Timewaster's Guide Archive

Yes. It's a serious and huge problem. That is why I do not approve of the Blackout/All Clear award nominations.

I liked the first three trilogies (Farseer, Liveship, Tawny Man). They should be read in that order. I liked the Liveship books the best; they have a broader scope to them. (They're in third person with multiple POVs but the other two trilogies are from one first-person POV.) (Though note that the third Farseer book has clear retconning of earlier events when it becomes obvious she didn't know where she was going. The second two trilogies are coherent and internally consistent. The first trilogy has a depressing ending and you don't get a good payoff for that character until the end of the third trilogy, but the good payoff does come.)

I could not bring myself to read the second of the Soldier Son trilogy; I didn't like anyone in the first book and found it TOO depressing. There's a part when everyone starts dying of some plague, and I found I was completely unmoved since I hated all those people anyway.

I would like to read the Rain Wilds books eventually since they continue the Liveship/Tawny Man story, but the first two books were one book that got split into two by the publisher, and it seems like that also happened to the next two books. That hardly ever makes for a satisfying read. (Such as Bujold's four Sharing Knife books, which are much more satisfying if you consider them as only two books.)

Steve's objections to Dragon Keeper seemed symptomatic of the split and made me wonder whether it would be more satisfying when followed immediately by its second half. But then again, she did just come off the Soldier Son books, which I just could not do. Writers change over time, some for the better and some for the worse.

Actually, there are a number of authors who make foreign publishing deals directly with the foreign publishers without going through any agents. Kristine Kathryn Rush and Dean Wesley Smith talk about this often. However, it is a lot of work and time you could be spending writing... Depends what is important to you.

I haven't read about anyone trying to explain N.K. Jemisin's religious beliefs based on how she writes about gods in the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. But people try it with Brandon all the time, although it really doesn't work very well.

While we're on the subject, I've been curious as to how one establishes a pseudonym.  Do you just start submitting manuscripts under that name or is there a more legal/proper way to do it?

You put your real name in the manuscript header, and you put your pen name in the byline. That's the easiest way to do it.

The only reason I had asked in the first place is because some months ago, I remember a big thread on 17th shard about it... I thought Brandon had made some comment in regards to questions that he was aware that normal physics would cause that type of problem, but wasn't sure how he was going to handle it in universe. I guess I had just falsely assumed that with the bullet deflection, it would have a similar explanation as the redshift/blueshift as discussed before.

The things said in that thread influenced Brandon's decision on how things would work. I posted in that thread.

The lack of a glossary is due to a glossary getting too huge and unwieldy. In the Internet age a wiki is better for information like that.

Way of Kings does have the Ars Arcanum, but it serves a slightly different purpose. And the same goes for the Alloy of Law.

First person once removed is used by Gordon Korman to great effect. And of course Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.