashiva story arc. I love irony.
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The cleansing is one of the highlights of the later books. I cannot imagine calling it boring or "Meh," unlike all the politicking, which I found noticeably less interesting.
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The cleansing was only like 4 chapters max...so this tirade is not very rational
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There was a build up to the Cleansing to consider as well. For me it really made book 9 worth the wait and read.
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Me too it was an awesome climax.
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I liked 9, though some of the stuff with Elayne was a little boring. It was 10 that I wanted to kill. But then I read 11 and everything was ok again. I was lucky and started about 2 years ago, so I haven't had to do nearly as much waiting as some.
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I liked 9, though some of the stuff with Elayne was a little boring. It was 10 that I wanted to kill. But then I read 11 and everything was ok again. I was lucky and started about 2 years ago, so I haven't had to do nearly as much waiting as some.
11 seemed to get back on track with the first 6 or so books. The sense of urgency in world was renewed. Unfortunately, I think that's a result of the real-life urgency of Robert Jordan's illness that forced him to resume the very fast-paced style of the earlier books.
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Rj wasn't diagnosed until after Knife of Dreams.
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I think the pacing is just fine as long as you realize that it's not 11 books in the traditional sense. It's a very long novel with several volumes. Books like 8 and nine aren't dead, their just the lulls between major conflicts. I think I would have enjoyed the series less if he'd taken the time to build a classical plot line for each volume. As it was there were redundancies where he was forced to remind the reader of what went before. Having to summarize sufficiently to make each volume a concise novel would had exacerbated that problem and played havoc with the character arcs and plotlines that pass from volume to volume.
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Rj wasn't diagnosed until after Knife of Dreams.
Are you sure? Not that I'm doubting you, that's just not the impression I got.
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According to Wikipedia, Knife of Dreams came out 10/11/05 and Robert Jordan announced his diagnosis 3/23/06. Of course, he may have been ill for awhile before that, but it's unlikely he knew he was dying while he was actually writing Book 11.
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According to his blog, he had his first symptom around May 2005, sometime after having turned in the manuscript for KoD. He was diagnosed in December the same year, and announced it in March 06, as Sarah says.
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Plus there's this Youtube video of him in Dec '05 stating that he DID NOT have cancer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6snUw4LQs
I also remember the diagnosis coming out some time after the book did.
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Ahh but memory is a fragile thing
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Yeah tell me about it. The mind can play tricks on you, HOWEVER in this case I KNOW the revelation of his sickness came AFTER KoD.
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Just thought I'd drop in my two cents on the title.
I can understand some of the points that have been made concerning "The Gathering Storm" as the title for the first book.I think that the title is more fitting than many are giving it credit for. After all, this is probably going to be the book where everything is coming together leading up to the final battle(the storm)
With all that RJ did for and meant to Harriet, TOR, Brandon and everyone else involved in this project I don't believe that they would do anything that they know he would be against. Give them the same open-mindedness that RJ would be afforded.
I started this series twenty years ago with a copy i received free at MidSouth Con and the end is in sight I am more than willing to reserve judgement until it is done. I am saddened that RJ couldn't finish it himself but VERY grateful that Harriet is allowing someone else to and that Brandon is willing to take this on even though he knows that many RJ fans are gonna be rough on him no matter what he does.
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It's a huge gamble to take on someone else's established work, with big potential rewards. No one coerces a writer to take an opportunity like this and it's part of the deal that you WILL be judged, critiqued and marketed.
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Yeah tell me about it. The mind can play tricks on you, HOWEVER in this case I KNOW the revelation of his sickness came AFTER KoD.
I actually didn't jump on the WoT train until after he was already diagnosed and had announced it all, so it's not even a matter of my mind, just mixed facts after the fact, haha.
Hmm, that does a great job of tossing my theory out the door though, haha. Regardless, I still think KoD was more on track with the early series.
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I suppose if you really want to salvage your theory, you could speculate that Robert Jordan had some sort of psychic premonition of his death, a few years ahead of time while writing Knife of Dreams. Or that an Aes Sedai Foretold it for him.
But yeah, I think probably he just realized he'd better start tying things up if he wanted to finish the story in 12 books, which turned out not to be possible after all. He should have had this revelation a couple of books sooner.
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But then maybe the books would've been worse.
I liked KoD a lot.
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Just before KoD came out I think he was well aware that the fans wanted more and even stated that alot was going to get done in KoD. I think CoT was honestly manuvering chess pieces into the the right places.
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I think a lot of the previous books were setup-kind of things.
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I'm just saying that CoT is more so as not much is resolved like in books 8 (The weather) and 9 (Cleansing Saidin).
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I'm just saying that CoT is more so as not much is resolved like in books 8 (The weather) and 9 (Cleansing Saidin).
Yeah, I got that impression as well. Actually, I'm having difficulty coming up with anything that actually happened in CoT, other than "old stuff is continued and pushed to a point that plotlines can begin to close" sort of deal.
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Yeah I think like I stated before we were seeing the perspective of the characters that were not at the Cleansing and getting them in place for KoD.
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It wouldn't have required a psychic premonition. I'm betting he felt pretty crappy long before the diagnosis, out of breath, nauseated, fatigued.
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There may have been physical symptons as well (I don't really know; I don't know much about the disease (amyloidosis, right?)).
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There's still a difference between feeling sick and knowing that you have a terminal diease. Especially one according to Jordan's own blog he felt he was going to beat.
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Maybe the symptons weren't that extreme, too.
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I agree. I think the reaction to book 10 was what pushed him to finish the series, not his illness. The type of amyloidosis he had usually kills in one year or less, and he had it almost 2. To say he knew about it when KoD came out is most likely not true, never mind the 2 or 3 years prior when he wrote it.
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The type of amyloidosis he had usually kills in one year or less, and he had it almost 2.
Didn't the doctors say they thought he was gonna live for a couple more years at least, though? ???
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Nope. He said he was going to live that long, but he only had a 5-10% chance of doing so. The amyloids his body was producing attacked the muscles of his heart, slowly destroying it.