Timewaster's Guide Archive

That's awesome. Congrats Braondon!

This.

Also, i was talking with Brandon the other day, and some other author here in Utah has a pretty slick series coming out. The first one is called Servant of a Dark God. He's getting praise from guys like Farland and Sanderson, and his editor is top-notch (David Hartwell - giddyup!).  Go to johndbrown.com to check it out - too bad he doesnt come out till September.

Bookstore Guy - Did you mean to add anything next to "This."

That is good info about John Brown. From the bio on his web site it sounds like he has a fun personality (and his wife too). Hopefully someone will remind me to read his book in September. 

Wielder - A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) is a two edged sword. The books are great (as long as you don't mind "raw"), but the author is infuriating. He refuses to communicate with his readers/customers about the next book, A Dance with Dragons (ADWD). The book is years over due and people are now questioning if he'll ever finish the next book, not to mention the series. I don't really care if it takes him 10 years to write a book, I just get frustrated by the complete lack of communication. Martin used to give regular updates on his web site about the next book in A Song of Ice and Fire, but no more.

This artice was written almost a year ago; people were wondering what was up with ADWD then. The sad thing is this artice is still 100% up-to-date! There has been nothing released about the status of ADWD for over a year.
http://theaccidentalbard.com/archives/2008/02/what-happened-to-a-dance-with.php

I've read many fantasy series as the author was still writing them, and that is always a little frustrating. But that frustration has been taken to all new heights with Martin. I used to recommend ASOIAF to my friends, but I can't recommend him any more because of the disrespect he's shown to his readers/customers. Hopefully he will start publishing books again and that opinion will change, but we'll see...

You've been warned. I'm sure you would enjoy the books in ASOIAF so far, but at this pace the series will end where it stands now.

Edited to fix typos

If you grew up regularly attending a Christian church, you can probably relate to this next bit.  
"When I was a teenager I heard that every time you have a inappropriate thought you should sing a hymn in your head to help you think of something else. Well, now every time I hear a church hymn I have a dirty thought."
Hehe.

OK, now to try and bring this back to the original topic. For me, Vin and Elend's relationship could have used a little more flirting. It seems natural for Elend's POV to notice Vin's attractive features (eyes, smile, curves, etc..) almost every time he sees her.
I really enjoyed Mistborn, but I'm expecting Brandon will get better at this each book he writes. People have mentioned there's more "noticing physical attractions" in Warbreaker, but I haven't read it yet. (Need to do that soon!)

I really like how sexuality is treated in WoT. The characters thoughts about the opposite sex seem realistic to me, but the actual sex scenes are all off screen. I think that's how I prefer it in MOST of the fantasy I read.

Don't worry, jjb. The irony isn't lost on us Mormons either. :p

When I read the end of HoA I didn't take Sazed's ascension as him becoming "the restorer of the true religion in its original, ideal state." Sazed became what you might call a divine power, but the book doesn't mention any organized/structured religion being created from what Sazed told them in the book. I think a lot of us assume that a religion was probably created after that point, but we don't know how much communication was available between the people and Sazed, which would be necessary to keep the religion "pure".

On a different note - about religious influences on Brandon's writing. I heard Brandon say in a Podcast at Dragonmount.com that he intentionally works very hard to develop his characters that have different or opposing religious beliefs than his personal beliefs. He refers to himself as being a very religious person and he understands that his beliefs effect his writing, even if it is subconsciously. To counteract the tendency to focus character development on characters who match one's personal beliefs, he works extra hard to write believable characters with opposing/different beliefs than his own.

For a better explanation than that, you can listen to Brandon's own explanation (it's much better), but  the podcast is VERY long and I don't remember where in the podcast this was brought up.

I think it's always exciting to vicariously experience someones first reading of The WoT. Joe - continue to let us know where you are in the story. It's fun for us to remember the stories highlights and helps us to keep our posts spoiler free for you.

There's also a brand new blog on Tor.com that is doing a complete WoT re-read before the proposed fall 2009 release date of AMOL. This blog is meant for people who have already read the series and talks about some of the foreshadowing and stuff, so I can't recommend it for Joe. Sounds like at the rate Joe is going, he'll be done with book 11 soon anyway. 

Blog Intro: http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=11741

EotW Part I: http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=11783

After waiting for aDwD from GRRM these past years, and his attitude towards people who ask about it on his blog, it's very refreshing to follow along with an author like Brandon Sanderson.  It has made a big enough impression on me that when Mr. Sanderson publishes Book 1 in his 10 book series I will be at the store to buy it the day it is released.  When GRRM starts his next series after aSoIaF I'll pass.

It is my opinion that GRRM treats us like pesky fans.  Brandon Sanderson, however, treats us like customers, and for that he has earned my loyalty.

Publius - I couldn't agree with you more. Just this last week I have decided I can no longer recommend friends read GRRM. I've lost faith in him finishing ADWD anytime before 2012 and he seems to have no interest in ever finishing ASOIAF. Too Bad. 

Now compare that to Sanderson. He is a prolific writer, he actually enjoys writing, doesn't really have other hobbies to distract him, keeps his work load manageable, keeps his fans/customers abreast of his progress, and on and on and on. What a HUGE difference. That is why I don't recommend GRRM to anyone any more, but I'm always suggesting people try Sanderson's books.

And since this thread is about splitting AMOL, I'll add my opinion on that, just to keep things on topic.
It would be nice to get the rest of WoT at once (one book), but it seems like it's pretty much a done deal that the book will be split. Brandon has stated that AMOL will end up being close to 750K words. The chances of TOR publishing that much in one volume are practically zero. Brandon has said he would ask TOR to print a special edition with both volumes in one, if AMOL is split. I believe that special edition would come out after AMOL volume 2 is published, and that's the best we can hope for ever seeing AMOL printed in one volume.

I like to think of myself as an optimist, so I'm just focusing on the good things that would come out of AMOL being split.
1 - Completing the final draft and review of half the book should take less time than the full book. Hopefully this results in volume 1 being released a little bit earlier than it would take to release the entire book. The sooner I can read more of WoT the better!
2 - I love reading WoT. I really want to find out how it ends, but at the same time I've LOVED the journey. Having AMOL split would just lengthen the wonderful journey that is the WoT!

Hopefully the release dates of the volumes will be VERY close to each other. Like within a month or two!

I can't wait to read the end of WoT no matter how it ends. From the way the rest of the books have ended I think few (if any) of the main characters will die. In fact, none of the original main characters from the first book (and their significant other(s)) have died (permanently) in any of the other 11 books. It has taken 11 books for some of these characters to finally find their significant other. I don't expect RJ to kill any of them off in the last book. It seems like RJ has gone through too much work to tell the story of all these different characters and finally get them with their right partners to not let any of them live past the end of AMOL. Having said that I'm sure the ending will be gut wrenching and incredible, like many of the endings have been in WoT. Having said that, I think the story should end however RJ wanted it to end, if he ends up killing some of the main characters then it will be a surprise to me, but that would then be the "correct" ending. It's his story. 

About Rand ... The foreshadowing and prophecies seem to hint Rand will sacrifice himself and (probably) die at Tarmon Gaiden. I think Rand/Lews Theron will somehow die, but somehow live when it's all said and done. I'm sure RJ will add some cool twists in there and surprise us to how that will all happen. I'm sure if I were to try and guess any more specifically then that I would be completely wrong, but those are currently my general guesses for AMOL.