Brandon Sanderson

I was very surprised when I read the The Final Empire and the Emperor actually did turn out to be just as powerful as he was perceived to be. You kind of half expect a Man Behind the Curtain type reveal after all that build up.

My theory was that the Last Ruler's main power was being a highly powerful soother, and it was his ability to project an aura of sadness and despair that kept people from being able to fight him.

That is the impression his first appearance gives. As he could compound with any metal, he's in theory super powerful with any of them.

The big reveal about the Lord Ruler may leave them far, far more powerful than anyone else in the Final Empire, but they're no longer inexplicably powerful. Until Vin put the pieces together, everyone thought the Lord Ruler had special divine powers, stuff no one else could hope to understand or overcome, when it turns out all their powers came from regular old Allomancy and Feruchemy.

It's not quite Doing In the Wizard, since it is still magic, but it does cut down on the Lord Ruler's mystique to know it's all based on the same magic systems that their subjects use.

He still has the weirdest combo of Allomancy and Feruchemy that we ever see in the original trilogy. So he still stands out even after all this time.

It was the Inquisitors who had the biggest downgrade in terms of perception vs reality to me.

Inquisitors initially seem all but unstoppable. But then it terms out that most of them are just objectively inferior Mistborn with powerful tracking abilities and a bit of a healing factor.

Some Inquisitors are Mistborn who've had all their abilities hyper charged with Hemalurgy. But most of them are just Bronze Mistlings (I forget the term) who've had their bronze powers amplified and been given weak versions of the other mistborn powers (due to hemalurgic decay)

I mean lord ruler* kinda was a men behind the curtain, or more likey a sort of cartoon "let me fakely build my arms to make me look stronger".

But yeah, for me the third act of the book(right after the inquisitor is killed) didnt work since it really too much in idiot plot with random stuff pilling up. it feel like a downgrade.

Also start reading the second book and it see ghost dosent speak with his accent, it feel sanderson just get rid of it since it was kinda weird.

That´s a reductive and not quite accurate way to look at it. Inquisitors got the 8 commonly known allomantic powers, as well as some feruchemical powers that that varied between individuals. They knew and were able to compound, which is the reason almost none of them had feruchemical gold, as that would make them too dangerous. The method by which Inquisitors were created also minimized powerloss and was done with "donors" that were above normal strength in their metal in the first place, resulting in abilities that were either equal to or somewhat above a typical Mistborns. The one ability in which they were normaly weaker than the typical Mistborn was Atium, as they kept reusing those Spikes (due to the dificulty of finding Skaa Mistborn or Oracles). Furthermore Inquisitors are hemalurgic constructs and not just people with a lot of spikes. They have added passive powers like increased strength, resilience, healing, etc completely independent of allomancy or feruchemy. An Inquisitor essentialy always walks around with pewter benefits and can then burn pewter to double that.

It´s true that Inquisitors are carried by their reputation a good bit, but they are on par strengthwise with most Mistborns when it comes to most allomantic metals (except Atium), functionally twice as strong when it comes to pewter and bronze, and get some benefits added on top of that.

Ah the * I put before was that in spanish lord ruler is instead lord legislador(lord legislator) probably because in spanish is not a good translation because ruler can mean mandatario(mandatary) or governor but neither of that have the feeling so legislator is the closest term they used.

I will say, the non-Mistborn Inquisitors really didn't feel all that strong to me. Like, I didn't feel the passive strength boost that much. I did like the upgrades they got in Hero that let them use Feruchemical speed and stuff.

Then again, I didn't think Sanderson did a particularly good job of making the Gholam seem strong either. So maybe it's just a quirk of how he writes.

Edited by GNinja on Jun 2nd 2023 at 4:48:08 PM

So I finish the second book and this my impression.

overall they are improvement here and there indeed, the set up feel more intersting than lord ruler who feel more a feature than a proper villian per se, dealing with jasque, cett and staff is a thing. I dont know if I buy the whole siege as good set up because its clear is there as sort of nebolous background, you can feel this isnt a military focus fantasy like warhammer given how the atack is just sorta there while the chararters focus on something else.

On the antagonist, Clett is the most fun and engaging in his utterly blunt manner of being and how he does this "think big or go home" gesture and his daughter I kind off like it. or the other I barely have anything to said: staff is mostly there and I dont even knew how he dies it just sort of there as upper class twit and jastes being friend with eland I kinda totally forgot and he was very out of focus.

In fact I will said brandon does suffer from inbalance pov since everything is almost see from Vin and Eland perpective some stuff get kinda handwave or happen off screen, this made thing kinda shaky at times. also the third act get....weird specially in how many ways the city dosent get atack until the actually-for-real-this-time happens.

but on the other hand he does have a good hand with twist and the one this time is even better, the idea of having the prophecy being twisted to suit the people feel straight out of SCP

Secret Project 3 is out! Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. I haven't started it yet, though.

I completely forgot that it would release today, so seeing the email after waking up made my weekend much better. I have no idea how the book will turn out out, but as Sanderson said one of his main inspirations was Your Name (one of the favourite movies of a friend of mine) i took it as an invitation to lure said friend into reading Sanderson.

Also i absolutely love the cover.

Just finished Secret Project 3 and i absolutely loved it. Currently i´d place it above Tress, but i´m still in the "new book high" phase, so hard to say. That said the Sanderlanche in this book hyped me up harder than any since Way of Kings.

I feel like the reveal of the machine came somewhat sudden, it felt like an outside context problem within the story. I´ll need to read it a second time to see if there were some foreshadowing, which on a first read i found sorely missing. That said i find the idea of the machine fascinating in the story, especially since it was specifically stated as being "Awakened". I´m wondering if that is a general term in the Cosmere at that point in time, or if it´s still exclusive to putting Breaths in stuff.

Also have we seen the four armed species from the neighboring planet before? I feel like the should be at least somewhat familiar, but for the life of me i can´t remember a four armed humanoid species.

Lastly, i said that i managed to get one friend to read it due to the Your Name inspiration (though that turned out far smaller than i thought). I also have a second friend whose favourite game of all time is Final Fantasy X and it´s really annoying that i can´t use that as an argument due to it being a very heavy potential spoiler. Annoying

So i finish hero of the ages and here is my impresion:

Is pretty much better than well of asention because the plot of well feel contrived as well in order to happen while here the stakes feel pretty up and even the power up of Eland means very little overall given how Ruin turn things around, it also used a lot of chararter who feel more out of focus like Spook who arc was pretty damn good as well of Sazed who twist I honest didnt see it coming and as atheist I find it the best "crisis of faith" ever.

You can also see sanderson is very much an architect type of writer than a gardener, while the plot twist were honest, it feel to stack on each other and very neatly done to be organic, but as always my issue is that his prose is bland and to dry, making me dificult to care, in fact I ended just caring more about the storyline of sazed, spook and side chararter than Eland and Vin.

Everyone remember that terrible Wired article? And all the thinkpieces about how it was terrible? Well, something good came out of it: Brandon Sanderson saw one of the reactions and the creator's wish to interview him, and reached out to her.

I'm still watching it, but so far it's had a big focus on the publishing industry (as indicated by the title). Which is to be expected, as Savy has a lot of interest in the business and industry side of things, being a small business owner herself.

So, there's something about the lore of Mistborn I've been wondering about; in most cases, how does an Allomancer know when they've snapped? You can't use Allomancy unless you have the right metal(s) in your body and if you're, say, a pewter Misting, you probably aren't going to have Allomantic pewter in your stomach right after you find out that your beloved grandmother died. Is this something talked about more in The Hero of Ages or Wax and Wayne?

It´s never really important for the story, but i can´t remember where it´s mentioned so just in case i´m going to spoiler this. Remember that most allomancers are Nobles. Nobles get snapped in childhood when they are beaten near death (either by their parents or someone they hire for that) specifically to test for allomancy. Skaa allomancers that snap would be like Vin and just use trace metals, until someone notices what they´re doing and teaches them.

In Era 2 snapping has changed and is way now less brutal. People can generally just test whenever if they have powers and snapping is never really discussed in story

So, I just finished Elantris the other day. I've got to say, for a debut novel I think this was pretty strong.

Compared to Mistborn, it's a lot lighter in tone, even given the attempted genocide at the end. Elantris is also a lot more focused on politics and lighter on action.

King Aoden was an... interesting character. He starts off looking like an Insufferable Imbecile, but by the time the story is done it turns out he's not as dumb as he initially seems... but he's somehow an even worse person, given the whole human sacrifice thing.

Hrathin, oddly enough, might have actually been my favorite character, which is not something I generally say about villains. He's honestly quite fascinating, and I like that his Face Turn didn't include repudiating Shu-Korath.

I also liked that the book's setting had a pretty diverse religious landscape. It seems like a lot of fantasy stories are religiously homogenous, and even if it's a tool for Fjordell hegemony, Shu-Korath at least seems somewhat plausible as a religion.

...I do wonder if there's supposed to be a continuation, or at least if one had been planned at some point, since Wyrn, the guy who ordered the attempted genocides at the end of the book, is still in power by the end.

So I finish the first mistborn trilogy, any other book any of you can recomend of sanderson?

There are plans for two more Elantris books. But that has been the case since 2004. Currently the loose plan is for Elantris 2 and 3 to be released in between the releases of Mistborn Era 3 (which itself is supposed to come out after Stormlight 5). The second Elantris book currently is supposed to (spoiler for the currently available Elantris 2 information) happen 10 years after the first and deal with Wyrm declaring Jaddeth will finally return (due to a new interpretation of scripture), as well as delving deeper into Dakhor magic.

Honestly, i would recomend the entire rest of the cosmere. If you want a palette cleanser Warbreaker might be a good idea, or if you want to stay on Scadrial Mistborn Era 2.

Since you just finished Era 1 i should probably also mention Mistborn: Secret History. It´s a bit of a divisive topic within the fandom if that should be read immediatly following Era 1, before starting Book 3 of Era 2 or after Book 3 Era 2. IMO it´s not that big a deal, but i know some people think very differently (publication order-wise: Secret History came out as a surprise on the same day as Book 3 Era 2. I read it afterwards).

Stormlight would be the other big series of the current Cosmere, but depending on your reading speed, you might be able to time things so that Stormlight 5 (the end of the first of two planed arcs) comes out right when you finish Stormlight 4 (5 should come out in late 2024). So it might not be the worst idea to put it off a bit.

Edited by Samaldin on Jul 23rd 2023 at 7:42:15 PM

Secret Project 4 just came out titled The Sunlit Man.

It´s a rather Cosmere aware story and honestly it feels very spoilery for as of yet unpublished books. Personally, i have no problems with spoilers (i´m of the opinion that if spoilers ruin a book, it´s not worth a second read and if it´s not worth a second read it´s not worth a first read), however people who have problems with that are now in a difficult position. It might be years before all the information from SP4 is available through the respective main series.

I did enjoy it, but i think it´s my least favourite of the Secret Projects, my order would be Tress > Yumi > Frugal Wizard > SP4.

Also a recent Cosmere mystery has been revealed the identity of Zellion: turns out he´s not even really part of the main Stormlight series, but a new name of Sigzil. Presumably decades after Stormlight 10.

Unlike the other three secret projects, which Brandon wrote as gifts for his wife, this one was one of his earliest ideas for a Cosmere novel that he finally got around to writing. Not without changes; the original idea was for Hoid (then still called Topaz) as the protagonist, but that no longer made sense so he looked at the three apprentices he's apparently taken over the centuries and picked Sigzil. He also originally imagined a giant sphere rolling along the surface of the planet forcing people to keep moving, but since the Cosmere ended up at least nominally following scientific principles aside from the Investiture stuff, and "a planet rolling on another planet" is a cool image but beyond the pale for plausibility, he instead made it the superheated sun burning everything on the dayside, forcing everyone to stay in the night.

I agree with your ranking of the four. Tress was my favourire by a good margin, Yumi was maybe slightly ahead of Frugal Wizard, and the latest one was okay but not really to my taste. Brandon said he was deliberately trying to do a very fast-paced sci-fi action story, but that wasn’t really my taste. And, well, I like Sigzil and seeing him be more the disillusioned-depressed-traumatized-badass type than his original characterization was sad.

I did like the design of the planet, it’s a great mental image (and the art in this book is fantastic, it’s nearly as good as Tress and better than the other two).

Edited by Galadriel on Oct 2nd 2023 at 3:43:01 AM

Well my gf finally finished well of asesion.

She said she didnt like the start of it because is mostly a recount of what it happen before and the set up and said that once she move from the first 100 pages they story finally get steam for her.

She mostly didnt care for Zane or Straff(in my case I found him a tynn lannister wannabe) and find him very contradictory for someone insane(in retrospective that was ruin meddling) and kinda didnt care for his personality. she love "Oresar" and look me bad because I knew the twist and I didnt tell her.

She like sett and so do I, that moment when he stood ready to die was very hard and I kinda glad he didnt.

Also we talk about the twist of well being luthadel and in general I didnt like it because you can feel sanderson took a U dive because he found the idea bad but my gf love it because she feel Vin would totally do that(she even said have vin abandon those people she would have stop reading the series).

Just finished Sunlit Man.

Frankly I don't see how its spoilery of anything at all, aside from Sigzil survives the events of the Stormlight Archive. Given the timeline involved & said character's relevance in that series, there's no reason to assume that him leaving the Windrunners and joining the Skybreakers is anything that we would actually see as it happens, same with Hoid giving him the Dawnshard.

Unless that character suddenly becomes the main character of said unreleased books, it doesn't spoil anything more than Wax & Wayne spoils about Stormlight 1-5.

Edited by TheAirman on Oct 9th 2023 at 10:08:29 AM

So, I recently finished Tress and The Lost Metal. There's a few things I'd like to say:

• Wayne may be one of my favorite characters in literature.

• Hoid says in Tress that he and sixteen other people once made a "For Your Own Good" speech to somebody. Does anybody else think they may have been saying it to Adonalsium?

My next jaunt to the Cosmere will be finally reading that copy of The Way of Kings I've had on my shelf for the last few years.