Timewaster's Guide Archive

Hey that's certainly awesome too.

One gets me to go "hell yeah, a Sharworld book!" and one gets me to go "Awesome, a Sanderson book!"

The difference is small, but not important.

My assumption is that her father had one and she got he when she killed him.  Though that does raise the question of how exactly she killed him when he has a shardblade.  Hmmm...

I don't think there's much to ponder there.  Who would expect their beloved daughter of killing them?  Getting him dead within the 10 hearbeats doesn't seem like a big stretch.

The real questions are WHY would she kill him?  Was it on purpose or accident?  If on purpose, what did he do to deserve it?

Is Scribbler a Shard book?  God, I haven't been around here in months.  I'm forgetting things I knew.


... What was the name of the Shard in Warbreaker? 

I suppose you're right, but that was still only about half of Eye of the World.  And yeah, they still treated each other like friends, but they didn't seem to talk like friends.  Their conversations around each other were much to guarded to me, even at the beginning.  There wasn't much of the sense of familiar casualness to them which friends have.

Well that was definitely the best Wheel of Time book in years.  My compliments, as well as a mental cattle prod for you to move faster.    You struck the perfect balance between the ways the characters react to each other, and showing us what they're really thinking underneath their own thoughts.  The stuff they may not admit to themselves.  That's always been the hardest thing to get right in this series.

Overall... I just can't wait to meet Rand again for the first time.  More than anything, it feels like that's what will happen in Towers of Midnight.  I can't wait for him to talk to the other Two Rivers kids, as well as his three... girlfriends.  And Tam.  Possible above all else, Tam.  I read a fair amount of comics, and this is reminding me a bit of the most angsty stories about Superman having to come to terms with his identity.  Is he Kal-El, or Clark?  And then talking to his dad again, realizing that the man who raised him mattered more than most anything else.  And I like the bit of symbolism of him doing the impossible.  Scaling Dragonmount yet coming back down alive.  I admit I peek at the bits of poetry at the beginning and end of each book.  The ending one here unsettled me at first for some reason.  But read in context, it was wonderful.   At first I was upset that the series was being extended by another two books, yet now I'm excited to spend that much time around the Dragon truly reborn.

Egwyene's chapters were all fantastic.  I can't say much other than that about her.  I just hope she forgives Suian quickly, and her and Gawyn figure each other out quickly as well.  Nynaeve's stuff was great, although now I really fear Lan dying.  May this be another confusing red herring seeing by Min.  And about Min herself, (One of my favorite characters in the series.) it was great to see her say some true common sense to Cadsune and Nynaeve.  Stop trying to make him do what they want, and just help him.  It's about time somebody said that.  The two even seemed a bit mollified by it.  The Verin twist was just... awesome.  I don't truthfully recall why we were meant to suspect her of much craftiness aside from the normal Aes Sedai idiosyncrasies, but I recalled know we were meant to be looking for something.  This reveal was fantastic, and damn well played.

I'm not the closest of readers when it comes to tone.  The only time I think I noticed parts written by you rather than Jordan were with Mat.  He was writtin a bit to obviously comical, and Talmanes as well.  Not that either were bad, both were more amusing than ever.  Just not their normal selves.

I'm guessing the next book is chiefly Ahviendha's, Egwyene's, and Rand's again.  And of course the team which will finally rescue Moiraine.  Mat, Thom, and dun dun dun.

And... does anybody else think that the final chapter with Rand was the actual reason that this "trilogy" was originally meant to be called A Memory of Light?

I think there just wasn't a need to write about the sex.  It just really didn't come up.  Weather Elend and Vin were having sex before being married (I guess not) didn't effect their feelings for each other.  Maybe he did it just to show the last few walls between them, maybe it was a vestige of his personal feelings on that matter, conscious or not.  Elend is described as being attracted to her a few times, and she's described as being good looking.  It's enough for the reader to get the idea.  It's just not a story for that aspect.  Personally I kind of enjoyed it that way, in that the two of them were together without that tension, implying they were comfortable enough with each other not to become smoldering blobs of hormones.

Truthfully I think you're reading to much into this area of the novel.  Straff was definitely a deviant, and a terrible man, but I'd hardly call the only character shown to treat sex thusly enough to call it a trend or an ethical ruling on how the world worked as a whole.  After all, when you get down to it he, Elend and Vin were the only ones in anyway expressly said to have had sex.

Also, to be frank reading a sex scene makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit voyeristic.  Especially if I'm reading in a public place.  It rarelly adds enough to a story to make it worth the rest as far as I'm concerned.

As for religion, he discussed before how important he felt it was to write characters who's views conflicted with his own, and to make sure they came off as truthful in order to give things variety and to keep the characters from being mouthpieces for his views.  At least something to that effect.

Personally I'm an atheist and I'd rather see characters of various and conflicting faiths, and/or the lack thereof in order to make things more realistic and interesting.  I know if I were to write anything, I'd mix things up.  I wouldn't make my views the only ones worthy of notice unless I was trying to push a singular message, which I doubt I would want too.  That would just get overly preachy.  I'd rather relate my own conflicts on what's right and wrong rather than show everything through the lens of my personal resolution.  Also the challenge of showing somebody ELSE as right interests me greatly.

Wow. Really? You really think Mormons are that close-minded? He's an author. This is fiction. There's nothing contrary to his beliefs, it's not hurting anyone's spirituality talking about other faiths in a fictional world. And anyway, Sazed is probably the character that religious people would be able to identify the MOST with--simply because of his search for the truth in HoA.

Oddly enough considering I just said I'm an atheist myself,  I feel the same way about Sazed.  He came to conclusions different from mine, yet his path to it and how the resolution made him feel about it really jived with me.  I think I liked how (I think) Breeze said it: "You're just not meant to be an atheist."  Different people have different ways of thinking which make them work the best as people and give them the most peace with the world, and Sazed found the path for him, which I think is really the most important aspect of things.

PS:  Somebody really needs to add "Elend" and other Sanderson invented names to the spellcheck.

I see what you're saying now.  But bear in mind it's 1 or 16.  You're either a Misting capable of burning a single metal, or a Mistborn capable of all of them.  I doubt that Elend found a group of 258(ish) Mistborn, especially considering Yomen was described to be an Atium misting only.  So the slight oddity of Atium Mistings at all persists, as does the much larger oddity of 16%.

Edit:  (Yeah, I have an editing problem.)  I kind of think that Preservation was causing the numbers based on how people thought there were 16 metals max with Atium being one of them.  But the problems are that most people if not all thought there were fewer metals, and that I thought Preservation set up the Mists to sort of run on autopilot and that Preservation had used up to much of its will/mind/what have you to influence things that directly.

I would love to play a huge sandbox game set in Mistborn.  The possibilities for city sprawling adventure are huge.  And of course the powerset is different from any which I've seen before.  Something like a super powered Mirror's Edge.  I can't decide if playing as Vin during the first book would make the best game, or some house Mistborn during a House War would be better.

.....  I have to admit I had a dream where I was playing Mirror's Edge and I kept on dying because I couldn't Ironpull on some piping.  Don't read and play games before bed when you're way to tired.