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The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)
by Brandon Sanderson (Goodreads Author)
by Brandon Sanderson (Goodreads Author)
One more reason to love my Nook...the ability to get a free preview/sample. And not just a little one either. I don't know what the average page-count for a sample is, but for The Way of Kings it was 196 pages!
I was more than hesitant to purchase a full copy of this book. Sanderson's work is hit-or-miss for me. I enjoyed the Mistborn trilogy, Elantris was okay, and Warbreaker...well...sucked. Shelling out a chunk of change for a 1,000 page behemoth that many reviewers say could have used a bit/a lot more editing, and that I may abandon in frustration halfway through just isn't something I want to do.
The thing is, I'm in desperate need of reading material while I await the release of The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss in a week (3/1/11)...enter Free Downloadable Sample! It'll hold me over until TWMF is released, and I can decide if I want to finish it.
I was more than hesitant to purchase a full copy of this book. Sanderson's work is hit-or-miss for me. I enjoyed the Mistborn trilogy, Elantris was okay, and Warbreaker...well...sucked. Shelling out a chunk of change for a 1,000 page behemoth that many reviewers say could have used a bit/a lot more editing, and that I may abandon in frustration halfway through just isn't something I want to do.
The thing is, I'm in desperate need of reading material while I await the release of The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss in a week (3/1/11)...enter Free Downloadable Sample! It'll hold me over until TWMF is released, and I can decide if I want to finish it.
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J.M.
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Feb 20, 2011 12:58pm
Judah, I agree on all counts. Loved the Mistborn stuff, but WARBREAKER was just... well, not even "meh," but out and out "yuck," which consequently made me shove ELANTRIS to the near-bottom of my TBR stack. So... let us know how the TWoK sample is going.
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J.M., I should have been clued in when the acknowledgements took 14 pages. I ended up picking up Dying To Live instead, which I blew through and am on to the sequel for already. That said, it didn't seem *horrible* so I may still give it a chance at a later date.
J.M. I gave the preview another try again last night, and can now say I will definitely NOT be reading this book/series.
Gosh, I hope the Mistborn trilogy isn't this young writer's magnum opus, but it's beginning to look more like it to me. I don't plan to read TWoK anytime soon. Too much other stuff out there that comes highly recommended!
The style of writing, and the issues I have with it, were abundantly clear in the 196-page-sample, especially when added to the fact that said issues are the same issues I have with his writing in his other books....mainly that it's rather simplistic...so I feel quite okay judging it. Thanks for your input, though.
The problem with epics like this is that you often can't tell just by reading some; and if you're going to read far enough, you may as well read all of it. The Gap Cycle you need to get into the third book to really decide, by then you may as well finish. In this, people call page 500-800 but really it starts picking up around page 800 or further--Sanderson starts revealing the heavier, more important plot elements that will drive the rest of the entire epic near the end of this, and the world starts coming together.I like the writing style, though the en media res thing is rough. I'm more annoyed by the prose of people like Orson Scott Card myself; Sierra Dean isn't so great, but I like her series. Prose is an important facet of a story, and if it's poor it'll make the story very difficult to get into; a poorly told story can't make up for its poor telling by any creative merits.
