Timewaster's Guide Archive

Personally, I have always seemed to find amazon's listed date for a book to be very accurate as to when that book will first be available ... so I am not expecting to see this one until October 1st.

Has anybody else had a different experience?

It seems it has been resurrected ... maybe somebody corrected it's aeon and brought it back to life.

What I'm wondering is whether they'll ever come visit us overly-heated schlubs here in beautiful sunny Florida.

My favorite isn't even on the list! I guess I have to wait three or four years to vote for it!

Brandon's books are the best!

Any board where I end up hanging around eventually ends up with a topic by this title, the title I used for a college paper on dreams many year ago. Since I have now had two or three Sanderson-related dreams, it seemed time for a new version here.

So if you have some fun dreams, and you can remember them, please add them in. Dreams are cool!

Lots of cool sci-fi dreams recently, but this is the first I've gotten on the computer for a bit. I'm out in a wooded sort of area, being pursued. I'm being chased by Uther from the Merlin television show, and it is in a world that has a kind of a cross between the magic system from Farland's Runelords series and Sanderson's Breath system.

Anyway, I'm trying to find people from whom I can gain power, and avoid the enemies in this wooded area. It is like there are 5 or 6 different 'strains' of power out here, and I am trying to figure out which ones I still need, and which ones I already have. At this point, I have several hundred of whatever kind of essence is in this world, but there are at least a couple of strains in the area that I don't have.

Problem is, if you move to collect a power, and it is one that you already have, it is of no benefit (because you -already- have it), but the time you spend trying to get it might enable somebody else to catch you, or add your power to their own. But you don't get any more powerful if you aren't collecting new strains. (The system doesn't seem to be exclusive. If you claim somebody's 'essence' [for lack of a better word] they don't lose it, but now you have it too.)

I am new to the system, but have managed to get several strains, and am getting fairly powerful ... but what I haven't realised up to now is that the more power I get, the more of a presence I have, and the more noticeable I am. I'm here in the woods, along with a lot of other people. A few, like me, are very powerful, but most have very limited power. But I can kind of sense the others who are powerful, and they can kind of sense me. And Uther's soldiers are getting better and better at tracking us all down.

It reaches a point where we're at kind of a lull. But suddenly one of Uther's soldiers will appear, and the powerful people have to make a choice between trying to hide their power and hope they are not found, or run for it, and hope they can get enough distance that their 'presence' fades before the hunters can catch them. We're all on the run, dodging around, trying to to be seen, moving through the more normal people, trying to hide among them.

I reach a point where I seem to have reached a new heightening, and the dream kind of shifts to a Matrix venue. The new line of power I have added brings me to a power level roughly equal to Neo, I'd say. The regular agents are powerless against me, now ... in fact, they are on the run from me, because all I have to do is touch one of them, and I convert him to our side. So agents come against me, but one touch and they now follow me.

Problem is, Agent Smith seems to have reached the same level of power. So we're now among huge crowds of people, and in the middle of the crowd, one of the people will suddenly become an agent (like the movie does it, they just kind of warp into the agent), and then every person who is already touching against that agent begins to change into an agent. And as each person becomes an agent, they reach out to touch others, and spread the process.

And yet my side is just as powerful, so anywhere there is a gap, we reach out and touch an agent before they can touch us, and they turn back into a normal person, and every agent they are touching starts to turn into a normal person. I'm kind of watching from above, and it is like a live, fast moving version of Reversi, with human beings. Instead of the usual colors, it is a rapidly shifting pattern of clothing, switching back and forth between the black and white suits of the agents, and regular clothes for the normal people.

Some of us start almost tapping others, so that the second they start to change to an agent, they are then changed back to a regular human again, but the agents are doing the same thing. It's like a stalemate, neither side can really progress, but it is kind of fun to watch the shifting patterns.

I love dreams where you wake up saying "That was cool!"

There was a sample chapter or two online somewhere (either his web site, or in the forum here) that I read. It convinced me that I was desperate to read the rest of it.

I know from messages I have read here that there are others here who have read them. I read something (again, either here or on the web site) that indicated more or less "ask and ye shall receive," but then read something else that kind of indicated that 'ask and ye shall receive' was only for the original members of the forum, who have a whole lot of history with Brandon.

So I will continue asking, occasionally, but won't be all that confident that I shall receive. <ggg>

I have read the third book now (I think in mentioned it in another topic, but commenting on my thoughts obviously better fits here.)

I realize I have no proof of this, but I figured out a few of the plot twists the very first time they were hinted at in this book, and one of them, perhaps, in the last book.

I think it was during the last book that I started thinking that Vin's extra abilities (pierce copper clouds, for example) came from her earring, and this book only made it more plain. But I did not comprehend the exact reason for it until the book explained it. (The third magic system, which I would ruin the spelling of, so I will only refer to it as the third system.)

On the other hand, there were bits that I missed. Despite realizing that Zane was being spoken to and affected by Ruin (though not by name at the time) in the second book, and seeing the same thing happen to Spook in the third book, I did not catch on to Vin's brother's voice being the same thing, until it was specifically spelled out. I just plain did not make the connection.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I accepted the sacrifices at the end of it, though it would have been nice if Vin and Elend could have had more time together. It worked well enough that it didn't upset me, like it did some.

On the other hand, I did not find it to be as incredible as people seemed to think I would. To me, it did not transcend any of the other things Brandon has written, or elevate this above all his other works. It was a good conclusion, and a good story, and another in the line of books that convince me that I want to read everything Brandon writes unless and until he starts disappointing me.

It was a very enjoyable story among all of his other very enjoyable stories.

But now I will be looking forward to Way of Kings.