I need help deciding whether to read “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss, or start the “Mistborn” trilogy. What do you guys think?

I have such a hard time recommending Kingkiller or even A Song of Ice and Fire.

Both are unfinished and who knows how the endings will affect the overall series.

No way can call them the best or even rank until done.

Yep

I’m not rereading either Kingkiller or Song until all the books are out

I’m fine with a year or two between books in a series but both those are approaching ridiculous stages.

I’ve only read Mistborn and nothing in it was enough to make me rush out to read the others.

It was good, not great.

I’ll read the others eventually when there’s nothing else to read.

@Nick I agree about warbreaker.

@Richard Stormlight is good, but there’s a lot of scenes in it that don’t actually meaningfully tie into the story. Sanderson introduces a lot of characters who die in 1, 2 chapters and all it is to demonstrate one thing that could’ve been done in dialogue.

Sanderson is one of those authors who has grown popular enough where it seems some of the editors who handle his work don’t know how to tell him “no”.

@Lucas I’m not an author or even an aspiring one, thinking about editing or rewrites. (Though it is the interesting to read the stormlight first draft on his web sight and see how much it changed) I like Brandon for 2 reasons. He has novel magic systems and he treats writing as a career not an art. I still remember his advice to aspiring authors saying if you write a mere 300 words a day you will have a book in just a year. He does more than that but the principle remains that many authors refer to “inspiration” and “muses” and writers block. It’s a career just like any other.

@Richard It’s a career, yeah. Most art is a career. The truth most people tend to find hard to grapple with when entering any job like that is that if you’re the type of artist who tries to rely on ‘inspiration’, the simple fact of the matter is you’re not going to produce. I don’t think his position in that regard is too unique versus other writers I’ve seen and followed.

I like his magic systems and how methodical they are, I also like how he can generally evoke some emotions (I found the ending of Warbreaker pretty moving) but I also hate the fact that he uses the same character archetypes in every book. I hate when he tells a joke he might as well be pulling the reader aside to say “Hey guys, here is some out-of-place comic relief!” I don’t think there’s more than 1-2 organic moments of humour; which wouldn’t be so bad if his humour also didn’t amount to a character blurting out inane things like “Old peoples butts aren’t trust worthy”.

I’m also fine with characters dying. I’m generally not satisfied if large numbers of a cast survive essentially unscathed.

@Richard Not what I said. 😛