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thistlechaserWarbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
There were two quotes from this book that could sum the whole thing up:
Random character said (paraphrasing, since I didn't mark the quote):
War is coming, you say? War's been coming for generations, it'll be coming for generations more. What makes now different? Nothing.
The author wrote:
My books, I know, can be kind of slow sometimes. That comes from the fact that I, myself, like to read books that are kind of slow.
There's a slow book and then there's this book. 688 pages, and by the halfway point, not a single sign of real plot movement. "War is coming," but like the character said: It's been coming for generations, and it'd likely be coming for generations more. Just low level hostility between two nations.
Three-quarters of the way through the book, still not much happening. Nice world building? Yeah. Interesting magic system? Meh, sort of. But so little plot. Add onto that that I hated two of the three main characters, and this book was a chore to read.
It was such a shame, I had been saving this book for when I was sure I'd need a good one. (I loved his other books so much, and everyone said such good things about this one...)
I'd explain the plot, but I already did. War is coming (slowly, with no real effort, energy, or drive behind it). Some people wanted it to happen, most didn't.
There were a group of "physical" gods in the book (gods in physical human bodies, sort of). They were the most awful, unenjoyable people to read about.
Twice in the book, characters did a 180 on personality. The first time, a group of people acted as friends, then betrayed one of the main characters. Usually I like plot twists, but this pissed me off as there were no indications that I could see that it would happen -- it felt like the characters were changed mid-story just as a plot device. Then, as annoyed as I was at that happening, it happened a second time!
Blah. As much as I usually like his work, I'm hard-pressed to name a single thing I liked about it. It even had many editing issues (missing periods, lots of missing capitalization, multiple characters' dialogue in the same paragraph). Okay, one thing I did like was the 'twist' that explained the title.
---
In non-book news, saw my podiatrist today about my toe. She pulled the stuck-in gauze out OW OW OW. Big open raw/bloody section again now. Ow. I'm on another run of antibiotics for it, one I might be allergic to (but it's also the most effective one against MRSA, so... the allergist couldn't narrow down what I was allergic to, so she listed the antibiotic just to be safe, so we're going to take the chance).
Also spent the morning at a conference for work. Boring stuff, but it was nice to get out of the office and visit the convention center. It would have been a nice short work day, except had to go to the doctor after, so. Oh well, home now! Yay!
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
There were two quotes from this book that could sum the whole thing up:
Random character said (paraphrasing, since I didn't mark the quote):
War is coming, you say? War's been coming for generations, it'll be coming for generations more. What makes now different? Nothing.
The author wrote:
My books, I know, can be kind of slow sometimes. That comes from the fact that I, myself, like to read books that are kind of slow.
There's a slow book and then there's this book. 688 pages, and by the halfway point, not a single sign of real plot movement. "War is coming," but like the character said: It's been coming for generations, and it'd likely be coming for generations more. Just low level hostility between two nations.
Three-quarters of the way through the book, still not much happening. Nice world building? Yeah. Interesting magic system? Meh, sort of. But so little plot. Add onto that that I hated two of the three main characters, and this book was a chore to read.
It was such a shame, I had been saving this book for when I was sure I'd need a good one. (I loved his other books so much, and everyone said such good things about this one...)
I'd explain the plot, but I already did. War is coming (slowly, with no real effort, energy, or drive behind it). Some people wanted it to happen, most didn't.
There were a group of "physical" gods in the book (gods in physical human bodies, sort of). They were the most awful, unenjoyable people to read about.
Twice in the book, characters did a 180 on personality. The first time, a group of people acted as friends, then betrayed one of the main characters. Usually I like plot twists, but this pissed me off as there were no indications that I could see that it would happen -- it felt like the characters were changed mid-story just as a plot device. Then, as annoyed as I was at that happening, it happened a second time!
Blah. As much as I usually like his work, I'm hard-pressed to name a single thing I liked about it. It even had many editing issues (missing periods, lots of missing capitalization, multiple characters' dialogue in the same paragraph). Okay, one thing I did like was the 'twist' that explained the title.
---
In non-book news, saw my podiatrist today about my toe. She pulled the stuck-in gauze out OW OW OW. Big open raw/bloody section again now. Ow. I'm on another run of antibiotics for it, one I might be allergic to (but it's also the most effective one against MRSA, so... the allergist couldn't narrow down what I was allergic to, so she listed the antibiotic just to be safe, so we're going to take the chance).
Also spent the morning at a conference for work. Boring stuff, but it was nice to get out of the office and visit the convention center. It would have been a nice short work day, except had to go to the doctor after, so. Oh well, home now! Yay!
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no subject
Date: 2015-03-26 03:35 am (UTC)That's too bad about Warbreaker -- I'd heard good things about it as well... (I'm currently -- finally -- reading Mistborn. It's definitely enjoyable, but even that's on the slow side for me. Because, like, Mr Sanderson, I do not need to see all of your working notes written out on a whiteboard during a planning session between your characters... But I'm curious about the history of how all this came about, especially!)
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Date: 2015-03-26 03:50 am (UTC)I wanted to read Mistborn, but after Warbreaker I'm more wary. Are the Mistborn books annotated as well? That was an interesting part of Warbreaker, though I skimmed a lot of it. (Which was another thing that annoyed me about the two character changes/betrayals: He claimed that X, Y, and Z were evidence it would happen, but there's no way that X, Y, or Z should have made anyone raise their eyebrows...)
no subject
Date: 2015-03-26 04:29 am (UTC)Remind me, which Sandersons have you read? I was assuming Mistborn was one of them for some reason...
no subject
Date: 2015-03-26 04:51 am (UTC)I read (and loved) his Stormlight Archive series (The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, the next one is coming in 2016.) While they started slowly as well, it was more "takes a couple chapters before I realized I loved it" not "75% of the book goes by before much of anything happens".
no subject
Date: 2015-03-26 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-26 10:24 pm (UTC)