Timewaster's Guide Archive

Constant badgering by the Writing Excuses podcast (and others) has convinced me to pick up Rothfuss's the Name of the Wind. The back copy wasn't half-bad either, it might just be something I'll like.

I find lately that I haven't got much interest in "high fantasy" anymore... I think the new author who's work I've enjoyed most in the past couple years is Joe Abercrombie. Although I felt that the ending of the first trilogy was almost forced "bad", I totally enjoyed the stand-alone sequels. His latest, The Heroes, is probably the best novel I've ever read centered around a single, war-defining battle... then again, I also think that the previous book, Best Served Cold, might be the best  Dumas-bedamned revenge novel I've ever read, also. And you can read either without committing to the first trilogy, they stand well enough on their own.

He's not for the faint of heart, but if you want more mud and blood and less mystical forests and wise elves, he's a good place to go.

I can (and I did, the coins are round and clips are not pieces of larger coins), but I try not to call on Brandon too often 'cause the man is busy, and he's got a lot more on his plate than Mistborn.

Most of the burden of research accuracy is on my shoulders, and he doesn't need to burn his time answering questions for me that could be answered by just reading the books thoroughly. Furthermore, asking him MB questions at this time draws him out of what he's working on right now (which isn't MB), and so I want to do that as little as possible. Certainly not for one or two questions.

I'm doing most of the reading myself, but every so often I just can't find a passage that I need. Brandon is notoriously scarce about descriptions, especially in his earlier novels... you might think this makes my job easier, but in fact it means every nibble of definition that IS written becomes that much more vitally important.

Many of the fans here have read the books more often than I have, and know the material well enough to remember things I miss, and so that's why I'm tapping you guys here. I want these designs to be as book-accurate as I can make 'em, and not just create stuff what I think looks cool. I get to do a lot of that anyway, but if I can make stuff that looks cool AND gets it "right", that's even better.

Most of the questions I have I can answer on my own. But when I can't, then I ask. 

The sash is mentioned specifically, so I presume he keeps his coins and spare vials tucked into the folds of it... if he needed to dump his metals, it'd be as simple as pulling loose the sash. 

The description of a shirt, trousers and gloves is just the sort of thing I needed though, thank you! It can be hard to find a single line like that when you need it.

Just burned through Rachel Aaron's The Spirit Thief, which was a fun read. I think Brandon's fans might dig her use of magic, which has a lot of cool whiz-bang but also fairly defined parameters. It would adapt well to a graphic novel, something which always appealed to me in Brandon's work.

She's got three in the series. If I had any complaint about the first one, it would be that it was a pretty light read... the characters are fun and enjoyable, but (at least so far) there's not a lot of evidence for deep underlying currents. It actually reminds me of some anime/manga series, a bit... the main character is a thief who's goal is to push his own bounty price past a million (presumably for a better reason than the one he flippantly gives, which is "because nobody else ever has"), and he's roaming the land committing outrageous acts of thievery (against wealthy and powerful people) with a roguish wink and a nod. There's a lot of implied depth to the world and the characters, but the first book is more of a fast-paced action romp that introduces them and gets you interested. We'll see how it develops in the second and third one.

Secondary note: terrible US covers. Color-tinted photos, like they're selling bad romance. No idea what they were thinking, this book would have been better served with a proper cover painter. Maybe on the second printing...

I quite liked Cook's "Black Company" series... I also like his pulp/noir "Garrett PI" urban fantasy series. It's kinda like Butcher's "Dresden Files", except that Garrett lives in a full-fantasy world, rather than being part of "our" world.

The covers are terrible (they seem to imply that he's some sort of pulp-era detective trapped in a fantasy world, rather than a native character who's fallen into the "problem-solving" business) but the contents are really good, even if the last half-dozen or so are a little rocky.

That's incredibly cool.

hahaaaa... I was just looking for this thread the other day, too. The math is useful.