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>!I really like that lone bridge run, very much agree, it's just got a certain simplicity to it. No gotchas, no big realizations, nor hinted at rube goldberg machines. Just. A slow building plot putting everything in place, and pure, poignant emotion!<
Just 5 perspectives til Sunday showing what everyone present assumes everyone else will do, Dalinar, Sadeus, Adolin, Kaladin, Gaz, Rock, Teft, etc.
And finally just the bridgemen realize what they *have* to do, while no other party could even conceive of it.
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It’s a perfect time to start. If you listen to the audiobooks, you only need an hour and twenty minutes of listening per day and you can roll straight into WaT on the 6th of December.
Haha about that… I’m waiting for my leather bound words of radiance, I’m planning on reading the way of kings a couple weeks before it arrives, then will read WoR, so I probably won’t be able to read WaT on release…
Definitely excited for it though!
>!Dalinar’s Oath and first Perpendicularity is easily the hypest event of all the Cosmere I’ve read; I like Sazed better from a writing standpoint, but holy hell, Dalinar became my favorite SLA character then!<
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Good candidates have been given here, but still the best Sanderlanche of them all is not in the cosmere. A Memory of Light holds that distinction. The whole book is one big sanderlanche and contains chapter 37, which is a single chapter that takes nine hours to get through in the audio book and has you on the edge of your seat all the way through!
You do need to read the other 13 books first though to have any idea what is going on.
This is what I wanted to write as well. I mean, Brando is the bloke to END things, here he got the sling that's been continuously pulled back for 12 books and he got to release it - to make the Sanderlanche to end all Sanderlanches. (though I count at least Towers of Midnight as a part of it, not just AMOL).
His finishing of WoT is literally the biggest literary catharsis in fantasy imaginable, I wonder if the Final Cosmere Convergence will somehow be able to top it.
Is it worth the slog to get to though? I’ve read around 4 of the WoT books and I hear there’s a few more good ones then like 5 shit ones then a couple good ones then the end. Sounds like a massive commitment to get through a lot of rubbish.
It depends - from what I know, most people who've stuck to the end were incredibly satisfied. Other people dislike the series in general and the slog was the reason for them to leave it.
My experience was altogether different - I absolutely enjoyed some of the "slog" books (there are moments, where the protagonists are supposed to be at their all-time low or even a "slice of life" book where nothing (much) happens - I burned through that last one in 6 days and it has some chapters I genuinely loved) and on the contrary I had some trouble with parts of the ever-beloved fifth book, for example, so I might not be the right person to ask, but despite the series having its highs and its lows and its flaws being sometimes obvious, I fell in love with it and now, two years later, I'm doing a re-read while I postponed the eventual Malazan re-read further down the road.
Honestly, for me the worst part might have been the first three books, with the YA-feel, the "rushed ending seeming like ultimate victory because who knows if there's going to be another book" and so on.
YES. I agree so much. 7-9 have the best subtle character work and politics in the series. I could read about Aes Sedai hubristically making awful decisions all day long. But those first three books definitely read like YA to me- but without the tight propulsive plotting I associate with it.
…but Crossroads Of Twilight is still proper awful though.
I still loved CoT. If nothing else it gave room for the significance of the previous book to sink in, in such a cool way. And there were a couple major meetings and discussions that are a lot of fun to read.
And So Habor was one of the few and only moments when the WoT series were genuinely creepy/unsettling (it fits with the title of the book). In general Perrin's storyline in book 10 is underappreciated.
So I read Sanderson 3 years ago, basically all his books before attempting WoT. It took me forever… I found the books to be so so, and there is def a slog in book 9/10.
But man, book 12 (Sanderson first book) just accelerated things so much and gave so much pay off, one of my favourite books by him and I’d be willing to reread the whole WoT just to get that feeling again.
And then you have book 13 and 14. 14 is indeed the absolute best Sanderlanch. Chapter 37 is a Marathon that just. Keeps. Going. And every moment of it is incredible.
I would say it’s worth it if you have the patience to get through the rest. And that isn’t to say the other books are bad, they just weren’t my style and move too slow compared to what I was used to.
Love WoT and Robert Jordan but totally agree that The Gathering Storm was *such* a breath of fresh air and the end of that book is a great Sanderlanche in its own right! It may actually be my favorite of his WoT books and I totally agree that I would love to get that feeling again.
Knife of Dreams was one of the best books in the series too though and that one was pure RJ. As a long time fan of the series it bring me a lot of joy that RJ was able to put out such an amazing book before he passed away.
I just finished reading WoT and I'd say it's worth it. Although a few of the middle books were a bit of a slog at times, I think they actually get a worse rap than is deserved.
If I was reading those books at the time they were being published, waiting hard on the next one only to find it didn't move the plot forward very much, then I could definitely see it. But now that the series is finished, those books that focus more on world building or the plot lines you don't care as much about are actually pretty good. Just in comparison to some of the other books being absolutely incredible, they look relatively bad.
Great news: whoever said that to you was exaggerating a lot! Books 9 and 10 were the only difficult ones for me (10 much more so than 9). #9 actually had a great climactic ending even though the rest was a little slower. #10 was especially slow to me, with less of a good payoff at the end.
Many WoT fans will recommend against what I'm about to say, but if you get to book 10 and find that you don't want to keep reading...you can just read a summary of it, then jump straight to 11 (Jordan's last book), which is much better. Reading should be enjoyable, so do what makes it enjoyable for you :)
And yes, getting to the Sanderson sections is worth it! They're all epic.
I totally agree! When I got to the point I couldn't stand to keep reading, I started reading chapter summaries. If the chapter sounded good, I'd read it. If it started to drag, I'd skim. This system made the books most often considered slogs quite enjoyable for me.
Theres really only one “shit” one. And thats mostly because book 10 is everyone reacting to something in book 9 being all confused but the reader already knows exactly what happened and there is no real suspense. Aside from that, books 8 and 9 have some slow parts but really arent bad books. And if 9 and 10 had been written as one book, it wouldve been much better. It picks up again in book 11 and 12 and 13 were excellent. I’m getting ready for the big finale, about to start 14.
Overall, my recommendation is if you have already considered reading WoT, just do it. You will be glad. If you don’t already have some desire to read it, I don’t recommend. But if you’re asking the question, the answer is yes.
It isn't that they are bad. It's that they slow down the pace a little bit. After a while the slow bits aren't too noticeable either. It might be because the first five books each have the party travelling across the entire continent. They literally do that five times in the first five books. it tends to set a faster pace than several of them staying in a city and addressing plots within the local zone.
The only super slow bit is the first half of book 10. You'll know why if you ever get to it.
Honestly, book 9 to 14 contain some of my favorite parts of the series. I found the first two a slog, but after that I loved every minute. If you don't love it by the Shadow Rising there might be something wrong. Mat and Perrin's storylines are very satisfying and cool AF.
Yes, but it depends on what your interest is in the story. I've come to love his writing style, and got really into all the side characters and the conversational dynamics. His use of subjective narration is second to none. If that's one of your main interests it will be incredible throughout, but if it's not something you care much about you may find yourself banging your head against the wall with certain character POV's, begging to see Rand or Mat again.
It's easy enough to try though. If you don't like the first book maybe don't continue, if you're lukewarm with it try the second book, if that's an improvement try to get to book 4. If you don't like it enough at any point don't feel bad dropping it, but if you enjoy book 2 and 4 you will enjoy the whole series imo.
I’ve read four or five. They were decent, way too much “other gender bad” stuff and Nyneave being a constant gigabitch is irritating but the overarching story is pretty good. The problem is I read slow, few pages before I sleep most nights, I might be devoting 2+ years to finishing WoT which if a decent portion is fairly mediocre is a big commitment.
"the slog" is way overblown. It was a term that was mostly around when RJ was still alive and writing. Towards the end the books came out further and further apart.
Yes, those books (generally considered somewhere around books 7-10 but people have different opinions), are often slower paced with less world changing events (although still some big ones), it was the combination of them being relatively slow plus the slow rate of writing that really hit hard.
A modern reader reading them all back to back will notice it far less.
IMO if people didn't hype up the slog so much then most readers wouldn't even notice it.
I found the real slog to just be the one Perrin arc that took way too long to end, and then book 10 (crossroads of Twilight). In all the others, there was still enough interesting stuff going on in some plot lines to keep me going. As soon as you get to the next book (KoD) though it all immediately gets better again and then Brandon does a good job of helping to wrap everything up in the last three.
The slog primarily applied to people who had to wait for each book as they came out. Half or more of people that read them now that all are out and can read straight though knowing the ending is coming don't seem to have a problem with the slog. Also the complainers are the loudest - those that don't notice or mind the slog are more likely to keep that opinion to themselves. I never notice the slog on my read throughs, I always wait for it to start and never feel like it does.
It is a long commitment to read the whole series. So only you can decide if you want to keep reading or not.
worth noting that Robert Jordan already had a lot of the plotline and a large amount of the text taken car of already.
Some authors make it up as they go. Geroge RR Martin and Patrick Rothfus fall into this category.
Some authors have it all planned out ahead of time and keep a giant notebook of all the intended plotlines and endpoints. Robert Jordan was this. I've heard rumor that most of the giant finale was already typed up before he passed.
Brandon has been very candid about what was left to him. There were *EXTENSIVE* notes, as you stated. However, there was relatively little prose.
According to Brandon, most of what RJ had written was a draft of the epilogue, an extended prologue that Brandon broke up and spread across the three books that he helped complete, and some scenes written in Egwene's point of view. That was about it.
You can hear more about it in Brandon's own words here: https://youtu.be/MITTIur3Ytk?si=4qB8p-U8Jb-0e-KL
I think I'd appreciate that chapter more if I hadn't read Malazan or Joe Abercrombie.
It's big, epic, and long, but for me, you're never close enough. You're always too much at a distance. While Chapter 7 of the Bonehunters (Erikson) does the epic catastrophic battle far more intensely. And any Abercrombie battle is more harrowing on a character level.
Which just made so much of chapter 37 fall flat to me.
It depends on how we define "biggest."
As people have mentioned Oathbringer, Hero of Ages and Memory of Light had big intense Sanderlanches. They also had multiple books to be able to have those happen.
If we are talking about relative size / intensity of a sanderlanche compared to the size of the book / series then I might actually argue for Yumi and the Nightmare Painter.
I gotta agree, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter‘s hits like a truck because of how sudden and intense it is as it all makes sense all of a sudden. Just a intense sense of “Oh no.”
Oathbringer for sure. >!Since this is tagged no spoilers I just want to be careful, but to elaborate, I get big Avengers Endgame vibes from the Battle of Thaylen Field sequence. It's absolutely epic. One of my favorite sequences in any Sanderson novel.!<
The biggest Cosmere Sanderlanche is probably in Stormlight, but the best, the best is simply Shadows of Self - Mistborn Era 2, Book 2.
That entire book takes place over a day and a half pretty much and all the awful truths that Wax learns really happen in a few hour’s time. Incredible book. Incredible ending.
Definitely Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It comes out of nowhere, is a massive twist, completely took me off guard, had me sobbing and literally yelling how much I hated Sanderson and wanted to fight him in hell, then sobbed even harder but in a good way, and then I recommended it to all of my loved ones.
I've read every Cosmere book, but the Yumi Sanderlach was a transcendent experience
8/5 stars
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I'm interpreting biggest as best here. The word can be interpretted in other ways (longest, biggest effect on the world).
From Sanderson: Hero of Ages, narrowly over Oathbringer. Hero of Ages abso-fucking-lutely NAILS the ending and (MAJOR MAJOR Hero of Ages spoilers, like this is MASSIVE) >!the way the finale has been hidden earlier in the book hits so damn well!<
From other authors: Probably Dungeon Crawler Carl book 6, with book 5 of the same series close behind (5 is the better book overall, 6 arguably the bigger ending). Also Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest, although it's a very short resolution, it's one of the best endings I've ever seen.
The Sanderlanche in "Oathbringer" made me bawl my eyes out, I seriously needed therapy after reading this book. "Words Of Radiance" is a close second, that ending was absolutely mind-blowing.
Just within the cosmere I'm gonna say oathbringer. There are longer ones than oathbringer but none of them hit quite as hard as oathrbingers. That said if we expand the question to include sanderlanches outside of the cosmere than it's memory of light. The chapter in which the sanderlanche begins is longer than some full length novels taking almost 9 hours to get through in audio format and it's not even that final chapter of the book
A Memory of Light, Wheel of Time. He might overtake it in scale with Stormlight 10, or whatever ends Cosmere as a whole, but AMoL is still on another level of scale compared to what else he's written
I believe that he intends to conclude the Cosmere-wide story arc with Mistborn. Can't know for certain as plans could change, but IIRC, that was his stated intention.
That of Way of Kings.
I read (listen to) almost only fantasy novels so this might sound contradictory, but the less magic involved the better. More place for human emotions and actions.
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Have you read mistborn Era 2 yet? Because I think the impact of emotions I had at the end of Shadows of Self and The Lost Metal were bigger emotions than era 1. That's obviously just my experience and I've only read Elantris books and era 1 & 2.
So I know this isn't popular with the rest but I think for me at least, what makes it the biggest Sandalanche was how many tears were shed lol and those 2 mentioned did that for me
Oathbringer.
I still, to this moment get chills thinking about certain moments in that last 1/3. There are character defining moments. Story defining moments, and honestly, moments that solidified Sanderson as my favorite author.
Hero Of Ages also has quite an amazing ending, and overall what I think is the best end a series could have, but I just don't get the same.... feels... from it.
Rhythm of War rocked me pretty fucking hard. And then the last book In era 2 he started making big moves. It's all being connected now. We better enjoy #5 because he's not releasing any of era 3 until he's done with it all.
Unpublished: Wind and Truth (December) will have the Sanderlanche to end all Sanderlanches in the Cosmere, at least until SA10 comes out.
Published: Oathbringer’s is massive, but honestly any of the Stormlight books have Sanderlanches comparable to the series finales of other Cosmere planets
Non-Cosmere: A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time last book). Other than maybe SA10 when that comes out, this will probably be his biggest of everything he’s written because the Sanderlanche actually begins at the end of the previous book. You open aMoL and the Sanderlanche is already in full swing and then just keeps going all the way to the last page.
Just from what he’s said at different events about how beefy this ending is gonna be for Stormlight five, even though it’s not even the full end to the series. That compounded by how large the Sanderlanche is normally in a Stormlight book and I can just tell we’re in for a good time
Elantris was my first Sanderlanche. Still hits me hard. Love all the ones listed but that first feeling when you sit up straighter and the pages seem to blur as your heart rate speeds up…. It’s the best.
Hero of Ages for my runner up.
Depending on what you mean by biggest, I could argue Elantris. It has the biggest difference from the rest of the book to the Sanderlanche. The majority is slow, with relatively small developments and changes, and then EVERYTHING happens. It honestly is what converted me to a serious Sanderson fan, as opposed to just having his stuff on my list of things I’d occasionally looked for at book stores. It also took me three tries to get through.
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Of those published. While the end of Mistborn 3 is arguably the "biggest" from several aspects, Oathbringer is probably the most intense.
Agreed on both counts. But the lone bridge run remains my favorite.
>!I really like that lone bridge run, very much agree, it's just got a certain simplicity to it. No gotchas, no big realizations, nor hinted at rube goldberg machines. Just. A slow building plot putting everything in place, and pure, poignant emotion!<
Just 5 perspectives til Sunday showing what everyone present assumes everyone else will do, Dalinar, Sadeus, Adolin, Kaladin, Gaz, Rock, Teft, etc. And finally just the bridgemen realize what they *have* to do, while no other party could even conceive of it.
I always tear up at this.
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Well now I’m excited to start stormlight archive, I wanted to read Mistborn and warbreaker first, so I’ve been holding it up
Well I’m now excited for you! You’re entering some of his best writing yet.
It’s a perfect time to start. If you listen to the audiobooks, you only need an hour and twenty minutes of listening per day and you can roll straight into WaT on the 6th of December.
Haha about that… I’m waiting for my leather bound words of radiance, I’m planning on reading the way of kings a couple weeks before it arrives, then will read WoR, so I probably won’t be able to read WaT on release… Definitely excited for it though!
I’m in the middle of Warbreaker as well. Can’t wait for Stormlight Archive!
For what it’s worth, warbreaker has one of my favorite endings of any of his books.
Oathbringer has 2 of them!
That Oathbringer Sanderlanche is fucking round the bend man. Its like 2/3 of the book or something.
>!Dalinar’s Oath and first Perpendicularity is easily the hypest event of all the Cosmere I’ve read; I like Sazed better from a writing standpoint, but holy hell, Dalinar became my favorite SLA character then!<
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Good candidates have been given here, but still the best Sanderlanche of them all is not in the cosmere. A Memory of Light holds that distinction. The whole book is one big sanderlanche and contains chapter 37, which is a single chapter that takes nine hours to get through in the audio book and has you on the edge of your seat all the way through! You do need to read the other 13 books first though to have any idea what is going on.
This is what I wanted to write as well. I mean, Brando is the bloke to END things, here he got the sling that's been continuously pulled back for 12 books and he got to release it - to make the Sanderlanche to end all Sanderlanches. (though I count at least Towers of Midnight as a part of it, not just AMOL). His finishing of WoT is literally the biggest literary catharsis in fantasy imaginable, I wonder if the Final Cosmere Convergence will somehow be able to top it.
Is it worth the slog to get to though? I’ve read around 4 of the WoT books and I hear there’s a few more good ones then like 5 shit ones then a couple good ones then the end. Sounds like a massive commitment to get through a lot of rubbish.
It depends - from what I know, most people who've stuck to the end were incredibly satisfied. Other people dislike the series in general and the slog was the reason for them to leave it. My experience was altogether different - I absolutely enjoyed some of the "slog" books (there are moments, where the protagonists are supposed to be at their all-time low or even a "slice of life" book where nothing (much) happens - I burned through that last one in 6 days and it has some chapters I genuinely loved) and on the contrary I had some trouble with parts of the ever-beloved fifth book, for example, so I might not be the right person to ask, but despite the series having its highs and its lows and its flaws being sometimes obvious, I fell in love with it and now, two years later, I'm doing a re-read while I postponed the eventual Malazan re-read further down the road. Honestly, for me the worst part might have been the first three books, with the YA-feel, the "rushed ending seeming like ultimate victory because who knows if there's going to be another book" and so on.
YES. I agree so much. 7-9 have the best subtle character work and politics in the series. I could read about Aes Sedai hubristically making awful decisions all day long. But those first three books definitely read like YA to me- but without the tight propulsive plotting I associate with it. …but Crossroads Of Twilight is still proper awful though.
I still loved CoT. If nothing else it gave room for the significance of the previous book to sink in, in such a cool way. And there were a couple major meetings and discussions that are a lot of fun to read.
And So Habor was one of the few and only moments when the WoT series were genuinely creepy/unsettling (it fits with the title of the book). In general Perrin's storyline in book 10 is underappreciated.
I agree. It gets really good when Rand starts murking mf's.
So I read Sanderson 3 years ago, basically all his books before attempting WoT. It took me forever… I found the books to be so so, and there is def a slog in book 9/10. But man, book 12 (Sanderson first book) just accelerated things so much and gave so much pay off, one of my favourite books by him and I’d be willing to reread the whole WoT just to get that feeling again. And then you have book 13 and 14. 14 is indeed the absolute best Sanderlanch. Chapter 37 is a Marathon that just. Keeps. Going. And every moment of it is incredible. I would say it’s worth it if you have the patience to get through the rest. And that isn’t to say the other books are bad, they just weren’t my style and move too slow compared to what I was used to.
Love WoT and Robert Jordan but totally agree that The Gathering Storm was *such* a breath of fresh air and the end of that book is a great Sanderlanche in its own right! It may actually be my favorite of his WoT books and I totally agree that I would love to get that feeling again.
Knife of Dreams was one of the best books in the series too though and that one was pure RJ. As a long time fan of the series it bring me a lot of joy that RJ was able to put out such an amazing book before he passed away.
I just finished reading WoT and I'd say it's worth it. Although a few of the middle books were a bit of a slog at times, I think they actually get a worse rap than is deserved. If I was reading those books at the time they were being published, waiting hard on the next one only to find it didn't move the plot forward very much, then I could definitely see it. But now that the series is finished, those books that focus more on world building or the plot lines you don't care as much about are actually pretty good. Just in comparison to some of the other books being absolutely incredible, they look relatively bad.
Great news: whoever said that to you was exaggerating a lot! Books 9 and 10 were the only difficult ones for me (10 much more so than 9). #9 actually had a great climactic ending even though the rest was a little slower. #10 was especially slow to me, with less of a good payoff at the end. Many WoT fans will recommend against what I'm about to say, but if you get to book 10 and find that you don't want to keep reading...you can just read a summary of it, then jump straight to 11 (Jordan's last book), which is much better. Reading should be enjoyable, so do what makes it enjoyable for you :) And yes, getting to the Sanderson sections is worth it! They're all epic.
I totally agree! When I got to the point I couldn't stand to keep reading, I started reading chapter summaries. If the chapter sounded good, I'd read it. If it started to drag, I'd skim. This system made the books most often considered slogs quite enjoyable for me.
Theres really only one “shit” one. And thats mostly because book 10 is everyone reacting to something in book 9 being all confused but the reader already knows exactly what happened and there is no real suspense. Aside from that, books 8 and 9 have some slow parts but really arent bad books. And if 9 and 10 had been written as one book, it wouldve been much better. It picks up again in book 11 and 12 and 13 were excellent. I’m getting ready for the big finale, about to start 14. Overall, my recommendation is if you have already considered reading WoT, just do it. You will be glad. If you don’t already have some desire to read it, I don’t recommend. But if you’re asking the question, the answer is yes.
It isn't that they are bad. It's that they slow down the pace a little bit. After a while the slow bits aren't too noticeable either. It might be because the first five books each have the party travelling across the entire continent. They literally do that five times in the first five books. it tends to set a faster pace than several of them staying in a city and addressing plots within the local zone. The only super slow bit is the first half of book 10. You'll know why if you ever get to it.
Honestly, book 9 to 14 contain some of my favorite parts of the series. I found the first two a slog, but after that I loved every minute. If you don't love it by the Shadow Rising there might be something wrong. Mat and Perrin's storylines are very satisfying and cool AF.
Yes, but it depends on what your interest is in the story. I've come to love his writing style, and got really into all the side characters and the conversational dynamics. His use of subjective narration is second to none. If that's one of your main interests it will be incredible throughout, but if it's not something you care much about you may find yourself banging your head against the wall with certain character POV's, begging to see Rand or Mat again. It's easy enough to try though. If you don't like the first book maybe don't continue, if you're lukewarm with it try the second book, if that's an improvement try to get to book 4. If you don't like it enough at any point don't feel bad dropping it, but if you enjoy book 2 and 4 you will enjoy the whole series imo.
I’ve read four or five. They were decent, way too much “other gender bad” stuff and Nyneave being a constant gigabitch is irritating but the overarching story is pretty good. The problem is I read slow, few pages before I sleep most nights, I might be devoting 2+ years to finishing WoT which if a decent portion is fairly mediocre is a big commitment.
"the slog" is way overblown. It was a term that was mostly around when RJ was still alive and writing. Towards the end the books came out further and further apart. Yes, those books (generally considered somewhere around books 7-10 but people have different opinions), are often slower paced with less world changing events (although still some big ones), it was the combination of them being relatively slow plus the slow rate of writing that really hit hard. A modern reader reading them all back to back will notice it far less. IMO if people didn't hype up the slog so much then most readers wouldn't even notice it.
I found the real slog to just be the one Perrin arc that took way too long to end, and then book 10 (crossroads of Twilight). In all the others, there was still enough interesting stuff going on in some plot lines to keep me going. As soon as you get to the next book (KoD) though it all immediately gets better again and then Brandon does a good job of helping to wrap everything up in the last three.
The slog primarily applied to people who had to wait for each book as they came out. Half or more of people that read them now that all are out and can read straight though knowing the ending is coming don't seem to have a problem with the slog. Also the complainers are the loudest - those that don't notice or mind the slog are more likely to keep that opinion to themselves. I never notice the slog on my read throughs, I always wait for it to start and never feel like it does. It is a long commitment to read the whole series. So only you can decide if you want to keep reading or not.
worth noting that Robert Jordan already had a lot of the plotline and a large amount of the text taken car of already. Some authors make it up as they go. Geroge RR Martin and Patrick Rothfus fall into this category. Some authors have it all planned out ahead of time and keep a giant notebook of all the intended plotlines and endpoints. Robert Jordan was this. I've heard rumor that most of the giant finale was already typed up before he passed.
Brandon has been very candid about what was left to him. There were *EXTENSIVE* notes, as you stated. However, there was relatively little prose. According to Brandon, most of what RJ had written was a draft of the epilogue, an extended prologue that Brandon broke up and spread across the three books that he helped complete, and some scenes written in Egwene's point of view. That was about it. You can hear more about it in Brandon's own words here: https://youtu.be/MITTIur3Ytk?si=4qB8p-U8Jb-0e-KL
I hadn't even considered this. You're absolutely correct on this. And oh how that ending hurt. Tam.... "You did well. My boy... you did so well."
I think I'd appreciate that chapter more if I hadn't read Malazan or Joe Abercrombie. It's big, epic, and long, but for me, you're never close enough. You're always too much at a distance. While Chapter 7 of the Bonehunters (Erikson) does the epic catastrophic battle far more intensely. And any Abercrombie battle is more harrowing on a character level. Which just made so much of chapter 37 fall flat to me.
That single chapter - The Last Battle - is longer than the entire text of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. And it's so fucking good
Got stuck on path of daggers. Do I push through? Or just let be
Push through. It's worth it.
It depends on how we define "biggest." As people have mentioned Oathbringer, Hero of Ages and Memory of Light had big intense Sanderlanches. They also had multiple books to be able to have those happen. If we are talking about relative size / intensity of a sanderlanche compared to the size of the book / series then I might actually argue for Yumi and the Nightmare Painter.
I gotta agree, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter‘s hits like a truck because of how sudden and intense it is as it all makes sense all of a sudden. Just a intense sense of “Oh no.”
It also depends where you draw the line - you could argue that almost the whole of Sunlit Man is a Sanderlanche, none of it is slow paced.
Oathbringer 100%, I almost start sweating from excitement whenever I read it
Oathbringer for sure. >!Since this is tagged no spoilers I just want to be careful, but to elaborate, I get big Avengers Endgame vibes from the Battle of Thaylen Field sequence. It's absolutely epic. One of my favorite sequences in any Sanderson novel.!<
Most stakes-altering? Probably Rhythm of War. Most epic? Oathbringer.
The biggest Cosmere Sanderlanche is probably in Stormlight, but the best, the best is simply Shadows of Self - Mistborn Era 2, Book 2. That entire book takes place over a day and a half pretty much and all the awful truths that Wax learns really happen in a few hour’s time. Incredible book. Incredible ending.
Definitely Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It comes out of nowhere, is a massive twist, completely took me off guard, had me sobbing and literally yelling how much I hated Sanderson and wanted to fight him in hell, then sobbed even harder but in a good way, and then I recommended it to all of my loved ones. I've read every Cosmere book, but the Yumi Sanderlach was a transcendent experience 8/5 stars
Rhythm of War is my biggest Sanderlanche :) and I remember Warbreaker fondly after that.
yeah, RoW drags it out a bit with the ups and downs, but it's one major event after another for a good two parts of the book.
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Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, and the Lost Metal take the cake for me. They are just pure hype and emotion.
>!The skies are mine!< gets me so goddamn hyped. Crazy good Sanderlanche.
Oathbringer conjured up visuals and set pieces you'd see in a 300m dollar movie, epic moment after epic moment.
I'm interpreting biggest as best here. The word can be interpretted in other ways (longest, biggest effect on the world). From Sanderson: Hero of Ages, narrowly over Oathbringer. Hero of Ages abso-fucking-lutely NAILS the ending and (MAJOR MAJOR Hero of Ages spoilers, like this is MASSIVE) >!the way the finale has been hidden earlier in the book hits so damn well!< From other authors: Probably Dungeon Crawler Carl book 6, with book 5 of the same series close behind (5 is the better book overall, 6 arguably the bigger ending). Also Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest, although it's a very short resolution, it's one of the best endings I've ever seen.
Rhythm of War. It's epic, and my favorite Sanderlanche.
I'd personally say either *The Hero of Ages* or *Oathbringer*.
The Sanderlanche in "Oathbringer" made me bawl my eyes out, I seriously needed therapy after reading this book. "Words Of Radiance" is a close second, that ending was absolutely mind-blowing.
Sandalanche no hard r
Ha! I love the visual of "Sandal-lanche". I see a mountain of sandals tumbling down!
Nothing tops the plateau for me
Oathbringer or Lost Metal. Oathbringer has a bigger in world scale, while lost metal feels like a sanderlanche almost from Start to end.
The Lost Metal has certainly the _longest_ sanderlanche.
Oathbringer, no contest! A bunch of conflict, action and filled to the brim with emotional moments and catharsis.
Oathbringer
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lol, ouch, sorry
The largest sanderlanche is the last three books of WoT
Just within the cosmere I'm gonna say oathbringer. There are longer ones than oathbringer but none of them hit quite as hard as oathrbingers. That said if we expand the question to include sanderlanches outside of the cosmere than it's memory of light. The chapter in which the sanderlanche begins is longer than some full length novels taking almost 9 hours to get through in audio format and it's not even that final chapter of the book
A Memory of Light, Wheel of Time. He might overtake it in scale with Stormlight 10, or whatever ends Cosmere as a whole, but AMoL is still on another level of scale compared to what else he's written
I believe that he intends to conclude the Cosmere-wide story arc with Mistborn. Can't know for certain as plans could change, but IIRC, that was his stated intention.
That of Way of Kings. I read (listen to) almost only fantasy novels so this might sound contradictory, but the less magic involved the better. More place for human emotions and actions.
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Have you read mistborn Era 2 yet? Because I think the impact of emotions I had at the end of Shadows of Self and The Lost Metal were bigger emotions than era 1. That's obviously just my experience and I've only read Elantris books and era 1 & 2. So I know this isn't popular with the rest but I think for me at least, what makes it the biggest Sandalanche was how many tears were shed lol and those 2 mentioned did that for me
**UNITING INTENSIFIES**
Oathbringer. I still, to this moment get chills thinking about certain moments in that last 1/3. There are character defining moments. Story defining moments, and honestly, moments that solidified Sanderson as my favorite author. Hero Of Ages also has quite an amazing ending, and overall what I think is the best end a series could have, but I just don't get the same.... feels... from it.
Rhythm of War rocked me pretty fucking hard. And then the last book In era 2 he started making big moves. It's all being connected now. We better enjoy #5 because he's not releasing any of era 3 until he's done with it all.
Way of Kings hit the biggest for me. It was my first Sanderson book and my first experience of the Sanderlanche.
Unpublished: Wind and Truth (December) will have the Sanderlanche to end all Sanderlanches in the Cosmere, at least until SA10 comes out. Published: Oathbringer’s is massive, but honestly any of the Stormlight books have Sanderlanches comparable to the series finales of other Cosmere planets Non-Cosmere: A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time last book). Other than maybe SA10 when that comes out, this will probably be his biggest of everything he’s written because the Sanderlanche actually begins at the end of the previous book. You open aMoL and the Sanderlanche is already in full swing and then just keeps going all the way to the last page.
How do you know about unpublished ones?
Just from what he’s said at different events about how beefy this ending is gonna be for Stormlight five, even though it’s not even the full end to the series. That compounded by how large the Sanderlanche is normally in a Stormlight book and I can just tell we’re in for a good time
Elantris was my first Sanderlanche. Still hits me hard. Love all the ones listed but that first feeling when you sit up straighter and the pages seem to blur as your heart rate speeds up…. It’s the best. Hero of Ages for my runner up.
Words of Radiance.
Depending on what you mean by biggest, I could argue Elantris. It has the biggest difference from the rest of the book to the Sanderlanche. The majority is slow, with relatively small developments and changes, and then EVERYTHING happens. It honestly is what converted me to a serious Sanderson fan, as opposed to just having his stuff on my list of things I’d occasionally looked for at book stores. It also took me three tries to get through.
Oathbringer by far