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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Warbreaker: Free Ebook
« on: July 07, 2008, 02:41:34 AM »
I also felt the climax of the story was rushed. Vasher's revelation to Susebron and the conclusion of the war were only a few paragraphs apart with a weak excuse about stone men with human bones. Ok, so the human bones inside the stone bodies make the warriors easier to animate, but how did they get the bones inside the statues in the first place, there was no indication of the technology necessary for concrete or wiring together skeletons to put in molds. That and the food fetish for the man without a tongue seemed contrived. Also if the returned shape their bodies in their own image, wouldn't Susebron have been able to grow his own tongue?
I really enjoyed the story, however I didn't really get a good grasp on what biochroma was until the lesson Vasher gives near the end of the story. One of the things that doesn't sit right with me is the nature of the BioChroma economy, the author portrays the accumulation of BioChroma as a sort of greed, yet the priests and returned "gods" turned out to be the good guys, well not the bad guys. Maybe if giving your breath, as a living person, not returned, only made you a drab for a while, something that replenishes naturally. People who give breath to their gods can be seen in a better light, though its not so dramatic a faith as giving your one and only breath of BioChroma to your gods. This would allow people to have naturally stronger auras than others and possibly regain breath faster if used and lost. I guess I would have liked more information earlier maybe from Vasher's internal monologue similar to his explanation of awakening during the prison break. Otherwise a religion asking that sort of sacrifice from its followers still seems evil.
Oh, last but not least, working the words positive, negative, and absolute value into a sentence to show a character "knows math" was lame. While that sentence may have had some philosophical value, using modern mathematical notation for something like that seems like the wrong way to do it. I groaned when I read that, maybe substituting "magnitude" or "intensity" for "absolute value" will have the effect you're looking for.
I hate only writing about the negative parts of my experience with this novel, I really enjoyed reading it, and its also cool to be able to provide feedback on a work in progress.
I really enjoyed the story, however I didn't really get a good grasp on what biochroma was until the lesson Vasher gives near the end of the story. One of the things that doesn't sit right with me is the nature of the BioChroma economy, the author portrays the accumulation of BioChroma as a sort of greed, yet the priests and returned "gods" turned out to be the good guys, well not the bad guys. Maybe if giving your breath, as a living person, not returned, only made you a drab for a while, something that replenishes naturally. People who give breath to their gods can be seen in a better light, though its not so dramatic a faith as giving your one and only breath of BioChroma to your gods. This would allow people to have naturally stronger auras than others and possibly regain breath faster if used and lost. I guess I would have liked more information earlier maybe from Vasher's internal monologue similar to his explanation of awakening during the prison break. Otherwise a religion asking that sort of sacrifice from its followers still seems evil.
Oh, last but not least, working the words positive, negative, and absolute value into a sentence to show a character "knows math" was lame. While that sentence may have had some philosophical value, using modern mathematical notation for something like that seems like the wrong way to do it. I groaned when I read that, maybe substituting "magnitude" or "intensity" for "absolute value" will have the effect you're looking for.
I hate only writing about the negative parts of my experience with this novel, I really enjoyed reading it, and its also cool to be able to provide feedback on a work in progress.