Brandon Sanderson

Except with Atomic Robo you immediately got the gist of it. Robot, built by Nikola Tesla, adventures through time told in anachronic order.

All I know is one group of people with silly names and another group of silly names just failed to hug out all their problems and apparently everything is spelled with Capital Letters because they are Important Concepts.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

I remember being a bit put off by the prologue – that has Szeth Assassins' Creeding it up, right? The anti-gravity power action, while cool, is tricky to represent in prose.

And honestly, the Stormlight Archive does have a shitload of fantasy proper nouns. I can't remember most of them.

edited 6th Oct '15 7:34:02 AM by majoraoftime

Capital Letters Are Magic, dontcha know. And c'mon, you're being deliberately contrarian.

He means the prelude, with the Heralds abandoning the Pact and leaving their Blades and oh I see what you mean.

edited 6th Oct '15 7:34:49 AM by Ninety

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

And then the chapter where the Parshendi apparently think Assassin's Creed is a model for how to pull off a successful political assassination.

edited 6th Oct '15 7:45:03 AM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

It's kind of the point. (I think we won't get anywhere much if I keep trying to spoil/rebut your riffing, though.)

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

I'm (mostly) making fun. I'm sort of getting around to the point that I don't think there's actually anything to anchor the reader for the first two chapters. Sure, there's cool stuff happening, but why do I care about a group of people who decided to put down their magic swords or some guy killing a king of a coutnry I know nothing about except that they were signing a peace treaty with another nation and those guys decided to send someone with a magic sword to shiv the king?

I don't know anything about the Alethi, why do I care that someone shivved the monarch that I know nothing about? Was he an iron-fisted tyrant or a benevolent ruler? How important is the king to the Alethi? We get a little bit in the subsequent chapter, but I still have no earthly clue what the deal is and why it matters.

There's a reason why the Kingkiller Chronicle starts with the Chronicler being robbed. Civil war. People are marching off to join armies. There's unrest in the wake of a change in succession. That's all familiar enough.

edited 6th Oct '15 8:06:25 AM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

You're not supposed to feel deeply emotional about what's going on. You're supposed to say "this is weird, but interesting. I'll keep reading so I can find out what all this means."

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I mean, random dude got robbed. King got assassinated. Don't really draw too much emotional connection to one over the other.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Finished Shadows of Self! Just gotta say... damn. Poor Wax. Sazed, I understand what you were doing, but... damn.

I KNOW, RIGHT!!?? (I've been sitting on that same reaction for 2 weeks!)

And what the hell is Trell. Also you now see why I doubt Atium is "the lost Metal"?

The most obvious option is that Trell is another Shard (or maybe a Splinter of Adonalsium?

edited 6th Oct '15 3:56:13 PM by 3of4

"You can reply to this Message!"

All I know is Melaan is best kandra girl ever.

In the original series, he was a god of astronomy or something? The stars were his eyes? The Ars Arcanum is the interesting bit though. Apparently, Twinborn get something cool we don't know about yet, and it's not Compounding. And we have a roundabout confirmation that Surgebinders get a 'hidden' statboost from the way their surges interact, so Shallan's memory is definitely Not Normal.

The implication that you can outright steal other magical abilities not related to metal with Hemalurgy is scary, along with the fact that the mysterious metal outside the 16 just appeared. Is that spike made from a dead spren?!?!?!?!?! So, I guess everyone in Stormlight archive wearing a piercing is now suspect?

Also, Soonie Cubs: best way to remember original series hero EVER!

edited 6th Oct '15 4:12:12 PM by SCMof2814

My first thought was that Trell was Odium, but that doesn't really make sense. The spikes don't really seem to have anything to do with hatred, and we already know his pre-Shard name (Rayse). So yes, I'd assume this is another Shard. We know of nine not counting Harmony, and know the names of eight of them, none of which is Trell. Not to mention that five of those nine (Devotion, Dominion, Honor, Ruin, and Preservation) are dead. Unless Trell is Cultivation (which I find doubtful), that means this is one of the other seven Shards.

I suppose it could be a Splinter instead of a full Shard—the Lord Ruler made himself a god pretty easily, after all, and the same thing happened to the Returned almost against their will—but this seems bigger than that. Sazed is currently the strongest entity in the Cosmere; another Shard can't fight him on an even level, but at least they'd be able to approach it. A mere Splinter wouldn't even be a challenge.

I meant a splinter of Adonalsium not one of the Shards. According to the Coppermind wiki, those exist for some reason.

"You can reply to this Message!"

Adonalsium has Splinters? Wow, what would that be like? I still think it's another Shard, though. Splinters aren't really discussed in-universe at all, so it feels like it would come completely out of left field (instead of reasonably out of left field like another Shard).

Also, did anyone else catch Sazed mentioning that Elendel wasn't the only civilization on the planet? Seems like those people from the south pole who Sanderson has been hinting at are going to become a plot point soon. Hope they're not evil, but I am curious why Sazed didn't give them the same advantages as Elendel. A control group, or did he just not notice them for a while?

Well, they didn't have the people he cares about, so there's that. And maybe they're the plot of the third, formerly second, trilogy, which will supposedly have an allomantic SWAT team? Maybe it'll be a war series, playing with tropes commonly found in WW 2 movies and such.

Oooh, Captain Elendel, Hemalurgic supersoldier...

You generally don't see SWAT teams in wars, though. I mean, it could be a Great Offscreen War, but that's different. Also it would be a bit weird if they've just barely finished exploring the world by the modern trilogy. No wonder Sazed is annoyed that their development is lagging. The guys down south will own ninety percent of the planet by the time the northerners even know they're there.

Maybe they're an anti-espionage and terrorism team charged with homeland security? Or maybe they starts as a SWAT team and get drafted when war breaks out?

Finally got this finished.

I'm very curious about that spike made of a non-Harmony metal, it pretty much has to be related to another Shard.

Steris remains my absolute favorite character.

I liked seeing the kandra again. Ten Soon won't live this down anytime soon.

Also Sazed screwed up. But I also really liked it showing his new nature as Harmony, I mean it would kind of bug me if all becoming a double god did was make him unable to act. This change in his mindset as a consequence is good from a narrative perspective.

The implications that Metalborn are being increasingly capitalized is interesting. This could link back to how nobility used to be Metalborn in the first trilogy. Makes me think of the many discussions we've had in the Korra thread about benders, and the inherently higher value in their labor.

And don't think I didn't notice that namedrop of the Bands of Mourning.

edited 26th Oct '15 1:56:44 AM by 32ndfreeze

"But if that happened, Melia might actually be happy. We can't have that." - Handsome Rob

I still suspect it might not be a Shard but a Splinter of Adonalsium. Mainly because my Troper Sense is tingling since I read that those things exist and another Shard would be a bit obvious, which makes me go consider the non-obvious options.

"You can reply to this Message!"

So, I finished Shadows of Self. I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed. The entire book seemed to be Wax in brooding angsty hero mode ([insert requisite Batman joke here]) reacting to events as they happened. They never really figured anything out. They never really made plans to derail the villain's plans. They just sorta said "well, it's obvious that they're going to be here, so let's hang out there and fight them when they show up".

The end stage of the book, where all the various plot threads start coming together so they can get resolved, relied on a Reveal that was completely out of left field and the reader had virtually no way to predict (in sharp contrast to Sanderson's usual style, which is the main reason why I like his work), which was intensely unsatisfying. Combine that with the fact that there's virtually no development of any of the existing characters, none of the new characters were particularly interesting, and the whole book did very little to advance the metaplot, and the whole thing was a giant meh.

And now for spoiler-y discussion of specific points:

On the plot in general: the fact that it took place over such a short period of time was to its detriment, I though. Alloy of Law was fun because it was, at heart, a good old fashioned detective story. Wax gathered clues, interpreted evidence, tested hypotheses, survived a few murder attempts when he got too close to the truth, etc etc. Shadows of Self doesn't leave any time for that. Wax spends the whole book coinshotting around the city from fight scene to fight scene, with the occasional Sherlock Scan so he knows where to run off to next.

On The Reveal at the end: the fact that Lessie was actually a kandra the whole time is both incredibly stupid and infuriatingly pointless. It serves no apparent purpose other than to remove Wax's character growth in getting over her death (and in fact makes him worse than he ever was, because now he's killed her again, deliberately this time). Given that borderline-catatonically-depressed Wax is also extremely boring, no part of that entire plot point was a good thing. The whole Lessie-as-kandra thing really just comes off as a poorly-thought-out Retcon, especially compared to Sanderson's normal tight plotting in his stories. If she really loved Wax and she was willing to defy Harmony, then why not break cover to reveal that she wasn't dead? Did Harmony control her and force her to "play dead"? In that case, why not reveal herself to Wax earlier? Hell, why not reveal herself earlier in any case? Her whole goal is to break Harmony's control over society, right? Did she not think that getting Wax on her side would help? Did she not think that "hey, Harmony totally fucked you in order to get you to do what he wanted" would do a damned good job of getting him on the "fuck you, Harmony" side of things?

On Harmony: really, it seems like Paalm has a point. Gently guiding people is one thing. Accepting the service of people who are making an informed choice, like the kandra, is one thing. But manipulating someone to the point of completely fucking their life in order to make them do what he wants, as he did with Wax? That's legit Not Fucking Okay, Sazed. Sure, Paalm's plan was on the crazy side, but that's because she had to make herself half-crazy to avoid being controlled by Harmony. It was the best she could do in the situation she was in.

On the metaplot: metaplot? What metaplot? You mean the stuff with Wax's uncle and his missing sister? He shows up just long enough to remind us that he's still around and doesn't otherwise appear. You mean the stuff with the new, heretofore unknown metal? That was a blatant Sequel Hook that had basically no effect on the plot of Shadows of Self. The book felt like filler in terms of metaplot, really — something that could've been covered in a chapter or two and some exposition at the beginning of a different book.

On my pet theory: I'd been betting that the return of atium would be a plot point, given that shattering the crystals in the Pits of Hathsin was said to stop them from producing atium geodes for a few centuries, and it's been a few centuries, plus Bloody Tan's using Lessie as a perfectly-timed bullet shield seemed like an application of atium. However, Wax visits the Pits and no mention is made of atium production. Plus, it seems unlikely that Tan would have been able to get his hands on atium out in the Roughs when the Pits were in the middle of the city. Which is admittedly a flaw in the original theory, but not one I noticed until I read Shadows of Self. Oh well.

Anyway, I'm doing a lot of complaining, but I didn't think the book was hopelessly terrible in all respects. It was nice to get a bit more of a view of Steris's personality, and the Wayne bits were entertaining as usual (though I'd have liked to get more into his backstory and mindset, to really explore why he's so... how he is).

edited 31st Oct '15 11:11:14 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

That's pretty much how I feel about the book too. Alloy of Law was so good because it took the series in a new and interesting direction, and Shadows of Self is just... more of the same.

All of the previous Mistborn books introduce something new in the magic systems (Duralumin in Wo A, electrum and how Hemalurgy works in Ho A, and Twinborn, new metals and aluminium bullets in Ao L) but Shadows of Self doesn't really do that at all apart from a brief mention of a Leecher (chromium Misting). We didn't even get to meet any new Twinborn, and the villain just wasn't as interesting as Miles.

Wayne's chapters were one of the main redeeming elements. The 'temple of the common man', his visit to the university and his instant blending into the slums were real highlights for me.

"Steel wins battles. Gold wins wars."

The spike was more than a sequel hook, since it was the whole reason that Bleeder could hide from Sazed. The plot basically wouldn't have happened if not for it. Also, I'm intrigued by the notion that other shards can manifest god metals that can be used by allomancers, ferruchemists and hemalurgists. I'd thought that their powers manifesting in terms of metal was a trait of Ruin and Preservation specifically, but maybe it's Scadrial itself? Does this mean that if Sazed somehow went to Sel, instead of allomancers cropping up, we'd see spellcasters using glyphs of Ruin and Preservation like the Aons? It could be a hint of the far future when the magic systems start colliding properly.

A lot of the Wayne segments felt a little... overplayed to me. Like the book was grabbing my lapels and insisting, "like this character!" I did like his visit to the university, though, and the way he goes around learning about the way people move and talk is really cool. So I like him fine, I just wish the book was less insistent about it. Doesn't it seem like insisting on going to the university and facing her every month when she clearly doesn't want to see him is a bad move, though? It's like... making his penitence more about him than about the people he hurt, you know?

"Lessie was a kandra all along" didn't seem out of left field to me; pretty much from the moment we saw Bleeder using her voice and face, I was wondering if there ever had been a Lessie in the first place, particularly given what we learned about how she affected his life, and how they met. The question of why she wouldn't reveal herself sooner didn't occur to me, but I guess it's possible that she assumed Wax wouldn't believe her, especially after Sazed told him she was mad.

I still really like Steris and Marasi. I find myself wondering how Steris would get along with the kandra; her bit about carefully researching and preparing for human interaction, and occasionally wishing to be someone else entirely, is a bit reminiscent of them. Perhaps getting to know a kandra could help her to feel less artificial?

I started suspecting Paalm was Lessie the second Harmony mentioned the kandra was female, but it didn't click until she talked to Wax at the party. What other woman has such a deep interest in him and Bloody Tan? I think this is the first major Sanderson twist I saw coming.

How do you figure? The explanation about only using one spike instead of the standard pair of them seemed reasonable enough to me. And given that she seems to have gone rogue after Lessie's "death", seems to indicate that the plot started before she ever got the spike. We honestly don't know the significance of the spike — we don't know where or how she got it, or what powers it gives (in any of the three metallic arts), or basically anything about it except that it's a god metal but not one of the three we're familiar with.

Yeah, I can't really disagree. It didn't bother me, but Wayne is a very in-your-face sort of character.

Ironically, that's sort of why I didn't expect it? It was such a cheap, obvious twist — one that could be applied to virtually any character at any time — that without more evidence than we really had before The Reveal, I didn't think that he'd go with it. I mean, the idea that she'd dug up their bones just to mess with Wax seems more reasonable than she was actually a kaandra the whole time! *scare chord*, at least to me.

Something else I just thought of: I guess she was carrying Lessie's hair around in a bag or something? And Bloody Tan's too, for that matter. It's explicitly said that kaandra can't make hair so they have to use the "leftovers" from the people they're replacing, so...

edited 4th Nov '15 5:20:12 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I guess you're right that she could have been running around with one. It's just that the description of how she'd have to change powers sounded so absurd that I thought she must have something else going on, though I didn't guess what it could be. Otherwise, I was half-expecting them to find an apartment room full of sloshing mistwraith.

Also, despite the fact that they explicitly said so, I kept forgetting that kandra could function with only one spike. That one's on me.

You know, there's no way this could ever happen, but I'd be interested in seeing both Steris and Wayne as Lightweavers. (Though maybe Steris would be a better fit for one of the others.)