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Nerdforge makes absurdly large Stormlight leatherbounds and delivers them to Brandon Sanderson
(youtu.be)
I'm not a big YouTube guy, but this is interesting, and I know a lot of people in here are reading/looking forward to reading Wind and Truth. Her end result is some beautiful (obviously impractical) books that make the regular giant hardcovers look like little baby books.
If you ignore the handful of YouTube-isms it's a pretty cool video.
edit: adding screenshot of the books compared to the regular ones.
It's weird, because they're absurdly long, but the moment to moment and scene to scene writing never makes it feel that way.
But they are for sure seriously long. (The audiobooks are 45, 48, 55, 57, 63 hours.) And by the end there are probably at least a dozen characters that I really care about, and many more that played crucial roles. Some of them feel like just names early, but a lot get built out into people that feel real.
It was already my favorite series once I powered through the first 4, but Wind and Truth went above and beyond and re-defined what I consider epic fantasy to be with the paths it opened up.
So I have to correct my previous statement about my partner reading through the series. Apparently they read through Oathbringer but it dragged on so long that by the time book 4 came out they felt burnt out. "Remember how you felt with WoT 10? That's how I felt with Oathbringer." With the fifth book out though, they're interested in perhaps restarting the series.
I like Sanderson. I really enjoyed Mistborn, for instance. I really don't want to get into another situation where I'm hundreds of hours into something and only continuing out of stubbornness. I don't like to leave things unfinished, but pressing forward can sometimes make me no longer like an author. Truth is, some series pick up after a slog and could even become my very favorite (as was the case with WoT). Ah, how epics can go so very right or so very wrong. Haha.
Sounds like your opinion is that book 5 makes it all worth it though.
With all that said, I think I might actually read Mistborn era 2 books first. I only just realized that they were out. I've been reading so many other authors that I haven't paid much attention to Sanderson for a while. I only heard the occasional, "My god this book is never going to end" from my partner. ๐
For me thats actually a big plus because its like, I'll be on page 300 and loving it, and I look and I still have 900 to go! Often I'm saddened by being at an awesome part of a book, looking and seeing its only got like 50 pages left
Oh I'm absolutely with you on this. It isn't so much the amount of writing as much as the content. There's a book series I just finished that was 10 books and I really feel it could have been 2/3 the size. Don't get me wrong, I love the author and the stories, but some authors wander away on lengthy tangents or verbose/unnecessary content. It can wear on me.
I mentioned book 10 earlier of the Wheel of Time because so much of its content was actually taking place at the same time as what went on with book of 9. I wanted to move on with the story, but the 10th book was just the 9th book from different character perspectives. Having to wait until book 11 to find out what happens next huuuurrrt. I would have preferred it to be a single story.
To be honest though, when I reread books, I'm reading them at a different point in my life while having very different things going on. Being in a different mental space might change how I feel. I keenly remember how book 10 was just the worst slog. Haha.
The fact is, while I often long for more, I prefer well written books that do a great job of building up and then cleanly bringing things back together for a fulfilling close.
I thought each book was better than the last. I like the length, because almost every scene is at least one meaningful character being developed, and there are very few scenes I would cut if given the chance. After finishing (as an audiobook), I pretty much immediately started Way of Kings over as a physical read to see what extra details I can pick up knowing where the first half finishes.
Mistborn is significantly shorter, but I felt more (not awful, but there) slog in The Well of Ascension than I did anywhere in Stormlight. I thought he was stuck moving from the Final Empire into a trilogy for a bit.
Everyone is going to experience things differently, so I can't say if you'll be as hooked on Stormlight as I was. I'd say there are probably close to double digit characters as fleshed out as Vin (with very different struggles and very different emotional paths) by the end of the first arc, though. That's what really captures me more than the big picture arc (though that's also spectacular).
World building and character development will always draw me in. And Sanderson is a good writer. I wonder if audiobooks are something I should try. Now that I'm forced to commute for work again, it might be fun to give it a try.
Micheal Kramer and Kate Reading do an excellent job for most Sanderson stuff. I'm not super picky about quality of narration (outside of "full cast" and "sound effects" being a dealbreaker), but there are some who do a particularly good job and enhance the experience, and those two are really good.
You know, when you say sound effects, I now remember listening to a few Star wars books perhaps 15 years ago that included sound effects. In that case, I actually kind of liked it. It had a radio drama quality to it. Kind of fun actually.
I'm listening to the wandering inn and feel something similar. It's a huge series, one of the biggest. I love certain parts of it but I have to take a break sometimes. And certain characters can take it or leave it.