Timewaster's Guide Archive

Sorry but i just have to mention this since in the first 10 pages of this post i didn't see anyone catch this idea... This pertains to the posts about goodkind "stealing, borrowing using etc..." Jordan's ideas. If anyone really stops to think about it almost every story in the fantasy world is borrowed, twisted, copied, or reused to fit the writers idea. What was the first famous fantasy story that was written? Beowulf. A story of a great hero who rises to the challenge of defending a terrified people from evil magic monsters. Almost every fantasy story out there involves Swords, sorcery, armies, love, treachery etc... One of the last truly original fantasy epics to ever emerge was Tolken's LotR. He was the first to truly introduce elves and dwarves, goblins, orcs and implacable evil, outside of folk lore, now look at all the stories about elves and goblins and potent evil. 90% + of the novels out there are all so called "rip-off's" of LotR. But no one says anything. That's the problem with the fantasy world, it has a specific mold, how many "Fantasy" books out there arnt set somewhere in Midevil times? How many don't involve swords and sorcery of some sort? When you break it down to the beginning of an idea for a story they all start out relatively the same. An unknown hero, destined to save the world from some evil force or being wishing distruction or domination. All the heros suffer physical and emotional damage through out the story to "temper" the hero they will become. All involve magic of one sort of another, from ancient power sources from a long dead civilization to the power of creation itself.

Brandon himself has used this mold albeit lightly, his world pre industrialization, swords and horses, armies, wars, love, pain, Magic=allomancy etc... Will you all now start saying that brandon plagiarized his ideas from one or many authors? No i doubt it because his world and storytelling are more unique than most.

Summary of the Rant.

All fantasy novels indeed all novels in a specific genera are going to have similarities and differences, ideas will blend and seem mirror images of each other. What truly makes these books different is the writers style and presentation. Because when you get right down to it they are all the same old story twisted and beaten into a newish idea to express the ultimate battle between good and evil. The story is in the telling, not the ideas that it is based on.

If anyone has any comments or add on's to what i noticed or things i may have missed i would like to read about them so please feel free to post.

I suppose reading EotW first then new spring isnt too bad... But after i finished KoD i went back and re-read them starting with NS and the story just flowed better and i got a better idea of who the main characters were and what they were fighting for.. Kind of like Eddings Belgarath the sorcerer I absolutely loved getting the full history of who Belegrath and Polgara were prior to starting Pawn of Prophecy... I suppose its all just a matter of what your preferences are, im just a fan of starting from the beginning (even if the beginning came after the first book  )

Quote from: dtbmnec on November 09, 2008, 08:40:33 PM

The only thing I wish I had of the WoT series is them all in hardback. My mom and I bought them all in paperback and with the few read throughs that we have done, some are already falling apart.

My father says that I'm the only person he knows who insists on buying hard cover books only.   My reasoning is because my first paperback WoT books fell apart.   Ever since then I don't buy a book longer than 300 pages in paperback.   All my WoT books since then have been fine(though my book 1 is starting to fall apart but for totally different reasons).

I noticed the same thing about my WoT paperbacks accept mine were falling apart with in the first 10 chapters. I do believe it was the printing houses fault. But im right there with you. If im gonna buy a book I want a book thats gonna last. Something that can be displayed proudly upon my shelves not some wrinkled old creased paperback that will fall apart the next time I read it, besides there is something about holding a large well bound book that just makes you feel....well... wise i suppose, LOL much better than squinting at the tiny lettering in a paperback anyways. If i do get a softback and decide its worth a re-read or has some shelf value i usually try and order a copy off of amazon or e-bay when im done.

Lightblade

First things first.....

Wow  , Brandon, I have to tell you that I have been reading fantasy books for quite a while now and I am utterly amazed by your work. I had first picked up “Elantris” in passing at a Barnes and Noble. The book had me so entranced with the beautifully crafted characters and masterful plot that I finished it in one session. As soon as I could peel my eyes from the last page of the Ars Arcanum I googled you and discovered your current novels and promptly purchased them from my local book store. Its almost sad  to say this but I actually called off work to finish Hero Of Ages. Not to mention the fact that my girlfriend nearly disowned me for my lack of interest during those 2 weeks. Then I find your forum and discover that you are letting your readers and fans have crack at your newest work before its even published! Fantastic idea, but any author not of your caliber would have probably made a mistake doing such a thing, but after finishing Warbreaker I realized that I would be willing to pay for this book just to have it grace my bookshelves. I have just finished reading your latest version and other than some spot fixes and a few grammatical errors it was nearly perfect, the characters blended with great harmony. The plot had my eyes glued to the screen, and the turn about with Denth actually had me enraged, (very few novels have that effect) to name a few of my favorite things about it. I have a few small suggestions, perhaps a few more lines explaining how Jewels came to be involved with Denth and Tonk Fah, a little more background between the implied relationship with Jewels and Clod (former  boyfriend or family member? She did seem to be much more attached to him than any of the other characters and her anger at the injury received while defending Viv was too great to be irritation at having to do a patch job) she was honestly the one semi prominent character early in the book  that I knew very little about. I would like to see a bit more dialog between Denth and Vahser about his sisters death during the torture scene, I never quite got why or even how she died, I believe It had to do with the commands used to create nightblood but it was still vague. And finally it seemed that at the end of the book Susebron developed far to quickly, within a chapter he went from being a puppet god king to a masterful commander of men and power, this didn't really detract from the scene but for a smoother read perhaps some extra development of his leadership abilities would work better because the last time I read about Susebron it still seemed like Siri was leading him around by the nose so to speak.

Well thats it for me lol, long post I know but I realize that you actually do appreciate input from your readers, so I wanted to give this my first post on your forum my all, and to all who read this expect to see much more of me around here from now on. And to Brandon, thank you for giving us the chance to experience your art, no matter how long it took to get your first work published, for us, it was worth the wait. 

Lightblade.