Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere Book • Page 9

Related to above post: he’s been teasing writing a Warbreaker sequel for awhile. Maybe if the above is true he’s been cheekily planning for this.

 

Yep, ever since Vasher and Nightblood showed up in Words of Radiance, I assumed the plot of the sequel would be the story of how Vasher became a Worldhopper.

 

This series needs way more Jasnah and way less Shallan.

 

Shallan is definitely my favorite character.

 

yes. especially after the spoiled out person’s part in part 5.

r u ok buddy

 

Chapter 89: Okay, Azure is 100% Vivenna - "your world" so she's definitely a Worldhopper and her hair changed colors. Since her sword is seemingly not a normal Shardblade, wonder if she has an Awakened blade? Seems like they're generally confused for Shardblades going by the little we've seen of Nightblood in Stormlight so far.

I get that it's kind of silly to speculate as I'm still reading along but hey, it's fun.

 

Well, those words sure do seem like they form a sentence of some kind. But for the life of me, my brain can’t seem to make sense of them.

I must have visited the Nightwatcher or something.

 

Shallan may be my least favorite Sanderson character period, not even just this series.

 

She is for me. Lift is next, but that’s just because she isn’t featured as much.

I also seem to recall not liking the prince from Elantris.

 

Sarene drove me insane from Elantris. Her and Shallan are very close to The Worst together.

 

Sanderson has a tendency to write some characters with this sort of...childish personality? Or arrested personality? I don’t know how to describe it. But I’ve seen it enough times to know it is just something he does. And it drives me up a wall. Also, when he tries to write “witty” characters, it tends to be the wit of a grade schooler.

But I’m usually interested in the backstories of the characters. Shallan is a good example. I think her history is really interesting. I just tend to hate their inner monologues / personalities.

 

Yeah, he does sort of have a problem with witty characters. He's fine with other types of humorous characters - Wayne and Nightblood have some great humorous moments - but Shallan often falls flat for me.

 

Well put.

 

Just finished part 2!

Pretty darn exciting. I hope I am properly understanding the implications of it all.

 

Adolin is a character I’ve been hot and cold on, but I admit I chuckled that he brought them to his tailor

 

That honestly made him rise to my favorite character haha

 

Lift is frieking awesome and yes pun intended and no I don't care. I stand with Lift.

 

Those were really good.

 

Finally going to finish the book today and I'm definitely going to put down my thoughts on the whole thing later but a few chapters into part 5 and I just gotta say holy shit is this final part incredible so far.

 

Done. Entire book spoilers follow:

The book does a fantastic job of expanding the scope of the series. I think the core plot at times feels like it stalls, but it all works as forward momentum for the greater picture of Radiants vs Odium and to devote a lot of time to world building and really diving deep into the Radiants and their history. Sanderson continues to grow as a writer too, playing around with viewpoints outside of the main four - most notably giving a lot of time to Szeth, Moash and Venli, as well as the excellent Bridge Four chapters. The climax was thrilling partially because of its style, effortlessly switching between something like ten different characters. I can't wait to see how he continues to switch up the format in future books.

Dalinar's character arc was one of the finest parts of the book, his flashbacks were the series' best set yet. Dalinar's first meeting with Odium and "I am Unity" are some of the most memorable moments in the series so far. Adolin and Kaladin both continued to be very good characters, Shallan continues to be a low point for me and I don't really enjoyed the Shallan/Veil/Radiant split but we'll see how that progresses as we go.

As far as secondary characters go, Fen was an obvious highlight. Azure/Vivenna was a very entertaining addition, it's going to be interesting to see an eventual reunion between her, Vasher and Nightblood. It's interesting to see that Warbreaker is pretty much required reading for the series at this point - not only are the two most prominent non-Hoid Worldhoppers (and a sword) from that book, but there were more than a few explicit references to elements from Nalthis. I think I liked Eshonai more but Venli's arc was intriguing and Szeth was fantastic. More so than almost anything, the book left me dying to read Szeth's flashback chapters. Here's hoping Stones Unhallowed is next. My problem is that it felt like a lot of other secondary characters got the short end - Renarin's presence was small, we got FAR less Jasnah than I would have liked (though her badass scenes in Part 5 and Queen Jasnah all made it worth it) and it also felt like we didn't spend THAT much time with Bridge Four members.

There's a lot to talk about plot and twist wise but for now I just want to say I was really thrown off guard by Day of Recreance/Voidbringer twist and just...well done Sanderson. I had to stop and think about that for a little while after reading it.
/rant done

Loved it.

 

Humans as the actual Voidbringers still has me shook.

 

Just finished part 3. Gotta say, I wasn’t wild about the whole Khaladan freezing up, resulting in the King’s death. Khaladan’s behavior just didn’t feel earned as a story beat, to me.

 

Finally got my copy, but now I feel like I want to read the first two again before I start it. And I also have like 10 other books I want to read right now. So who knows when I'll get around to this.

 

I read a lot of Sanderson over the past year, year and a half and now I'm going through withdrawal with nothing to read. I guess I could finally read the draft of White Sand/the GNs/his YA work.