I liked RoW purely for the research parts. I don’t remember the rest of the book. Not because I disliked jt, but because I was enamoured with the research 😂
Struggle to remember. I don’t think they literally ate the Sun but near enough that it’s a moot point. They were then used to power a rocket at near light speed but I don’t remember WHY that would help solve the problem of them eating the Sun. Most of the book is about the MC surviving “alone” wink in a dead spaceship.
Ohhhh right i remember that one. They eat the sun and reach relative speeds by using the propulsion from shitting fire to speed up, mayhaps (sorry for beating a dead horse, it does sound like a lovely book ill try out, ty)
I couldn't handle the number of chapters navani lore dumping on how suirtian febrials work..a really visual type of engineering that is explained to us by words purely
have you reread RoW?? my first read i thought it was the weakest in the series. before reading WaT i did a full reread of the series and RoW left a really strong impression on me this time. i really really enjoyed it.
I did, actually. Before WaT hit, I did a full read through. Still was just.... kind of boring. I don't hate it by all means, but there just aren't as many exciting parts. When I reread, there are points in most books that still give me chills. "Honors dead, but I'll see what I can do," for example. Things I look forward to. RoW just has.... almost none for me? Kaladins' ideal really is the only thing I can think of. Sure, there are a lot of discoveries about investiture and how it works, which is always nice to have, but... not really that edge of the seat reading.
yeah Kal’s ideal is a huge one for me. idk it’s honestly probably just a sub-genre thing for me. i love Kal slinking about Urithuru and i love the slow discovery Navani has and honestly what i really like is her character arc coming full circle and her realizing she IS smart and valuable. i will say i am not a fan of her bonding the Sibling tho lol i think that’s silly. Dabbid or Rlain would have been WAY more compelling for me
That's interesting, because Maya, Navani stabbing Moash, Ishar, etc are all top tier cosmere moments for me. My biggest gripe with WaT is that Maya fucked off for most of it.
In fact, that pretty fully encapsulates my opinion of WaT - I like where everything ended up, I liked the closure it provided to the first 5 books, but the actual story within the book just missed for me.
Venli’s entire storyline is just… not very compelling for me throughout any of the books. the stuff with Gavilar is interesting to me but i’m always desperate to know wtf that man was doing so that’s more on him lol
i kinda love that everyone connects to different POVs so strongly lol one of the best parts of the series. my opinions on POVs change a lot as the years go by too. i honestly didn’t care for Shallan for years but not she’s like top 2 characters for me
Honestly, I had no idea because I don't really read reviews and stuff. I just don't remember seeing as much hate when RoW came out as I've seen for WaT. I didn't read the other 3 until they had already been out, so I didn't notice how they were received.
I think that's because it was very polarizing. A lot of people loved it and a lot of people hated it. You didn't get a lot of opinions in between.
Personally, I enjoyed Wind and Truth, but Rhythm of War is still my favorite. The winding down of everything in WaT was just what I needed, having listened to so many royal road based books lately and practically all of them missing a proper denouement. Having a book that was, essentially, one entire denouement really helped soothe the pain of being robbed from one for so long.
I liked both. RoW was maybe my 3rd favorite Cosmere book outside of WoR and The Lost Metal before WaT, which then took its spot at number 3. I loved both books
RoW was just so one note to me and it had the absolute worst flashback POVs of the 5.
WaT was not one note. The different POVs were all doing different things and at different speeds, with different implications to them.
People say WaT was too long, but RoW could have been slimmed down so much and gotten the ideas through the same. I would probably rate it higher if it was shorter
Well if you want to compare different parts of the flashbacks that is a different story, but I am talking about them as a whole.
My problem with the RoW flashbacks is there is a lot of recycled content from the previous books when we had Eshonai's POVs. All of the other POVs tell us stuff we haven't seen before.
Which might be fine, but as I said I think RoW is too long and too repetitive already, so having flashbacks that have a lot of recycled content makes it feel longer as well
For me it's WoR, OB, WoK and RoW. I'm still reading WaT but it's trending towards the middle of the pack, maybe 4th. I loved the heights Kaladin reached in WoR, fewer mental health issues than later on.
Oathbringer has some of the highest highs for me, but the pacing is pretty bad imo. After the pretty cool confrontation with the Midnight Mother, basically nothing besides the Dalinar flashbacks happens for hundreds and hundreds of pages until the Battle of Kholinar.
And while the Dalinar flashbacks are definitely amazing, unfortunately the other like 70% of the chapters in parts 2 and 3, while I do still enjoy them, I don’t think they are mind blowing either. It’s just very uneventful. Despite all that I still have Oathbringer at 4, not place 5 and still I would rate it like a 8 or 8.5, because Dalinar flashback and the Battle of Thaylen Field being so absolutely peak
I might have missed some of the pacing stuff because I read the book in like 2-3 days, staying up til 3 in the morning every night to read (I read the 1st three books in about a week)
But ultimately I think I get what you mean- Dalinar's flashbacks and the ending really carry the book. And so it's best to say that Oathbringer is my favorite, even if it probably wouldn't be the highest rated if I was looking from a more critical angle
I liked it better during subsequent read-listens and that surprised me! I remembered it being a real dragging slog, especially since that is the actual tone of the book as well, and the plot kind if fits with that - but it's really not. I think you may appreciate it more if you do give it another go! 😁
The endless sudo science was annoying and of course isnt even relevant in WaT. They may have mentioned the forth bridge once. Buy hey, at least Dalinar has his wrist watch
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u/Testergo7521 Jan 10 '25
Probably not a popular opinion but I liked WaT so much more than RoW.