Alright, I'm gonna take your advice and pick up the Will of the Many immediately and start it tomorrow at lunch. Googling suggests that other people think it's similar to Red Rising as well, so I'm looking forward to this one. You seem to have good taste so I'll check out what parts of your list I haven't read....which leaves The Wolf Series and Path of Flames. I've read the others.
As to recommendations I can make? Obvious ones mostly. Lightbringer Saga by Brent Weeks was pretty good I think, been a while though. Livesuit by James Corey is shaping up to be decent, but it really hasn't taken off yet in my opinion. Dresden Files, all. Saga of the Forgotten Warrior by Larry Correia is very good I feel. Wheel of Time is good, if obvious. Maybe the Cycle of Arawn/Galand, but I read that so long ago that I can't recall exactly what it was like at this point, and it's a very long series of books. Narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds, which was good enough for me at the time.
There were some books I read before I paid enough attention to politics to have been watching out for the sorts of things I'd avoid today as well. Like Song of Ice and Fire I guess, but that's another obvious one. And it's never getting finished of course, so I don't feel bad about stopping mid way through a Feast for Crows.
It's impossible to miss once you get to book 5. He reminds you what he's doing every single chapter. Sometimes it's almost subtle. Almost.
Just know that it's not light pandering. He's all in, 200%, donates to the cause and believes everything LGBT is good and right. I'd still recommend the first...3ish books? 4 isn't horrible either? But I'm not giving him any more money. If I ever read another book of his it'll be because I paid Jack Sparrow a visit.
Red Rising is basically the epitome of fiction for me. Nothing I've ever read comes close. If you have anything that does though, I'm looking for recommendations, as I'm probably about to drop Wind and Truth. In fact I'm probably going to read Red Rising for the third time, and hope Red God comes out before I finish it again.
The signs were there in the first book I ever read from him, where the guy is killed off and the girl takes over completely. But that was fine at the time, I'd say those were just signs of where his head was really at, I guess. I can't say I regret ignoring the signs. His books were good, even if that's over now. Time well spent.
Sanderson posted, saying, “My current stance is one of unequivocable support for LGBTQ+ rights. I support gay marriage. I support trans rights, the rights of non-binary people, and I support the rights of trans people to affirm their own identity with love and support. I support anti-discrimination legislation, and have voted consistently along these lines for the last fifteen years. I am marking the posting of this FAQ item, at the encouragement of several of my LGBTQ+ fans, with a sizable donation to the Utah Pride Center and another to The OUT Foundation.”
He continued saying this new stance would influence his books like The Stormlight Archives, saying, “I put LGBTQ+ people into my books, and will continue to do so. Not because I want to fulfill a quota, but because I genuinely believe that it is right for the characters–and is a good and important thing for me to be doing.”
Definitely well past signs. Stage 4 terminal case here.
Are you saying it gets better? 10 hours in and every chapter eventually devolves into 2024 Redditor thoughts. Does that stop? Or is the plot so good that it's worth subjecting myself to this new thing he's doing literally every chapter?
I'm about 10 hours into Wind and Truth and I'm kind of stunned here. Every chapter feels like some sort of introspective politically correct sensitivity training, and the whole book feels like he's doing the absolute most to transplant 2024 America into the book. I got so sick of it that I went and found this article mid chapter:
https://fandompulse.substack.com/p/brandon-sanderson-savaged-by-fans
Sanderson posted, saying, “My current stance is one of unequivocable support for LGBTQ+ rights. I support gay marriage. I support trans rights, the rights of non-binary people, and I support the rights of trans people to affirm their own identity with love and support. I support anti-discrimination legislation, and have voted consistently along these lines for the last fifteen years. I am marking the posting of this FAQ item, at the encouragement of several of my LGBTQ+ fans, with a sizable donation to the Utah Pride Center and another to The OUT Foundation.”
He continued saying this new stance would influence his books like The Stormlight Archives, saying, “I put LGBTQ+ people into my books, and will continue to do so. Not because I want to fulfill a quota, but because I genuinely believe that it is right for the characters–and is a good and important thing for me to be doing.”
Probably the clearest declaration of "please stop reading my books if you're not a leftist" I've ever seen. Flat out states that he's putting LGBT messaging in his books because it's the "right" thing to do, so I should expect 200% preaching and pandering.
I'm deciding now if I'm even going to finish Wind and Truth, or refund it. This isn't like other books where the author tosses in some pandering and then moves the fuck on at least most of the time. It's constantly there, and he's doing a horrible job of it. There is still a plot going on in the background at least, but with him releasing a statement like that, I'm finding it unlikely that I'll continue with the series. Is it even worth it?
Truthfully I haven't liked his writing style for Stormlight in a minute. I liked his world building, his characters were likeable enough, the plot itself is entertaining, and there was a limited assurance that here was an author that would be restrictive with leftist content if nothing else. The...prose? I didn't care for that so much. Safe, good if not great quality author.
And yet now he's probably worse than many full blown liberal atheist authors. Every chapter we eventually reach what I have to describe as 5 minutes of pure unmitigated cringe. It's extremely consistent, very much like he has to hit a regular quota throughout the entire book if this trend holds. I've never seen anything so blatant. I haven't even gotten to the new gay protagonist chapters yet.
I'd say he's been coerced into doing this, but he claims he's been this way for 15 years or more so, who knows.
I think they basically portrayed exclusively wild redneck types. Which seems fair, since they portrayed the equivalent for everything else. The concern for me was the ratio, but apparently it's realistic for a fictional Miami anyway.
I mean it's not coming out for over a year. This trailer isn't enough to get me to do anything anyway though. Doesn't show me really anything about what it's like to play the game.
Although...as I type this, and consider RDR2...if they didn't regress in their game design, the thing will probably be kind of a masterpiece on every level but the writing, since I assume their writers have all been infiltrated with far left types. Definitely not preordering.
Any time soon.
Well that's a slight relief. I watched that trailer twice to be sure and was asking myself if the percentage of black NPCs was realism or a stupidly extreme diversity quota.
Doesn't mean the game isn't going to be screwed by blue haired liberal women anyway, but at least this first indicator doesn't guarantee it.
That's a plausible explanation. Part of why I wonder though is how often LGBT characters were presented in a negative light. They keep showing up in later books, but you're not generally given good reason to like them, even when they're pov characters. Just the opposite in several cases, including at least like 2 actual supervillains?
Also seem to remember them toning the leftist stuff way back down in the very last book at least (released November 2021, possibly relevant), but the ones leading up to it were such an obvious shift. I may be misremembering the supposed improvement in the last book though.
I've listened to all of The Expanse, book 1 of Dune, and all of Hyperion. Hyperion was trippy, and I hated the ending, but it was...an extremely unique experience. Dune was pretty good. The Expanse was almost great, except for some of the later books where 80% of the book is the author describing this woman and her like 8 bisexual spouses. Literally listened to most of the book on 2x speed, not even caring about what I missed. Character was detestable too.
To this day I can't tell if the authors are crazy, or if they deliberately wrote a lot of belters to be the most hateable people possible. I can't tell largely because they made the central protagonists sympathize with them at every turn no matter what they did.
Well damn, thanks a lot for this list. I think I'll be able to just reference this thread for a long time if these are decent. I've only read Art of the Adept (1-4 and stopped, since it seems the main characters go completely off the rails after that), Dresden Files, Codex Alera, and 2 books of MHI from this list. Don't think I've even heard of the rest.
Have listened to a lot of Sanderson and I'd agree with that assessment, "just fine" is probably the perfect way to describe how I feel about his books. Reliably worth the read, with some really great moments.
As to Weeks, I listened to the entire Lightbringer series a while ago and it was pretty good. Think I was annoyed as hell with Kipp though? Been a while.
Night Angel I started, but it's a bit too dark for my tastes, at least for the time being. As a general rule, I don't tend to love books where the main character's morality means I want him dead as much as his enemies. Main reason I can't listen to Prince of Thorns*, which opens up with the main character having his crew rape a man's two daughters before burning down the house with them in it.
Popular series though so I'm sure I'm missing out on some level.
(edit: Prince of Thorns, not King's Dark Tidings).
I've bought a lot of books via audible from years of subscription and gift cards, but I am familiar with ABB ;). Not sure about listening to LoTR, but I listened to book 1 of Dune and should probably listen to some of the followups. I know the series is eventually trashed by the author's son though.
Thanks. I've read all of the Dresden Files and Codex Alera (Dresden's easily one of my favorite series). Read...one or two books of Monster Hunter some years ago? I should get back to that, I think I was put off because the PoV character changes to some other guy. A werewolf I think, just wasn't interested in starting with a new character at the time.
Have read the Mistborn main trilogy and 2 of the Wax and Wayne books, 3 and a half of the Stormlight books, Warbreaker, his superhero series that I can't remember the name of, as well as the Skyward books aside from the most recent one. With Sanderson I have a bunch of threads to pick up again, which I think happened because reviews on some of his more recent books have given me the impression that he's fallen off a bit. Made me want to wait for followups.
Of course I have to wonder now if I should trust those reviews. Probably not.
Never heard of this Modesitt person so, there's something to look into.
Thanks for pointing Baen books. I have to say though, I did start Sun Eater (I see Baen is publishing it on their site?) and thought it seemed sketchy with some of the things going on in there. But you said they don't publish trash, and Sun Eater is definitely well reviewed if nothing else. And those sketchy elements are all presented in a negative light, even if it doesn't feel that way at times. Might give it another shot.
Also nice to see an urban fantasy recommendation. I'm guessing it isn't Dresden Files level, but I'll definitely give Demon Accords a shot.
I guess as a last resort one can hope the Yakuza aren't on board with this and will do something (probably not) or that's that for Japan.
On the bright side, I won't need to go through with my plan to learn Japanese to get around westernized localizations anymore, since the originals will be just as bad soon enough.
Everyone's short sighted about this. MMOs will be great again, but it probably won't happen until VR tech takes off as a standard. As in people don't buy TVs anymore because everyone uses VR for all digital entertainment.
Basically we're waiting for the SAO or Oasis era.
Yeah, absolutely true. I bought that game full price because a friend of mine was excited about it. The story was one of the worst I've ever seen, largely because it felt more like I was a guest at Disney World being escorted by robots pretending that I'm actually involved in the plot.
Not sure what the writers were thinking with that game. Beat the main story once, was baffled, and never touched it again.
Finished The Will of the Many. Solid 8.5 to 9/10 book, and I can see the similarities to Red Rising. Lot of potential here, shame about that cliffhanger though. I definitely enjoy competitive school novels apparently (or more likely, series where you see character growth starting early). Might lean into that.
For now, going to try The Wolf next I think, and it's nice to see that there's multiple books already out in that series.