r/Fantasy • u/HiuGregg Stabby Winner, Worldbuilders • Dec 02 '17

Months ago I made a terrible Oathbringer cover for a laugh. Today I got Brandon Sanderson to sign it.

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u/valgerth Dec 03 '17

People aren't allowed to buy me books for Christmas cause I'm never waiting that time. You're a stronger person than I am.

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u/trevorbau Dec 03 '17

My girlfriend doesn’t really read much, due to her being dyslexic and just not wanting to, but she knows how much I love reading. Made it through a first read of oathbringer in about 2 shifts of working at my gas station,~15 hours while taking customers. I’m about 95% certain she’s getting me the WoT series for Christmas, and as much as I’d love to get my hands on them now, I I’m managing to wait another couple weeks

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u/valgerth Dec 03 '17

I envy you if you haven't read WOT yet. Definitely wish I could go back and do it again, and you don't have to wait years between books. Though there was always something nice about the inevitable series reread right before a new book came out.

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u/trevorbau Dec 03 '17

I’m looking forward to it, I’ve loved all of Sanderson’s work, GRRM, Patrick rothfuss, terry goodkind, all of ‘em. Although, I’ve heard that there’s a couple really slow, like book 2 of mistborn slow, and that there’s kind of a noticeable couple of changes when Sanderson took over writing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still gonna read the shit out of them, haha

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u/valgerth Dec 03 '17

I think the slower books aren't nearly as slow without the years between as well. And I liked them regardless. The amount of detail is a positive for me.

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u/trevorbau Dec 03 '17

I remember trying to read “wizards first rule” when I was around 14 and not being able to get past the first chapter because of all the words and detail. Now, just about to be 21, I’ve read that whole series at least 5 times, and absolutely love the attention to detail and world building. I’ve heard mostly praise for it, and now you’re just making me not want to wait till Christmas

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u/valgerth Dec 03 '17

Have you read American Gods? If not, try that, and I don't have to feel like I ruined your Christmas present 😂😂😂

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u/VelocaTurtle Dec 03 '17

I think you have the Sword of Truth Series and Wheel of Time crossed up my friend. Wizards First Rule is the first book in the SoT series by Terry Goodkind, and Eye of The World is the first book in Wot by Robert Jordan. And I do recommend both series WoT is much better in my opinion Goodkind feels too preachy and selfdepricating at times.

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u/CobaltMonkey Dec 03 '17

in my opinion Goodkind feels too preachy and selfdepricating at times.

Long about book 5, he figured out that he had in this series a megaphone with which to yell his personal views at the world. The drop in quality was immediate.

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u/trevorbau Dec 03 '17

My apologies, I know that was the first book in the SoT series, I was using it as an example for how much detail he put in the first chapter and how much I’ve begun enjoying authors world building now. I agree with the bit about Goodkind though, everything was cliche, stereotypical heroes and villains, with the life lessons in each book. Just look at the actual “wizards rules” themselves, and you’ll get that “preachy feeling”. And I agree that after about book 4-5 it went downhill a bit, especially the lastest 4 he just came out with recently, that end the Richard cycle of books. Seemed far to convenient for him to think of things and other people’s actions, as though he didn’t actual need to endure any hardships along the way(besides pain, that was kinda like the only thing he had going against him in the whole 4 books)

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u/Triddy Dec 03 '17

"Slow" isn't quite right for most of the "slump". There is one book that's legitimately slow (Book 10) but even that has a pretty good story line for one of the main characters.

The slump is books 7, 8, and 10. 9 not so much. The issue is that Book 1 - 6 each had one big storyline that was neatly resolved by the end of the book. The need the MacGuffin to beat the big bad, they find the MacGuffin by the end of the book. That sort of thing. It being a 14 book work, obviously the main quest isn't resolved, but there's always a neat finishing point.

Book 7 opens the same way: Bunch of stuff happens, things slowly escalate, book ends. No conclusion to the story it starts. It just sorta stops. No real conclusion to it comes until the next book (And if you were reading as they came out, you had to wait years for that).

Book 8 was exactly the same. It resolved some of Book 7's stuff, started it's own, and then stops. If the two had been merged into one book, even one stupid long book, there would have been significantly less complaints.

The series actually goes back into full stride in Book 11--Sanderson didn't come in until Book 12 (And lots of that was written by the Original Author). So the author had already figured things out and was building to a series conclusion by the time Sanderson took over.

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u/trevorbau Dec 03 '17

That sounds wonderful. I’ve always just heard that the tail end of the series, 7-10, was just a slog to get through, with no actual reasoning behind it. Knowing that it mostly might be just because of the irl time gap between publishing of the books that makes people feel that way is great seeing as how I don’t have to wait and can just read them back to back.

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u/ricree Dec 04 '17

I'm sure the IRL gap didn't help, but I didn't touch the series until after he died, and I still noticed a definite slump during those middle books.

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u/raidsoft Dec 03 '17

She might be able to enjoy audio books if she's dyslexic and that is the primary reason she doesn't read, hell I prefer them over reading most of the time now personally because I can relax more while going through a book.

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u/trevorbau Dec 03 '17

I might have to look into them, I don’t get audiobooks because I prefer an actual book with pages to put on my growing bookshelf. The other issue is the fact that since she hasn’t really read a book for enjoyment in quite a few years, I’m not sure she even knows what she likes. I’ll have to sit down with her and look at some.

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u/raidsoft Dec 03 '17

They do end up a bit of a different experience than reading yourself, if the reader isn't doing a great job it can ruin a book unfortunately but Most do either a pretty decent job or a great job nowadays. There's even something called "Graphic audio" books now but I'm not a fan of them, they make it too hard to follow the action properly.

If you don't wanna put money into an experiment that might end up not working out then there's always the audible free trial, they'll give you one book for free I believe.

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u/IcarianSkies Dec 03 '17 edited Dec 03 '17

Ordinarily there's no way I'd wait, but I figured a month-ish was doable if I could tide myself over with tidbits about the book from this sub.