Will Wight (author of the Traveler's Gate, the Cradle Series, and The Elder Empire)

Reaper release date announced! November 2nd, so just two months!

Is anyone besides me and 32nd reading this series? Come on, it's awesome.

Oh that's good news!

I haven't been paying attention to Cradle recently, so I missed the usual build up.

Haha. Looking back we are by far the most frequent posters.

Still, really looking forward to the same things I was at the end of the previous book. Despite the rising stakes I think the Cradle side of the plot might prove to be lower key this time.

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Oct 21st 2021 at 6:29:54 AM

Thread title changed per request.

Reaper pre-order is up, both the e-book and the audiobook.

I'm up to Skysworn in my re-read. Just finished Blackflame, and it's amazing how terrible the Empire is. "Yeah, the Jai clan slaughtered innocents in the course of "punishing" a servant family (who had not actually done anything wrong), but whatever, clearly this random kid who hasn't actually committed any crimes is the bigger problem." And of course all the blatant hypocrisy. At least it gets better in later books.

Reaper is out!

I liked Mercy's thoughts on being on the other side of the advancement gap. I also love that upon thinking exploring the labyrinth with the Lindon and Yerin her first thought is not that they shouldn't do it, but that she needs to distract Charity so Malice doesn't find out. Although I guess she did have the other reaction later on.

Battle manic Little Blue was very funny to me.

Did not expect a year long time skip. I enjoyed the little bits of Lindon's family we got a lot though. I liked how the interactions with his father were done. Although I'd have liked a bit more after Lindon's father finally understands Lindon is actually a big deal.

Normally not a fan of the Abidan plotline, but I liked Ozriel's backstory.

Kelsa really is Lindon's sister "Training together is romantic."

Big Monarch reveals this time. Weirdly enough until this part it almost felt like a breather book to me.

Malice is definitely going to be more of an antagonist next book.

Eithan = Ozriel, the theory that was almost too popular to be true!

Not sure how I feel about the closeness of the gang to the Abidan storyline right now. I've never been a fan of that plot really, and given it seems likely we'll be getting Suriel & Eithan POV I imagine there will be more focus in the next books. Also a bit wary about the fact the gang are brushing up so closely with the Abidan story. Since really, ascending is possible at anytime now. Albeit with them sacrificing Lindon's new goal.

Normally I find about half the bloopers in the end to be a bit lackluster, but this set was gold. I thought most of them were fantastic.

This book was absolutely perfect and I really wish we weren't the only two people discussing it here.

Will almost always cuts out any filler, which is fine, but this book would have been a good place for some Slice of Life stuff during the timeskip. If there was a bigger fandom, I'd call it Fanfic Fuel. I just want to see what life looks like on Cradle for people who aren't 200% obsessed with advancement. We see hints of it here and there—children are called in to cycle like it's a chore, fire Paths are forge-lighters, and most Light and Dream artists are teachers or entertainers—but I'd like more.

That's my complaint. Everything else was solid gold.

I loved Ozriel's backstory. Will has said a few times that Judges are basically blessed from birth Mary Sue types, and you can see that with Ozriel's story. I do love how every memory was basically "Ozriel was completely unspeakably awesome at everything except the things he actually wanted to be good at (life and fun)."

The Abidan plotline has never been my favorite, but I always enjoy it, and I think this book was better than normal. Seeing all of the Court together was awesome, especially showing that they are friends despite previous books implying that they're more fractured than is optimal. This is also a spot where a little bit of Slice of Life would be nice; what is life like for the Abidan when they're not in constant emergency mode? We've basically been watching cops in the middle of a riot, but whenever the Abidan talk to mortals they refer to the heavens as "the wider world" (or even "the real world"), so there has to be more up there than running around preventing criminals from interfering. Probably not getting that in Cradle, though. Will has said that we're getting an Abidan series eventually.

The reveal of the Monarchs makes a lot of sense and explains why Kiuran was so dismissive of them. "Yes, you college students playing in a sandbox are so powerful and not at all terrible people." It's going to be interesting to see where they fall on the issue. Malice is clearly being set up as a new antagonist, but I suspect that Emeriss will be on Lindon's side once she realizes what the full plan is (she was killed for spreading knowledge, after all). Reigan Shen might actually give them plenty of support until he realizes that Lindon intends to drag him off Cradle; his current plan is to get Eithan's disciples to ascend before they kill him. Northstrider might be on their side; I got the impression that he was willing to ascend, he just wanted to finish his oracle codex first. Who knows what the Eight-Man Empire will do. Same with Sha Miara. So that's two for, two against, two wildcards. Sounds about right.

I'm curious what the Dreadgod cults will do. The Dreadgods are fully awake, but Lindon is technically a new Dreadgod and has more claim to the title than Reigan Shen. Yerin is the perfect culmination of the blood shadow technique, and the Sage of Calling Storms had a freaking religious experience over Eithan. I expect that the cults are going to split like the Monarchs; Redmoon Hall and the Stormcallers will back Lindon's team as the new Dreadgod/Death's disciples, while the Silent Servants and Abyssal Palace will stick with their gods. Actually, the Silent Servants have probably already been folded into the Hive Mind and likely have no will of their own any more.

Kickstarter for Cradle special editions.

The video was pretty great.

The shipping offered by this is also super reasonable for international shipping.

I was thinking I think about getting them once they release normally. But these are actually significantly cheaper than the Sanderson kickstarter to me because of shipping.

Travis Baldree has re-recorded the Audible narration of The Traveler's Gate series! Finally. Before, it was just Will doing it himself, which was... not great.

The whole series will be released on June 1st on the Audible plus catalogue, and the first book will be free to absolutely everyone for 90 days.

Traveler's Gate audiobooks out! I haven't listened to them yet, but again, they're on the Audible Plus catalogue, and the first book is absolutely free for 90 days. It's a good time to get someone else into them.

And Dreadgod is coming out on July 5th!

Come on, I know there are at least a couple other people reading this series because they're editing the page.

That's pretty soon.

I wonder if the series is still planning on being 12 books. Because if nothing has changed this'll be the penultimate book.

Last I checked, yes. Hell, if he wanted to rush he could have probably finished it with this upcoming book.

I don't think we know what's coming next. A lot of people are thinking a The Traveler's Gate sequel, but he might be ready for his Abidan series.

Edited by Discar on Jun 5th 2022 at 7:16:26 AM

Cradle e-books up to Ghostwater are free until the 3rd. Completely free, separate from Kindle Unlimited.

Dreadgod spoilers

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it. I enjoyed it well enough, but I feel like I rushed though it a little bit. And its been a while since I've reread the series. So I'm not quite sure how well the pace power gained for Lindon feels to me when compared though the whole series.

I liked the Abidan stuff a little more than previous books, but overall I still feel fairly eh about that plotline.

This definitely felt like a transitory book. Especially with that ending.

There was also a minor reveal that the Akura clan has more members outside of Cradle than within. I'm kind of interested to know what they think of Malice, since it seems like the whole Monarch-Hunger Madra connection is known outside. I'm also curious to know if any of the Akura clan have been more successful than Malice, relatively speaking. Of course there would be many with more power than her. But I wonder if any have exceeded her accomplishment of reaching Monarch.

Assuming that Copper-Monarch path doesn't just map to lowest Abidan-Judge. Since I'm pretty sure none of the Akura are Judges.

Kickstarter for Cradle animation! Should this get an extra thread over in Western Animation?

Edited by Discar on Jan 15th 2024 at 10:43:57 AM

Animation trailer.