We begin the epic by looking at the plight of Prince Raoden as he is damned by the mysterious zombie-like condition that arises, leading to his quiet banishment to the ruined city of Elantris.
"Elantris is the first of a number of books we'll be looking at by Brandon Sanderson" A part of me jumped at that! My favourite reviewer covering the Cosmere is something I've been looking forwards to for some time! Thank you Chuck!
@@hariman7727 I remember last year, when Brandon posted a foreboding video about how he had an announcement to make, implied to be something dire, and I and several others on the forum worried that he was going to announce he had to scale back ... Nope. That was the "I accidentally wrote four extra novels. Surprise!" video. What a troll!
@@lukecox6317 Five! Five extra novels! But one is a kids book they didn't quite know what to do with so they didn't put into the kickstarter. (On top of having already finished Mistborn era 2 and Alcatraz that year. And apparently working on a video game. And...)
SFDebris tackling the Cosmere? EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Interesting way to handle this, going one plotline at a time, but it really does work well for this story! Very, very eager to hear more of your thoughts about this as we go!
Honestly, it's not my favorite of the Cosmere, but this was literally Sanderson's first published novel. For new readers, I typically recommend the novella, "The Emperor's Soul", because (1) it's short, and (2) it's self-contained, and (3) your reaction to it will pretty much define how you feel about the rest of Sanderson's work. I think it's one of the best things he's ever written, but if it's not for you... you can safely skip the rest.
One of my favorite reviewers covering one of my favorite authors (albeit, one of my least favorite of their books)? Sign me the hell up. "No one hires zombies for party tricks." Only because those damn government bureaucrats shut down my innovative new business!
@@captianmorgan7627 its pretty subtle hints in the book, but she mentions when doing her craft that the starting pattern reminds her of the shape of her homeland.
Hey Chuck, I know this would be substantial extra work but it would be great for these videos if you could have some diagrams showing the various characters as they're mentioned in the story. That would help me a lot because it's really hard to keep track of the various fantasy names if I can't see them in writing. You had that for your telling of the story of D&D, showing the real people as they were mentioned by the narrative. It would be the same but for the fictional characters.
Well now, isn't this an interesting thing? I'd never heard of this story, but it's a neat world created. Obviously, since this is only book 1, we'll be seeing more in time, and some of that more is likely to be on the curse, and the various other factions this world seems to have in it. I will look forward to it.
I don't want to spoil too much, but this video only covers a small part of the book - there are two other main characters whose stories take place simultaneously with Raodens, and ultimately intermesh with it. However, though this is Brandon's first published novel (and sixth novel he ever wrote), it only currently has one direct "sequel" (a novella / short story set on a different continent, and my favourite short story ever, even more than Isaac Asimov's"the last question", which was my favourite for a time), as well as a short story set during the climax of this book, though Brandon plans for it to at present have two full sequels. The real significance, however, of this is that this PLANET isn't the only one his stories take place on in this setting. The next series he wrote, Mistborn, takes place on a different planet in the same starcluster, and features three other magic systems. To go very slightly into spoilers that are relevant for the Cosmere but not this book specifically beyond giving more context: The Cosmere is about the aftereffects of killing a deity and splitting it's body into pieces. Those who killed it took up those pieces, called Shards, and became divinities, or Vessels of those Shards, and then spread out throughout their star cluster, settling in different worlds. Sel, the planet Elantris takes place on, had two divinities, being Devotion and Dominion. They are themselves dead now, killed and broken further by the Shard Odium, who then - playing into the setting mechanics - tried to make sure no-one else could take them up later by transferring their splintered remains into the Cognitive Realm (the setting has three realms of existence, being the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual realms, as well as the Beyond, with the Beyond possibly being the settings true afterlife, which is stated to remain a mystery throughout all the books). Devotion and Dominion's remains - the bulk of their remains at least, as their are also beings Chuck hasn't mentioned yet, but likely will in the next part, called Seons and Skaze, which are also Splinters of Devotion and Dominion, respectively - formed the power source of the magic on Sel, and it powers several distinct magic systems of which the Elantrians are only one. To go further into that would spoil this book, by suffice it to say those other magic systems are linked by a theme, but that theme is a clue for the mystery in this story. Brandon was written several series since then, in which this book and it's panned sequels, the four or five Mistborn series (of which two are complete, being seven books so far), and the two five-book pairs of Stormlight (the fifth and final book of the first half is currently 68% complete, as Brandon often posts updates), form the main story. The final Mistborn series is planned to be a Space Opera trilogy, with the magic allowing spaceships to travel from world to world, but currently there already has been crossover between the books, with characters able to use the settings quirks to travel from planet to planet, and there is one character in particular who has shown up on all or almost all of the major books, who was there when the original deity of the setting was killed, and who seems to be acquiring access to the magic of each of those worlds ...
Hi, the person who requested the books here. Elantris was already bigger then the books he was used to reviewing, and Chuck wanted to make sure he could handle that before he would take a request for The Way Of Kings. I will probably revisit the issue with him after this review is finished. So not yet. That being said, so far I have requested, Elantris, The Hope Of Elantris, Mistborn, The Well Of Ascension, The Hero Of Ages, and Warbreaker. Edit: I am also having him go through them in release order.
Excellent selection. Yeah, I figured The Stormlight Archive would be a long shot. However, the ones you suggested are a great start. Thank so much for supporting Chuck and requesting these stories. 🥰
Huh, not one I've heard of, though the name of the author is familiar. I'm more caught up on works of the old school guys, and the ones of my youth like Pournelle, Heinlein, Asimov, and even stuff like EE Doc Smith(Lensmen) and I've read the Starchild Trilogy(Old enough scifis where there's AIR in space that ships have to deal with). Meanwhile my fantasy goes for things like MythAdventures or Wiz Biz, I've read Sword of Truth(Do not read Terry Goodkind, ever) Wheel of Time, the Magic Kingdom of Landover...or Stephen R Donaldson's work...I CAN recommend his work if you've got a strong mental constitution. That man is a neurologist and his characters have problems. Extremely well described mental problems that can leave you with issues after hearing about them. Also depressing. Anyone who claims Japan has some of the worst examples of so called Heroes in another world has never read Thomas Covenant. He's a man with leprosery, who goes through something traumatic, does something VERY bad on his other world adventure, like stuff people Chuck has said deserve the fire below bad, and he's STILL the hero at the end of the story...if only because no one else is there to take the title from him, and so God still offers him the happy ending. This is mostly rambling as apparently the thing we can't name but are appeasing with these words likes long posts again. Regardless, I look forward to seeing him cover another series. I'd never read the Expanse novels before he mentioned them, and now they are quite favorites.
sword of truth is so annoying. Read it as a kid so had more tolerance for stupid plots. The first couple books are great, but that series dialog writing just dives off a cliff.
@@spaceidiot200 remember the "evil pacifists"? Or, if I remember correctly, the fact that Richard has been to the afterlife early on in the series but then denies there is any proof that it exists later?
@@lukecox6317 I've blocked a fair amount of it from my memory, Terry Goodkind really loved stuffing his own views onto his characters even when it made no freaking sense for the world as a whole. I mostly remember characters rambling on their views or expositions for so long, that even in book format I was going 'just how long are these 3 people going to be standing around talking during an emergency!?' Some of the ideas were creative during the war, like using sharpened dust glass to blind an army.
@@lukecox6317 But this was no chicken. This was evil manifest. We were supposed to take that line seriously. Like, as the dramatic hook for the novel that follows. Also it somehow forced a man to drown himself...like not the demon possessing the chicken, but the chicken did it. In a puddle less than an inch deep. Oh, and he does do that doubting of the afterlife and ghosts AFTER he 'accidentally' summons the spirit of the first book's big bad who threatens to open a portal to it and suck all living creatures into it. Richard is not a smart boy, no matter how often the plot contrives to make him correct.
