It is different, that’s for sure! But I think that’s why many like it so much - it’s an easy read, but not a stereotypical romance story.

Not a personal favorite. I think forgettable sums him up for me.

Mods need to do something about these posts

Some people retain information visually others audio. You're just more if a visually connected person.

300 year! Holy fuck. I Dunno how i feel about a shift to focusing on new characters, i like the ones he's set up in the first 2 books I've read so far.

It helps when authors don't promise a complete series, with a predetermined finite number of books, and a promise of closure to a specific story arc.

Neuromancer was a standalone story when it first got published. Were there readers out there wanting more, when they got to the end of the book? Yes. Did anyone avoid reading it because there wasn't yet more? Of course not. William Gibson has followed the same pattern for every series he's written.

When Pattern Recognition and The Peripheral were first published, there was no promise that any further stories would follow. But people read them anyway, because they were complete stories already. All Gibson had to do was return to the setting and build new stories there, whenever he wanted. Revelation Space books sell just fine, because each one is a complete story in the setting.

Meanwhile, ongoing serial fiction thrives by never promising any kind of overarching narrative closure. Nobody avoided reading the first few Jack Reacher books because there was no end in sight to the series. Nobody skipped Charles Stross's Laundry Files because they knew there were more books coming.

Martin and Rothfuss made the mistake of promising a complete story, and then releasing it piecemeal. Tolkien actually wrote a complete story, and then publisher released it three volumes. Dan Simmons' Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion were both released the same year.

The moral is this: If you haven't written your ending, don't publish the beginning with a promise of closure. Just write each book as a complete story in itself, and build on what you've already written as you go.

And whatever you do, don't start writing Zeno's Closure, like Rothfuss did, where each successive episode makes half as much progress towards the conclusion as the previous episode.

Great reviews. Of the stories I've read, The Shadow Over Innsmouth is my favourite.

Has anyone ever said they regretted reading asoiaf? I certainly am glad to have read it.

That said I get my books from the library these days so I'm not really supporting authors anyways and with such a backlog I only ever get around to reading series once they are finished usually.

Started WoT when it was half finished. I now have all the books to the end of the series but haven’t read them yet, it’s not stopped me from getting into incomplete series but has made me more cautious.

I sometimes only read 1-2 pages of a book and give up. Sometimes the way a writer writes grates on my brain. I can’t put my finger on what it might be, but I read for enjoyment, so feel no qualms quitting.

The first 3 Horus Heresy books are an amazing read. After that the HH series has it's peaks and valleys but never 100% meets the highest points of that first arc.

That being said if you liked Horus Heresy and are looking to get into more of the post heresy setting. I really enjoyed the Gaunt's Ghosts, and Ravenor books.

Not for nothing, but the Caiaphas Cain books are a lot of fun as well. Probably the closest Warhammer 40K gets to being an intentional comedy.

I’ve got this problem and I find that once I get on a roll with reading, I can maintain that voracity. One thing that helps me is to wear reading glasses. I’ve got 20/20 eyesight but I think the magnification helps to sort of harness my eyes to only look at the book.

Edited to add: “listening” to white noise on headphones is also helpful for me to focus on reading.

I love audiobooks, but I definitely wouldn’t be able to focus on one while driving. (Tried it a few times. It’s nope.)

I can only listen when I’m doing something that requires absolutely no focus, so either nothing at all, folding laundry, or while I’m eating.

As a person who’s not good at auditory processing in general, it was definitely harder in the beginning, but got a bit easier with practice. (But still, no listening and driving!)

It takes longer than just reading a written book, but often my eyes hurt too much, so the ears will have to take over. If I find myself zoning out, I rewind immediately. I don’t wait until I’m completely lost. If I zone out a lot, I stop listening and wait a few days until I’m in a more focused frame of mind.

Pretty much. That's how Mistborn worked, 300 year time skip and honestly don't really need to read era 1 to get era 2 besides some terminology stuff

I’m the same as you, it’s hard to invest myself in something that might never conclude. I also forget a ton of shit if I have to wait 5+ years between books.

My only exception if the series isn’t finished but the author has very consistent output, ex: every 2-3 years we get a book. That said, I might have to abandon this rule because I was knee deep in an unfinished sci fi series and, even though the author was very consistent in releasing books, he tragically passed away.

Ah my bad, so book 5 next year should sort of finish the current story arc? And then a time skip and the next 5 books will focus on other characters (with some appearances form current characters)?

And apparently if you lock him in his house for a year he'll write 5 extras

I'm with you, in fact I stopped reading altogether because I got so disgusted by the unfinished last few series I picked up, all those you named and some more, series that got a new one so much later that honestly I couldn't remember any of it, and so on. I even had to put Sanderson's aside, even though he's a quick writer and has yet - to my knowledge - to drop the ball. I wasn't enjoying it anymore.

I'm looking to delve into new genres to rekindle my love for reading, but for now, I'm just dulling my brain with simple youtube videos on gaming speedruns at night. Not even joking.

Four are out. The next one is the end of era 1 so will be an enclosed story.

The guy who actively apologizes for his shortcomings in portrayals of people who are basically never portrayed turning out to be awful would be the shock of a lifetime to me.

Shout out to the king of the Reshi people

Actually yes, it does affect authors and publishers. I know as an author and newly started publisher that people actually not starting some series because they wait till all the books are finished to buy results in several new trends:

1. not publishing new and unfinished series

2. Not buying translation rights because some big publishers pull series after sales if the second edition are much lower than the first, even if it is because the "I will buy the rest when the all come out" effect, actually fueling more people to not buy series

3. Rapid publishing, putting out a new book of a series every couple of months, because they have bought the finished series. Creating unrealistic expectations with readers who then wonder why their "author" has not published something for "so long" because other work only gets picked up after the whole lot is written, which can take years, by whitch point the author is manly forgotten and might not get picked up again. Unless offcoarse it was an extreme succes.

But yes, it has changed a lot.

Seriously, very few published series actually suffer decade long delays. It has a much better track record than TV series and movies.

You sure the person you're you read saying Stormlight was a complete trilogy wasn't talking about Mistborn?

And I wouldn't worry about the progression of Stormlight as a series because the fifth book that's currently being written is going to be a finale before a time skip anyway.

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Those are two of the absolute best series in the genre. Sometimes it's worth being high and dry.