Posts Tagged: Brandon Sanderson

News

Available Now: Unfettered from Grim Oak Press, ed. Shawn Speakman

By Aidan Moher June 24th, 2013

Unfettered, edited by Shawn SpeakmanAt long last, Unfettered, a fantasy anthology edited by Shawn Speakman, is available for purchase. So, please excuse me while I have a little fangasm.

If you’re unaware of the anthology, Unfettered has a history that stretches back to Speakman, owner of The Signed Page, being diagnosed with Hogdkin’s lymphoma in 2011. Uninsured (due to a past cancer diagnosis), Speakman did the only thing he could think of to deal with the monumental medical bills accrued during his cancer treatment: he called his friends, he made a book.

Oh, yeah… his friends include Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Naomi Novik and Lev Grossman. Each author contributed an original short story to the anthology and, as the title suggests, were not restrained by an overall thematic structure as is often the case with anthologies.

Authors and stories included in the anthology:

– Foreword by Patrick Rothfuss
– Introduction: On Becoming Unfettered
– Imaginary Friends by Terry Brooks
– How Old Holly Came To Be by Patrick Rothfuss
– The Old Scale Game by Tad Williams
– Game of Chance by Carrie Vaughn
– The Martyr of the Roses by Jacqueline Carey
– Mudboy by Peter V. Brett
– The Sound of Broken Absolutes by Peter Orullian
– The Coach with Big Teeth by R.A. Salvatore
– Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood
– Heaven in a Wild Flower by Blake Charlton
– Dogs by Daniel Abraham
– The Chapel Perilous by Kevin Hearne
– Select Mode by Mark Lawrence
– All the Girls Love Michael Stein by David Anthony Durham
– Strange Rain by Jennifer Bosworth
– Nocturne by Robert V.S. Redick
– Unbowed by Eldon Thompson
– In Favour with Their Stars by Naomi Novik
– River of Souls by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
– The Jester by Michael J. Sullivan
– The Duel by Lev Grossman
– Walker and the Shade of Allanon by Terry Brooks
– The Unfettered Knight by Shawn Speakman

The slam dunk here looks like Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson’s “River of Souls,” which is a deleted sequence from A Memory of Light, which explores the off-screen actions of Bao, the Wyld, who Wheel of Time fans might recognize by a different name. With Jordan’s Wheel of Time series concluding earlier this year, this on-the-cutting-room-floor excerpt from the series is one last chance to dip a toe into Jordan’s world.

I’ve not had a chance to read through the entire anthology, but a meander through its pages, along with the handful of stories I have read, Unfettered seems to live up to its promise of being one of the most comprehensive and exciting anthologies of mainstream fantasy released in years. The Table of Contents won’t set anything afire for pushing boundaries, but the (admittedly male-heavy) list of authors includes Sanderson, Carey, Abraham, and Rothfuss, and looks to provide a variety of short stories that is sure to please readers.

Unfettered can be purchased now from Grim Oak Press, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

Disclaimer: I provided editorial feedback to Todd Lockwood on his story, Keeper of Memory, which appears in Unfettered.

News

What’s next for Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn?

By Aidan Moher May 31st, 2013

In an email from Sanderson (who has a very good reputation about communicating directly with his fans), the author confirmed that there are still plans for two more Mistborn trilogies. He suggests that the series will eventually be a ‘trilogy of trilogies.’ These do not include the “Wax and Wayne” books, though there are more of those coming, too. He says, “they’re not so much ‘prequel’ as they are a side venture into life between the first and second trilogies, but they will be used to provide some foreshadowing for the second trilogy.”

For the first time (I believe), Sanderson also described some early plot elements and setup for the next Mistborn trilogy:

As I envision it now, the second Mistborn trilogy, take place in a more technologically advanced version of the world, several hundred years later. They’ve progressed beyond steam technology to combustion engine technology, are building skyscrapers and that level of technology. It will follow the exploits of a team of Allomancers who are kind of like an Allomantic SWAT team, group of hybrid mercenary/deputized individuals who are brought in by the police to take out Allomancer criminals. The first book will deal with when they are called in to deal with a Mistborn serial killer. That’s how it starts. It will go bizarre from there, of course, but think guns, cars, skyscrapers, and Allomancers.

It’s amusing, and likely intentional, to see that Sanderson has swapped out the crooked band of criminals from the first Mistborn trilogy with a law enforcement-type group of mercenaries. Fans of Sanderson know that he’s halfway decent at writing enjoyable group chemistry, but the true selling point, in addition to his complex plotting, will be to see how he utilizes Allomancy in a semi-modern era. Readers had a taste of how Allomancy, a magic system that can manipulate metals, can affect and be affected by guns in The Alloy of Law, and it sounds like Sanderson plans to take this concept even further with the upcoming trilogies, as he advances the technology level in the world. in The Alloy of LawThe appearance of a mysterious character event at the end of The Alloy of Law is likely the first of these ‘foreshadowing’ moments that provide hints about the overall story arc of the upcoming trilogies.

There is no known release date for any of these novels.

Review

Review of A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

By Larry Nolen May 15th, 2013

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan

Publisher: Tor Books - Pages: 912 - Buy: Book/eBook
A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

After nearly twenty three years and countless millions of words vomited out upon thousands of pages, Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series finally concludes with its fourteenth volume, A Memory of Light. It has been a memorable series for those who’ve read, it albeit for some such as myself, it has become more an exercise in patience and restraint, waiting to see if the payoff justifies to any extent the laborious parsing of repetitive descriptions, redundant sentences, clothing and furniture porn, hackneyed villain motivations, etc. My own opinion of the series has fluctuated between a diversion during my last semester of grad school in the Fall of 1997 (it was a change of pace from reading Hitler’s memoirs and speeches for my grad seminar/research) toward it being a repetitive, poorly structured (and written) clunker of a novel/series. I wrote a series of posts on re-reading the Jordan-penned books, most of them for the first time since the release of the ninth book back in November 2000, and the re-reads did little to improve my deepening dislike for the series. Yet the first semi-posthumous release, co-written by Brandon Sanderson, I thought at first was a marked improvement. That was before I began to understand while reading the second co-written volume, Towers of Midnight, that the planned three-volume conclusion to the Wheel of Time series was terribly flawed in terms of narrative structure, characterization development, and prose. Therefore, it was with some trepidation that I ordered A Memory of Light and read it. Unfortunately, it is one of the worst-written books in a series renowned for its mediocre, bloated prose. Read More »

Review

Review of Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

By Larry Nolen May 8th, 2013

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan

Publisher: Tor Books - Pages: 861 - Buy: Book/eBook
Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.

This quote, which opens the main sequence of every single The Wheel of Time book, can, with some alterations be applied to reading, memory, and the impressions formed (and altered) from the commingling of the above. I am not by nature someone who trusts wholeheartedly my first impressions; too often they change with time and further reflection. I have found this to be the case with this now-thirteen-volume epic fantasy series. When I reviewed the twelfth volume (and the first where Brandon Sanderson wrote most of the material in place of the deceased Robert Jordan), The Gathering Storm, I perhaps was a bit too forgiving of that book’s shortcomings because I reviewed the book after not having read most of the other volumes since 2000. Certainly my memory did not jibe too well with my experiences re-reading the first eleven volumes this past spring and writing commentaries on my impressions. In short, it was a slog re-reading this series. Not merely because of the myriad subplots nor because there were repetitive and yet shallow social commentaries, but also due to the creaky, non-graceful prose and uneven characterizations that often left me feeling cold. Despite the change in authors and the plot developments that one might expect in the penultimate volume of such a ponderous multi-volume series, Towers of Midnight, after some reflection, is a flawed volume in a very flawed series. Read More »

Review

Review of The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson

By Larry Nolen May 1st, 2013

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan

Publisher: Tor Books - Pages: 784 - Buy: Book/eBook
The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series has been one of the most sprawling, character-intensive epic fantasies of the past twenty years. Spanning millions of words, this series, now reaching its twelfth volume out of a planned fourteen, has spawned dozens of fansites over the years, as well as engendering heated debates over matters ranging from how well (or not) the author managed to portray female characters to questions of character identities and motivations to even a fictional murder-mystery that still remains unresolved seven volumes after its occurrence. Some view passages, such as the (in)famous “wind passage” that opens the first chapter of each book, as being hallmarks of a great talent. Others read the same lines and wonder how the story ever managed to become even more turgid and bloated than the previous volume.

One of the most sprawling, character-intensive epic fantasies of the past twenty years.

Debates such as these point to some intrinsic quality of the series that barely allows for there to be a middle ground. There is something for almost everyone, depending if one likes an action/adventure tale, political intrigue, social commentary, or even elements of a puzzle novel. Sometimes, there is too much of it all, and readers who enjoyed the earlier volumes might end up finding the past few volumes to be rather plodding, tedious affairs. After reading the eighth and ninth volumes, The Path of Daggers and Winter’s Heart, I found myself going years before even thinking of picking up the tenth volume, Crossroads of Twilight, which was perhaps the most difficult book to complete reading of them all at the time. Read More »