Comments on: Review | The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 04:23:19 +0000

I actually liked that “homicidal hat trick” line, it’s the reason I even found your webpage. I was listening to the audio book version and the googled the line. It also wasn’t associated with sports at all in my mind. I think it’s more just come to mean pulling off a number of hard things in a row, without failing.

By: Fantasy Blogosphere: October 25, 2009 | Fantasy Book News

Fantasy Blogosphere: October 25, 2009 | Fantasy Book News — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:10:28 +0000

[...] Review: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson @ A Dribble of Ink [...]

By: kevin

kevin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:04:08 +0000

I totally get where Aidan was coming from on that one. I thought Sanderson did a pretty good job of integrating that exposition into the body of the main story in the first two books. With Hero of Ages it seems like he couldn’t fit in as much organically as he would have liked so the chapter teasers just become a sort of repository of additional material that is interesting in and of itself but clumsily integrated into the text.

By: aidan

aidan — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:02:36 +0000

I don't mind a properly place infodump, especially if it sheds light on important information in the story. I enjoyed the 'epigraphs' for that reason. Still, Sanderson tries to avoid a difficult part of writing – the infodump – by hiding them at the beginning of his chapters, instead of within the chapters themselves. Like you say, it's a bit of a Catch-22, and one that I had a love/hate relationship with. The Final Empire did a much better job of doling out those mysterious story bits through the 'epigraphs' and not just devolving into a character, more-or-less, 'telling' you important pieces of the secrets in the story and the history of the world. From Sanderson's annotation:

I knew I had to work the text into the actual narrative, rather than relying on the epigraphs, since people tend to skip those. (If you do, however, be warned that you will be missing some of the great clues in this book.)

Sanderson even admits in his annotations that many of his readers skip those annotations, and yet he stores important information in them anyways. There are better ways of revealing secrets that have haunted the series since the first volumes than by simply telling the reader in a short clump of text, as evidenced by much of what does go on in Sanderson's chapters. I enjoyed them for their secrets, but felt the execution was a little heavy-handed.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:53:41 +0000

First you say “the dreaded infodump” which sounds like something you very much dislike. Then “always a highlight” “eagerly look forward to” Obviously liked them. Then “cop-out” “wanted to avaoid infodumps”. but a rose by any other name. Hmm. Seems like not the same thing at all. So if he would have put it in the text as an infodump you would have hated it and putting it at the front where you loved it are actually NOT a rose by any other name. One love, one hate. Seems like complete opposites to me.

By: kevin

kevin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:35:51 +0000

I’m definitely in the minority opinion as I liked “Well of Ascension” the most and “Hero of Ages” the least. I think Vin and Elend had pretty much developed as far as they could by the end of WoA and they just didn’t have much to do in HoA until the finale. My favorite sections of HoA were those with Spook.