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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2752 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 15, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So what are you reading?

Working on my annual re-read of Battle Cry of Freedom and staring the Stormlight Archive.

I’m also working through the first book in Stormlight Archive! I’m alternating between that, Hegel And The Hermetic Tradition, and a book about the basics of Freemasonry.

Stop at the third. It goes downhill from there.

I think this is bad advice. First, because that is not generally agreed upon (the fourth book is excellent in my view), but second because if you read three doorstopper fantasy novels you're not going to stop there. Pretty much anyone who enjoys them enough to get that far is going to keep going to see how they like the books they were advised against. Third, it would be extremely frustrating to get only 30% of a story. Better to not read the books at all if they really do go downhill to such an extent.

That is not quite true. if I tell you to read the wheel of time up to book six (if we are generous) and then jump directly to the gathering storm will I be giving bad advice? If I say to stop reading dune after the messiah/children/god emperor - is it bad advice? Or witcher after the second.

Brandon Sanderson has enough time to get back on track and fix things. Series do have ups and downs. Fourth was total slog to read - you could remove 3/4ths of the book and improve it. And the fifth was both weird and the big secrets revealed and payoffs of mysteries were ... meh at best. And let's not start at the ending. The fifth was cringe in everything but the adolin parts. And even there was substantially weaker than similarly themed Coltaine's chain of dogs.

That is not quite true. if I tell you to read the wheel of time up to book six (if we are generous) and then jump directly to the gathering storm will I be giving bad advice?

Yes, because the entire series is great. Books nine and ten are some of the best material in the series in fact.

Fourth was total slog to read - you could remove 3/4ths of the book and improve it.

No way man. The fourth book was one of the best in the series. The Navani scenes alone made that book riveting and well worth reading, let alone the other good stuff on top of that.

And the fifth was both weird and the big secrets revealed and payoffs of mysteries were ... meh at best. And let's not start at the ending. The fifth was cringe in everything but the adolin parts. And even there was substantially weaker than similarly themed Coltaine's chain of dogs.

The fifth book has issues (I've touched on them before), but it still was decent. If Sanderson keeps putting out books that have the same issues as the fifth has, then I'll be more concerned. But for right now it's one single aberration in a series which has otherwise been uniformly excellent.

Yes, because the entire series is great. Books nine and ten are some of the best material in the series in fact.

You really think Crossroads of Twilight is one of the best books in the series?

Yes! I will grant you that the Perrin chapters are a slog (as they are through that whole region of the series), but the Mat/Tuon chapters are peak Wheel of Time. Honestly one of my favorite parts of the series because of that.

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