Yep. 2 related stories, each in sets of 5.
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I just wouldn't want you to miss the stuff in this book simply to wait till the series is finished. I feel I'd be doing you a disservice not asking you to reconsider. It's pretty amazing.I think Brandon's encountered a big problem with this series in that it's all taking much longer than he expected. The delay between the first two volumes was down to him having to finish WHEEL OF TIME, so fair enough, but the gap between Books 2 and 3 was supposed to be maybe 18 months and now it's looking like closer to 3 years. And if that continues for the remaining seven volumes of the series after Book 3 then it will not be finished until close to 2040 (!). And that's not including the fact that he'll be rolling the second MISTBORN trilogy into the mix and he's still got the seven-volume DRAGONSTEEL series and then the final MISTBORN trilogy and the HOID wrapping-up book/series after that point, and that's not even including WARBREAKER II and ELANTRIS II and III.
I think Brandon might be having to have a rethink about how he's going to handle things going forwards, including just making the books a lot shorter, otherwise the project isn't really going to be practical.
Is He taking lessons on writing pace from George RR Martin?
You know someone had to go there.
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I just wouldn't want you to miss the stuff in this book simply to wait till the series is finished. I feel I'd be doing you a disservice not asking you to reconsider. It's pretty amazing.I think Brandon's encountered a big problem with this series in that it's all taking much longer than he expected. The delay between the first two volumes was down to him having to finish WHEEL OF TIME, so fair enough, but the gap between Books 2 and 3 was supposed to be maybe 18 months and now it's looking like closer to 3 years. And if that continues for the remaining seven volumes of the series after Book 3 then it will not be finished until close to 2040 (!). And that's not including the fact that he'll be rolling the second MISTBORN trilogy into the mix and he's still got the seven-volume DRAGONSTEEL series and then the final MISTBORN trilogy and the HOID wrapping-up book/series after that point, and that's not even including WARBREAKER II and ELANTRIS II and III.
I think Brandon might be having to have a rethink about how he's going to handle things going forwards, including just making the books a lot shorter, otherwise the project isn't really going to be practical.
Is He taking lessons on writing pace from George RR Martin?
You know someone had to go there.
If anything, I think the fact that even Brandon Sanderson, one of the most prolific and consistent fantasy writers of our time, is failing to produce those fat epic fantasies quickly or in the limits of the original schedule is a proof that the task is next to impossible. I think I've read somewhere that Brandon plots each of the Stromlight Archive books as three distinct novels that he then weaves together. So you get a project that's three times as big as the usual one for him, and complexity rises in a strictly super-linear way. Three times as big means much more than three times as complex, if you are looking to do it right.
I know of other authors, such as Steven Arikson and Robert Jordan, who were able to crank those books out very quickly, but I think there's a pretty much unanimous agreement that the quality of the books suffered as a result. Werthead can probably chip in here with more accurate stats, but in general I think it's safe to say that writing those big epic fantasy series is really, really hard.
I wonder if they'll change up how the women were portrayed. They were a bit stereotypicaly irrational during most of the books, with few exceptions.TBH all of the main characters were utter morons through the entire series. It's one of the series glaring weaknesses.** spoiler omitted **
Jordan did a really valliant attempt at being inclusive to women in his books, but sometimes it really feels like he never met one.
Exactly this. When I was younger, these books had a huge impact on me. Now I look back on them like I look at some of the TV shows I used to watch. Fond memories, but if they were new today, I'd never make it past the first book/episode due to the weak characterizations.
Heck, even back when I read these I was always wondering why almost every woman, no matter how awesome or powerful, wasn't as smart as my Grandma in almost any category. And every guy was similar in level to my most pigheaded friend.
I just wouldn't want you to miss the stuff in this book simply to wait till the series is finished. I feel I'd be doing you a disservice not asking you to reconsider. It's pretty amazing.I think Brandon's encountered a big problem with this series in that it's all taking much longer than he expected. The delay between the first two volumes was down to him having to finish WHEEL OF TIME, so fair enough, but the gap between Books 2 and 3 was supposed to be maybe 18 months and now it's looking like closer to 3 years. And if that continues for the remaining seven volumes of the series after Book 3 then it will not be finished until close to 2040 (!). And that's not including the fact that he'll be rolling the second MISTBORN trilogy into the mix and he's still got the seven-volume DRAGONSTEEL series and then the final MISTBORN trilogy and the HOID wrapping-up book/series after that point, and that's not even including WARBREAKER II and ELANTRIS II and III.
I think Brandon might be having to have a rethink about how he's going to handle things going forwards, including just making the books a lot shorter, otherwise the project isn't really going to be practical.
Is He taking lessons on writing pace from George RR Martin?
You know someone had to go there.
Well, he manages to release a book of SOME kind every other year or so, working on about 5 different series' at once, whereas GRRM can't even keep up with a single one to the extent they come out more than once a decade.
If he was anything like Georgie boy he'd have never finished Mistborn.
It's not Sanderson's writing pace that's the issue, it's how much he bites off. He can write a good book every 2-3 years, but when he wants to create 100 books...
If he doesn't focus up at some point, we're just going to have 5 different unfinished series'.
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I wonder if they'll change up how the women were portrayed. They were a bit stereotypicaly irrational during most of the books, with few exceptions.TBH all of the main characters were utter morons through the entire series. It's one of the series glaring weaknesses.** spoiler omitted **
Jordan did a really valliant attempt at being inclusive to women in his books, but sometimes it really feels like he never met one.
Exactly this. When I was younger, these books had a huge impact on me. Now I look back on them like I look at some of the TV shows I used to watch. Fond memories, but if they were new today, I'd never make it past the first book/episode due to the weak characterizations.
Heck, even back when I read these I was always wondering why almost every woman, no matter how awesome or powerful, wasn't as smart as my Grandma in almost any category. And every guy was similar in level to my most pigheaded friend.
To be fair, we do have Cadsuane, who I consider to be a wonderful character. Smart and decisive and extremely capable, and above the endless squabbling and gender wars the other characters partake in. Had she been the main character of the series I would not be upset at all. Of course, she was downgraded in every way once Sanderson took the reins, so there's that. But to me, she is somewhat of a redeeming point for Jordan - she (plus Moiraine) serves as proof that he is physically capable of writing compelling female characters, when he puts his mind to it.
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I just wouldn't want you to miss the stuff in this book simply to wait till the series is finished. I feel I'd be doing you a disservice not asking you to reconsider. It's pretty amazing.I think Brandon's encountered a big problem with this series in that it's all taking much longer than he expected. The delay between the first two volumes was down to him having to finish WHEEL OF TIME, so fair enough, but the gap between Books 2 and 3 was supposed to be maybe 18 months and now it's looking like closer to 3 years. And if that continues for the remaining seven volumes of the series after Book 3 then it will not be finished until close to 2040 (!). And that's not including the fact that he'll be rolling the second MISTBORN trilogy into the mix and he's still got the seven-volume DRAGONSTEEL series and then the final MISTBORN trilogy and the HOID wrapping-up book/series after that point, and that's not even including WARBREAKER II and ELANTRIS II and III.
I think Brandon might be having to have a rethink about how he's going to handle things going forwards, including just making the books a lot shorter, otherwise the project isn't really going to be practical.
Is He taking lessons on writing pace from George RR Martin?
You know someone had to go there.
Well, he manages to release a book of SOME kind every other year or so, working on about 5 different series' at once, whereas GRRM can't even keep up with a single one to the extent they come out more than once a decade.
If he was anything like Georgie boy he'd have never finished Mistborn.
It's not Sanderson's writing pace that's the issue, it's how much he bites off. He can write a good book every 2-3 years, but when he wants to create 100 books...
If he doesn't focus up at some point, we're just going to have 5 different unfinished series'.
Not sure where you are coming from, since Sanderson finished The Reckoners in 2015 and already finished writing the second Mistborn series, the final book of which will come out later this year. That plus the original Mistborn trilogy and the final three volumes in the wheel of time (which together are bigger than most book series in existence) grants Sanderson a fantastic record of finishing stories, and we are not even counting standalones yet.
He can do much much more than write a good book every 2-3 year - currently the rate is a good book every 4 - 6 months. Some of his books are better than others, but I've yet to encounter one that isn't at least clever and enjoyable.
Follow the flow of the conversation.
Essentially the jab was "18 months pushed to 3 years? Sounds like GRRM to me!" to which I replied that even at 2-3 years per book (for that one series) he's still moving at light speed comparatively.
However, it is roughly 1.5-3 years between every individual installment of most series', since with the exception of Mistborn I believe, almost all of his books are doorstoppers.
With the rotation he does it's very easy for delays to cascade into other delays, and he keeps adding new projects onto the pile, that's it's very possible a lot of series' could be unfinished.
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I know of other authors, such as Steven Arikson and Robert Jordan, who were able to crank those books out very quickly, but I think there's a pretty much unanimous agreement that the quality of the books suffered as a result.
Since it was only the first 6 books which Jordan really churned out I always just assumed that he had at least written rough versions of them before the first was published, since the first several came out basically yearly. (Generally publishers don't like authors to put out more than 1/yr as they start to cannibalize their own sales. I know that some authors actually write nonfiction on the side during their downtime because it doesn't take them a full year to write a novel.)
Frankly - while there were other issues, I always thought that the biggest problem with his later books was that there were too many freakin' side plots so that the main plot slowed to a crawl after book 4-5. He was afraid to have anything happen off stage - which is admittedly a pretty common problem with many epic fantasy authors. George RR Martin began to do it after book 1.
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Gateway blades were neat too...
I was always partial to Balefire
for those enemies you just want to stop existing
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Gateway blades were neat too...I was always partial to Balefire
for those enemies you just want to stop existing
...or keep them from having ever existed.
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People that are clutching their pearls over the possibility of HBO producing this for fear of 'blood and sex' do realize that WoT had plenty of both, right? I think HBO could do a fantastic adaptation of the series personally. I'll agree that GoT sometimes goes overboard but in general the show has been great and I'm glad we got to see it.
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Am I the only one here that think Michael Moorcock and/or Elric Saga is great literature?
I don't know about great literature, but I'd sure love to see an adaptation of it!
Moorcock's Elric saga, Lieber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser adventures, Andre Norton's Witch World, etc. could all make for decent fantasy franchises.
Other stuff, like Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, or Saberhagen's Empire of the East, or McKillip's Forgotten Beasts of Eld could make good standalones (or TV miniseries), but it seems that 'franchise or bust' is the theme of the day.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Am I the only one here that think Michael Moorcock and/or Elric Saga is great literature?I don't know about great literature, but I'd sure love to see an adaptation of it!
Moorcock's Elric saga, Lieber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser adventures, Andre Norton's Witch World, etc. could all make for decent fantasy franchises.
Other stuff, like Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, or Saberhagen's Empire of the East, or McKillip's Forgotten Beasts of Eld could make good standalones (or TV miniseries), but it seems that 'franchise or bust' is the theme of the day.
Saberhagen's book of swords stuff would also be cool. Technically the same world as Empire of the East, just further in the future.
According to his website:
As of yesterday, STORMLIGHT #3 is at 53% on his website. I think Brandon's current plan is to have the book edited and turned in by the end of this year and out in early 2017.
Wait, I thought that the Stormlight Archive is a five book series, to be followed by another five book "sequel series" - but that the five books should be readable as a complete series of their own.
Right?
Sort of. The two halves will be more closely connected than, say the three MISTBORN trilogies (and especially between the three trilogies and the Wax & Wayne side-quartet), but they won't necessarily need to be read straight though. I think he's indicated that Book 5 won't end on a massive cliffhanger that leaves you hanging for years whilst he works on the second MISTBORN trilogy.
However, it is roughly 1.5-3 years between every individual installment of most series', since with the exception of Mistborn I believe, almost all of his books are doorstoppers.
STORMLIGHT (900-1100 pages in hardcover) are the really massive books. The core MISTBORN trilogies will be long (500-600 pages in hardcover) but still quite a bit shorter than STORMLIGHT, and everything else should be a lot shorter. His YA and children's books are very short and he can churn them out in a couple of months each.
With the rotation he does it's very easy for delays to cascade into other delays, and he keeps adding new projects onto the pile, that's it's very possible a lot of series' could be unfinished.
More to the point is the fact that his adult fantasy novels are all set in the same universe and all telling the same story, and that story will risk being unfinished unless he gets a handle on how he's going to do it. The Cosmere mega-series (incorporating STORMLIGHT, MISTBORN, ELANTRIS, WARBREAKER, DRAGONSTEEL and a number of other works) is planned to be something like 45 books in length and so far we've only had 10 of them in 11 years. I mean, that's still awesome given he's also written another 14 novels outside the Cosmere in the same period, but if he wants to get the Cosmere wrapped up in a reasonable timeframe he needs to maybe have another thing about this, especially if he slows down as he gets older.
Since it was only the first 6 books which Jordan really churned out I always just assumed that he had at least written rough versions of them before the first was published, since the first several came out basically yearly. (Generally publishers don't like authors to put out more than 1/yr as they start to cannibalize their own sales. I know that some authors actually write nonfiction on the side during their downtime because it doesn't take them a full year to write a novel.)
THE EYE OF THE WORLD was finished in 1988 but not published until 1990. He had finished THE GREAT HUNT and was into THE DRAGON REBORN by the time the first book came out. He just stayed ahead of the train by writing non-stop until Book 7, when he was told by his doctor and family to take the pedal off the metal somewhat.
People that are clutching their pearls over the possibility of HBO producing this for fear of 'blood and sex' do realize that WoT had plenty of both, right? I think HBO could do a fantastic adaptation of the series personally. I'll agree that GoT sometimes goes overboard but in general the show has been great and I'm glad we got to see it.
But absolutely nowhere near as much as GoT, and no on-screen sex at all, although there's a fair bit of nudity.
According to those in the know, HBO weren't interested in the rights when they were being shopped around and aren't the studio that's paid for them. The deal has actually been done, we're just waiting for the official announcement to come through.
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People that are clutching their pearls over the possibility of HBO producing this for fear of 'blood and sex' do realize that WoT had plenty of both, right? I think HBO could do a fantastic adaptation of the series personally. I'll agree that GoT sometimes goes overboard but in general the show has been great and I'm glad we got to see it.
Oh, there is a lot of sex and violence in The Wheel Of Time, for sure.
But if HBO runs it, you are going to get episodes upon episodes happening inside whorehouses, rape is going to become a major theme, and characters would act in stupid and illogical ways that lead to much more gore and slaughter than the story originally had. I watched through season upon season of both their Game Of Thrones and True Blood adaptations. In both shows the sex and violence took an increasingly central role, becoming less of a stylistic choice and more of the main attraction the longer the shows went on.
Simply put, I think HBO misses the line of "mature" genre shows by a mile, opting instead to just use sexy naked actors and shocking violence to give the pretense that the show is for adult, when in fact their capability of telling a compelling genre story are pretty close to nil. Those places where they veered away from the books in Game Of Thrones have been awful, and the less spoken about the last few seasons of true blood the better.
I honestly think HBO is incapable of doing a Wheel Of Time show that wouldn't just be a miserable attempt to up the ante on Game Of Thrones, which would be totally inappropriate for the style of the series.
rape is going to become a major theme
There is one quite prominent example of sexual assault in the series, and it's by a female character on a male one. RJ didn't handle it the best, but he did at least make an interesting point through the role-reversal. It's the sort of thing I suspect HBO would either eject or play for comedy (RJ did a bit, which was probably the wrong approach, but it did at least start a debate in the fandom).
I honestly think HBO is incapable of doing a Wheel Of Time show that wouldn't just be a miserable attempt to up the ante on Game Of Thrones, which would be totally inappropriate for the style of the series.
This, this and a thousand times this.
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There is one quite prominent example of sexual assault in the series, and it's by a female character on a male one. RJ didn't handle it the best, but he did at least make an interesting point through the role-reversal. It's the sort of thing I suspect HBO would either eject or play for comedy (RJ did a bit, which was probably the wrong approach, but it did at least start a debate in the fandom).
However, I do recall another instance of rape - the darkfriend who wanted to sleep with Elaine rapes another (female) darkfriend in book 9 or so. He is a creep who expects women to rape as a reward for his actions.
the less spoken about the last few seasons of true blood the better.
+1! What a disaster. A few decent concepts with poor execution.
Looking forward to seeing who gets the rights for Wheel of Time.
There is one quite prominent example of sexual assault in the series, and it's by a female character on a male one. RJ didn't handle it the best, but he did at least make an interesting point through the role-reversal. It's the sort of thing I suspect HBO would either eject or play for comedy (RJ did a bit, which was probably the wrong approach, but it did at least start a debate in the fandom).** spoiler omitted **
Am I the only one here that think Michael Moorcock and/or Elric Saga is great literature?I don't know about great literature, but I'd sure love to see an adaptation of it!
Moorcock's Elric saga, Lieber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser adventures, Andre Norton's Witch World, etc. could all make for decent fantasy franchises.
Other stuff, like Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, or Saberhagen's Empire of the East, or McKillip's Forgotten Beasts of Eld could make good standalones (or TV miniseries), but it seems that 'franchise or bust' is the theme of the day.
I'd love to see Elric for sure. He's my favorite.
Back to Wheel of Time, so I'm wondering, you do guys think they'll actually stick to blowing up Shadar Logath or not?
It would be nice to see both being used in a visual sense rather than just 'imaginary' sense.
But this is TV. They apparently only do so much.
I'm curious as to whether they'll even manage to make trollocs look decent.
Let alone any of the book finale spectacles.
Zhangar,
You do raise a good point. Trolloc and Fades pretty much have to be done well to be realistic. Not sure you can do that on a TV budget but we'll see.
Fades shouldn't be hard. Buffy was able to pull off the Harbingers years ago, which design wise are not to far from a Myrddraal. Trollocs are probably more difficult. I don't see them as having different beast heads, but probably they will go with a generic LotR "orc" look, which is probably easier to do with prosthetics and make up, without looking like a rubber mask.
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Fades shouldn't be hard. Buffy was able to pull off the Harbingers years ago, which design wise are not to far from a Myrddraal. Trollocs are probably more difficult. I don't see them as having different beast heads, but probably they will go with a generic LotR "orc" look, which is probably easier to do with prosthetics and make up, without looking like a rubber mask.
I really can't let go of the CGI orks/goblins from The Hobbit. They looked *much* worse than the humans with makeup from the original film trilogy. I have to assume that the transition to CGI was because it was either cheaper or easier (or possibly both) that way, because it certainly heart the quality of the movies.
So based on that assumption, I conclude that it's pretty hard to do convincing monstrous humanoid races with actual humans. Might be a challenge for a TV show if it was for a movie.
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Fades shouldn't be hard. Buffy was able to pull off the Harbingers years ago, which design wise are not to far from a Myrddraal. Trollocs are probably more difficult. I don't see them as having different beast heads, but probably they will go with a generic LotR "orc" look, which is probably easier to do with prosthetics and make up, without looking like a rubber mask.
Yeah - though hopefully they'll at least add tusks.
Perhaps a bigger problem there is how difficult filming combat scenes with a guy on stilts will be. They aren't really trollocs if they aren't at least 8ft tall.
Reminds me of how they did the Urgals in the Eragon movie...
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Fades shouldn't be hard. Buffy was able to pull off the Harbingers years ago, which design wise are not to far from a Myrddraal. Trollocs are probably more difficult. I don't see them as having different beast heads, but probably they will go with a generic LotR "orc" look, which is probably easier to do with prosthetics and make up, without looking like a rubber mask.Yeah - though hopefully they'll at least add tusks.
Perhaps a bigger problem there is how difficult filming combat scenes with a guy on stilts will be. They aren't really trollocs if they aren't at least 8ft tall.
It depends on the CGI budget. If they can make Chris Evans 5'1" and Zoe Saldana 9' then they should be able to upsize some trollocs.
** spoiler omitted **
Yup:
So based on that assumption, I conclude that it's pretty hard to do convincing monstrous humanoid races with actual humans. Might be a challenge for a TV show if it was for a movie.
I think the gist from Jackson was that he thought the actors in prosthetics were fine for quite small roles, but that they couldn't emote fully with a massive amount of rubber on their face. Because he wanted to have Azog and Bolg play big roles in THE HOBBIT, it'd be easier to do them with CG faces. I think that was wrong.
Considering that no Trolloc - apart from the Mighty Narg (who will of course by played by Daniel Day Lewis) - ever speaks in all 11,000 pages of the books, I think it'd be fine to go with prosthetics.
Fades, yes (the "no face" thing is horrifying when done well). Trollocs I always thought were utterly inhuman looking animal headed beasts.
Trollocs were humanoid/animal hybrid shock troops.
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** spoiler omitted **Yup:
** spoiler omitted **
So based on that assumption, I conclude that it's pretty hard to do convincing monstrous humanoid races with actual humans. Might be a challenge for a TV show if it was for a movie.I think the gist from Jackson was that he thought the actors in prosthetics were fine for quite small roles, but that they couldn't emote fully with a massive amount of rubber on their face. Because he wanted to have Azog and Bolg play big roles in THE HOBBIT, it'd be easier to do them with CG faces. I think that was wrong.
Considering that no Trolloc - apart from the Mighty Narg (who will of course by played by Daniel Day Lewis) - ever speaks in all 11,000 pages of the books, I think it'd be fine to go with prosthetics.
"Others go away. Narg stay, Narg smart."
Alas poor Narg, you could have been the hero we need but plot demanded your sacrifice...
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All I know is Trollocs make excellent smells when you balefire them. ;)
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All I know is Trollocs make excellent smells when you balefire them. ;)
I don't remember any Trollocs?
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Then my balefire did it job. ;)
you used balefire? do you know how dangerous that stuff is?
you used balefire? do you know how dangerous that stuff is?
Not an ideal gift for Mother's or Father's Day to be sure!
Warning label on Balefire clearly state not to use on own parents.
I didn't use it on my parents. I used it on Trollocs. Also I know how dangerous it is. I just...not certain I care.
Plus I'm secretly the Great Lord of the Dark. :p ;)
The TV series is in development at Sony TV, with writer Rafe Judkins (Chuck, some of the better episodes of Agents of SHIELD) attached as a potential showrunner. No network has been announced but Sony are apparently shopping it around and have picked up a lot of interest.
Intriguingly, it sounds like Sony are going to make the show regardless and sell it at some point later on, even during or after production, the same ballsy approach they are following with their DARK TOWER TV series (a prequel spin-off from the upcoming Idris Elba movie).
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Wert,
All I care about is seeing all the death in the Battle (or Massacre if you'd like) of Dumai's Wells.
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That was when I knew I had a classic scene in my head that deserved to be shown to all that don't read books.