BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
edited July 2020
That's the good stuff.
The below contains spoilers for the series and speculation based on the released Chapters of Rhythm of War.
The Sons of Honor were trying to start a new Desolation so that the Heralds would return and reestablish Vorin Church dominance. Gavilar was a member of the Sons of Honor, but we see here that he knows that the Heralds (mostly) never left and knows about the Oathpact. Was the plan to "Unite them" as instructed by the visions under the Vorin Church?
Edit: Gavilar thought Restares might have been the one to try to kill him, so maybe Gavilar was trying to drive the Sons of Honor in a different direction over time?
Sanderson has really shown growth in his writing ability from Elantris and that first Mistborn trilogy on. He's become enjoyable to read not just for his plotting and magic system, but also for his dialogue now (though he still has his ... rough patches).
PSN: peepshowofforce
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Sanderson generally doesn't do it for me but Rhythm of War is a goodass title.
I'm reading Slave Old Man (https://thenewpress.com/books/slave-old-man) which is as much about language as it is about anything else. And mostly this works - it's incredibly richly textured and layered and cosmopolitan - but every now and then the text just seems to lose the rhythm and become a mess of imagery without meaning.
I'm reading it translation, though, so I wonder if it all flowed better in the original French/Creole.
anyway it's really good, grab it if you want to spend an hour or two inhabiting a very small slice of time in plantation-era Martinique in a way that also stretches back to encompass all the history of the Caribbean slave trade and the Middle Passage, and all the languages and stories and connections both lost and gained through forced transportation.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
I am most of the way through The Bees by Laline Paull, and I have no goddamn idea what to make of it.
These are definitely not the kind of bees you encounter in A Bug's Life. These are some bee-ass bees written by someone who studied a great deal of entomology before writing this book. The process of foragers filling their crops with nectar and their panniers with pollen and bringing it back to the hive are described in loving detail. Repeatedly. About three-quarters of the activities the characters engage in are couched in terms so scientifically accurate that you read them in David Attenborough's voice.
But like every fifty pages or so, there's a description of a bee eating pollen bread, which is a real thing, off a wax platter, which is not. Or a bee in the sanitation caste, which doesn't exist, grabbing a broom to clean up.
I honestly don't know whether I'm supposed to be picturing the characters as Bee Movie bees with faces and hands, since the author keeps describing them as having facial expressions and hands, or as actual bees, since the author keeps emphasizing how they communicate mostly through scent and dance. And also spiders and some bees have telekinetic powers, apparently.
The book is often compared with YA lit and the Handmaid's Tale, and there are broad themes that fit those comparisons. "Our highest law is Only the Queen May Breed" and all that. But the story doesn't feel like either of those. It feels more like a juvenile fiction novel where a toaster or a clockwork mouse goes on a whole bunch of adventures and encounters talking wasps and terrifying crows and the whole magical realism bag.
Anyway, I guess you should read it? You should probably read it. It's weird, but it's the kind of weird that makes me want to keep reading, and it's like nothing else I've ever experienced.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
That sounds insane but I think the inaccuracies and anthropomorphisation of insects would really irritate me.
Which is weird because I don’t care about it at all in mammals, watership down and the Duncton books are some of my favorite literature. But I’m protective of eusocial insects.
No, it pisses me off every time. And I think it's actually worse that it only happens once in a while, like what are you even doing?
Yeah that’s a good point, like if you’re telling a full version of the gnostic Gospels through a civilization of moles then I’m not gonna get too overtly fussed if your occasional dip into real mole social structures is slightly off.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Well, that was weird clear to the end. I'm not sure I enjoyed it, but I think I recommend it. I guess if you're going to read one book this summer where the love interest breaks his dick off in the protagonist's newborn daughter and dies, make it this one.
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David_TA fashion yes-man is no good to me.Copenhagen, DenmarkRegistered Userregular
Well, that was weird clear to the end. I'm not sure I enjoyed it, but I think I recommend it. I guess if you're going to read one book this summer where the love interest breaks his dick off in the protagonist's newborn daughter and dies, make it this one.
Oh, it's a bee-make of Twilight?
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David_TA fashion yes-man is no good to me.Copenhagen, DenmarkRegistered Userregular
I've been reading a Victorian mystery novel and I could feel my eyes glossing over and starting to just scan for essentials on each page. Figured I'd look it up on Wikipedia to see if I was going to continue reading it.
I've been reading a Victorian mystery novel and I could feel my eyes glossing over and starting to just scan for essentials on each page. Figured I'd look it up on Wikipedia to see if I was going to continue reading it.
Finished Slave Old Man, after taking a day or two in the middle because that was A Lot, in a very slim volume.
Choices now:
A new (to me) translation of the Confessions
A book of nonsense verse about physics told through the narration of a cartoon pirate
A book about time
The broken earth trilogy
An anthology of poetry in endangered languages (I’ll probably just sit that one on my coffee table and dip in and out)
I've been reading a Victorian mystery novel and I could feel my eyes glossing over and starting to just scan for essentials on each page. Figured I'd look it up on Wikipedia to see if I was going to continue reading it.
"With the outcome unresolved the story ends."
Turns out, no.
What was the novel?
The Quincunx
I don't remember buying it, but I'm certain I did it because of the name alone.
I mean, if that was on the cards I might finish it, but that seems unlikely.
Oh it ultimately was not worth the slog. I think it helps if you know going in that it’s supposed to be a send up of those long winding Victorian novels with a mysterious inheritance and everyone getting what they Justly Deserve, but it doesn’t make it any more fun to read, nor does it make the main character less of a prick.
Finished Slave Old Man, after taking a day or two in the middle because that was A Lot, in a very slim volume.
Choices now:
A new (to me) translation of the Confessions
A book of nonsense verse about physics told through the narration of a cartoon pirate
A book about time
The broken earth trilogy
An anthology of poetry in endangered languages (I’ll probably just sit that one on my coffee table and dip in and out)
Actually id forgotten I bought Oryx and Crake, because @ChicoBlue talked about it. So I'm reading that.
Quite a lot of future rust in the early chapters, even though it was written in 2003. Atwood showing her age a bit, I suspect.
Coke came out with a drink years ago that mixed coffee and Coke. It tasted good, but the price point was much too high.
Way late on this one, but there's a coffee/coke version still sold in Southeast Asia, the 7-11s in my country seem to be importing them from Vietnam (?)
It's currently.... around 50% pricier than regular coke.
Honestly I prefer it that way. Authors that pump out fiction to deadline, that can turn that shit on and off like a hose - those people alarm me deeply. Very alienating.
If it means Sanderson can finish his epic he can be whatever kind of alien and I'd still buy his books.
Though with him it's less turning it on and off like a hose and more he never turns it off at all with three projects going at once.
Madican on
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
I really wonder what happened with Doors of Stone.
Did he just run out of ideas, and what was published in books 1 and 2 was all the good stuff? Did he just realize that he left himself way too much ground to cover in a single book while doing the material justice (my personal theory)? Is he just too in his own head and continually restarting from scratch, petrified of turning in a less than perfect work after the success and popularity of the first two books?
I doubt we'll ever find out but man I would read the hell out of something investigating what happened there.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Honestly I prefer it that way. Authors that pump out fiction to deadline, that can turn that shit on and off like a hose - those people alarm me deeply. Very alienating.
Eeeeh I dunno. I think this sort of falls into the myth of creation as something where you just channel your internal ideas and you're completely beholden to that, which...I dunno. Certainly you need some amount of ideas and inspiration, but I've seen a lot of authors talk about this and these days I'm firmly in the camp that it's a skill that you can hone and to some extent yes, turn on and off as you need it.
Obviously delays happen and running dry on ideas happens, anyone in any profession has periods of just Not Having It, but I think when you get authors like Rothfuss who only seem to be able to write under very specific conditions, they're increasingly the outlier. Most of the other authors who are enjoying popular and critical success these days seem to be able to turn it on when they need it and turn work in more or less on time (again, with exceptions of course - John Scalzi is famously great at hitting deadlines but turned in a couple books late in the last couple years because 2018 and 2019 are such shitshows, N.K. Jemisin turned in The Stone Sky late because her mom died, etc).
... ok so I should probably point out that I actually don’t care and my post was mostly a self joke about my own procrastination abilities
But also I do find people who take forever to do anything far more relatable as human beings, regardless of their field of endeavor. That bit is completely true.
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
I dunno after 9 years, which is charitably at least double (probably triple, honestly) the number of years in which he was supposed to have even a first draft to her, I think she has some right to speak publicly that the delays are not because the publisher is fucking around.
It just seems like it's one thing to clarify that, it's another to say, about an author that people are invested in and who has a TV adaptation of his work coming, "I don't know if he's interested in writing anymore"
I mean, nine years and nothing on Doors of Stone. Has he done any other kind of writing in the meanwhile? Short stories, novellas, maybe a magazine submission here and there? Because if he hasn't, then I can understand the thought of wondering if he's interested in writing anymore. Because writers write. If there's anything I've been told by many many authors about what defines a writer it's that phrase. It is basically a compulsion to write in the same way that it's a compulsion to eat food, drink water, or breathe air. I may not ever be published, in fact I'm 99% certain of it, but I still write because I have stories and I want to put them to paper. Or maybe I'll do a short scene in the same way others might doodle in their notebook, connected to anything or maybe I just wanted to jot down this one scene in my head for the sheer joy of it. It's not good writing, but I write.
If Rothfuss isn't actually writing then that could be indicative of more personal problems. Or maybe as 3clipse suggested he is writing but also doesn't think it's good enough to stand up with his previous work, suffering from success as it were. I do hope whatever happens to be the case that he's at least writing something even if never sees print.
Its like having Stephen King on for a podcast on outlining or satisfying endings.
edit: Also, jeez the fact that Mary Robinette Kowal (quite politely) pointed out that an analogy he made may have came across sexist and he reacted to that reasonably and the comments are like 50% people raging about it is just, ugn. Humans.
Posts
The below contains spoilers for the series and speculation based on the released Chapters of Rhythm of War.
Edit: Gavilar thought Restares might have been the one to try to kill him, so maybe Gavilar was trying to drive the Sons of Honor in a different direction over time?
Goddamn I am so hyped for RoW.
Sanderson has really shown growth in his writing ability from Elantris and that first Mistborn trilogy on. He's become enjoyable to read not just for his plotting and magic system, but also for his dialogue now (though he still has his ... rough patches).
I'm reading it translation, though, so I wonder if it all flowed better in the original French/Creole.
anyway it's really good, grab it if you want to spend an hour or two inhabiting a very small slice of time in plantation-era Martinique in a way that also stretches back to encompass all the history of the Caribbean slave trade and the Middle Passage, and all the languages and stories and connections both lost and gained through forced transportation.
These are definitely not the kind of bees you encounter in A Bug's Life. These are some bee-ass bees written by someone who studied a great deal of entomology before writing this book. The process of foragers filling their crops with nectar and their panniers with pollen and bringing it back to the hive are described in loving detail. Repeatedly. About three-quarters of the activities the characters engage in are couched in terms so scientifically accurate that you read them in David Attenborough's voice.
But like every fifty pages or so, there's a description of a bee eating pollen bread, which is a real thing, off a wax platter, which is not. Or a bee in the sanitation caste, which doesn't exist, grabbing a broom to clean up.
I honestly don't know whether I'm supposed to be picturing the characters as Bee Movie bees with faces and hands, since the author keeps describing them as having facial expressions and hands, or as actual bees, since the author keeps emphasizing how they communicate mostly through scent and dance. And also spiders and some bees have telekinetic powers, apparently.
The book is often compared with YA lit and the Handmaid's Tale, and there are broad themes that fit those comparisons. "Our highest law is Only the Queen May Breed" and all that. But the story doesn't feel like either of those. It feels more like a juvenile fiction novel where a toaster or a clockwork mouse goes on a whole bunch of adventures and encounters talking wasps and terrifying crows and the whole magical realism bag.
Anyway, I guess you should read it? You should probably read it. It's weird, but it's the kind of weird that makes me want to keep reading, and it's like nothing else I've ever experienced.
Which is weird because I don’t care about it at all in mammals, watership down and the Duncton books are some of my favorite literature. But I’m protective of eusocial insects.
Yeah that’s a good point, like if you’re telling a full version of the gnostic Gospels through a civilization of moles then I’m not gonna get too overtly fussed if your occasional dip into real mole social structures is slightly off.
Oh, it's a bee-make of Twilight?
"With the outcome unresolved the story ends."
Turns out, no.
What was the novel?
Choices now:
A new (to me) translation of the Confessions
A book of nonsense verse about physics told through the narration of a cartoon pirate
A book about time
The broken earth trilogy
An anthology of poetry in endangered languages (I’ll probably just sit that one on my coffee table and dip in and out)
I don't remember buying it, but I'm certain I did it because of the name alone.
Man
The quincunx
It’s a parody, you know
Edit : but I don’t like it much. I got into a fight in a bar over the Quincunx once, but it ended in some pretty good sex.
Oh it ultimately was not worth the slog. I think it helps if you know going in that it’s supposed to be a send up of those long winding Victorian novels with a mysterious inheritance and everyone getting what they Justly Deserve, but it doesn’t make it any more fun to read, nor does it make the main character less of a prick.
Obviously you don't have to answer but roughly how many fights about books in your life have led to that outcome
Maybe like ... four
Turns out that’s only foreplay for a very niche section of the populace
Murderbot: it's still good!
Actually id forgotten I bought Oryx and Crake, because @ChicoBlue talked about it. So I'm reading that.
Quite a lot of future rust in the early chapters, even though it was written in 2003. Atwood showing her age a bit, I suspect.
Way late on this one, but there's a coffee/coke version still sold in Southeast Asia, the 7-11s in my country seem to be importing them from Vietnam (?)
It's currently.... around 50% pricier than regular coke.
Patrick Rothfuss's editor confirms that, after nine years, she is yet to read a single word of The Doors of Stone.
Though with him it's less turning it on and off like a hose and more he never turns it off at all with three projects going at once.
Did he just run out of ideas, and what was published in books 1 and 2 was all the good stuff? Did he just realize that he left himself way too much ground to cover in a single book while doing the material justice (my personal theory)? Is he just too in his own head and continually restarting from scratch, petrified of turning in a less than perfect work after the success and popularity of the first two books?
I doubt we'll ever find out but man I would read the hell out of something investigating what happened there.
Eeeeh I dunno. I think this sort of falls into the myth of creation as something where you just channel your internal ideas and you're completely beholden to that, which...I dunno. Certainly you need some amount of ideas and inspiration, but I've seen a lot of authors talk about this and these days I'm firmly in the camp that it's a skill that you can hone and to some extent yes, turn on and off as you need it.
Obviously delays happen and running dry on ideas happens, anyone in any profession has periods of just Not Having It, but I think when you get authors like Rothfuss who only seem to be able to write under very specific conditions, they're increasingly the outlier. Most of the other authors who are enjoying popular and critical success these days seem to be able to turn it on when they need it and turn work in more or less on time (again, with exceptions of course - John Scalzi is famously great at hitting deadlines but turned in a couple books late in the last couple years because 2018 and 2019 are such shitshows, N.K. Jemisin turned in The Stone Sky late because her mom died, etc).
But also I do find people who take forever to do anything far more relatable as human beings, regardless of their field of endeavor. That bit is completely true.
That seems like quite a thing to just say!
If Rothfuss isn't actually writing then that could be indicative of more personal problems. Or maybe as 3clipse suggested he is writing but also doesn't think it's good enough to stand up with his previous work, suffering from success as it were. I do hope whatever happens to be the case that he's at least writing something even if never sees print.
https://writingexcuses.com/2020/01/26/15-04-revision-with-patrick-rothfuss/
Its like having Stephen King on for a podcast on outlining or satisfying endings.
edit: Also, jeez the fact that Mary Robinette Kowal (quite politely) pointed out that an analogy he made may have came across sexist and he reacted to that reasonably and the comments are like 50% people raging about it is just, ugn. Humans.
Ernest Cline I feel like he owes me something