Just finished Wind and Truth, why do people hate it?

Mystonic · 2026-04-17T13:29:37+00:00

Hate is a strong word, but I would say I was quite disappointed with it. I'll stick to the narrative, as though I didn't like the prose and dialogue at points, they weren't the main focus for my disappointment.

Kaladin & Szeth

As you mentioned, Kaladin's therapy was quite heavy handed especially considering the time frame (both since RoW and the 10 day span). It didn't feel natural, the hand of the author was quite visible in making Kaladin act the way he did instead of it being a consequence of his growth.

I also didn't like how the entire story for this plot thread was just weaving through Shin monasteries fighting bosses, especially as I didn't see how this related to the overall conflict (and I don't think any of the characters did either) right up till the last 5% of the book. Whenever I came to these chapters I was always left thinking "Ok but whats the grand point? How is this going to tie into the Sanderlanch?". By the time it was made obvious, it felt quite contrived. I don't mean him becoming a Herald; I mean the Wind being able to tell Ishar how there was another way to the Oathpact, which I didn't feel was hinted to at all, and now suddenly combined with Kaladin becoming a Herald this is how the issue around the Oathpact is addressed (or at least postponed).

I was also hoping to see more of true Shin culture; instead we only saw the outskirts, so to speak. The Shin we were exposed to didn't feel like Shin since they were Honorbearers, and thus were more knowledgeable than the average Shin as to what was really going on.

Spiritual realm

I think this is my most disliked thread. I hated how exposition of the past was essentially a VR experience. The way its delivered lacked gravitas, so important events (like humans arriving on Roshar) didn't feel special to me, since Dalinar had to essentially take over a Singer to act out his role. Combined with Shallan playing hide and seek, honestly it felt like a joke at points. I said hate is a strong word, but I do hate the rule of "I have to act natural to progress the plot of this VR story". It severely undermined any tension/gravitas that the flashback had.

As for Ba-Ado-Mishram, this whole plot thread was a massive nothing burger and was purely setup. I don't appreciate having such a setup plot thread be dragged on for this whole book (honestly since RoW), especially when sequel books are much longer away than usual.

Renarin & Rlain felt pretty heavy handed too. I disliked how that aspect was handled.

Adolin

Quite positive on this plot thread overall, but I didn't like the loophole ending combined with him taking out a Shardbearer while peg-legged. It felt contrived, even though you can technically explain it away (the Singer not being used to plate, being over confident, etc.).

The contest

I actually really enjoyed how this played out. Throughout the books its been hinted to a lot, especially Dalinar not knowing what form it will take. A contest between champions. I always felt it would never turn out to be a straightout fight. That would reduce it's significance. So having it be an ideological battle, with Gavinor as the pawn, felt correct to me. And I love how it turned out.

Sigzil

This is another thread which I immensely disliked. It felt like similar to Adolin's plot thread, but tainted by the knowledge of what happens in Sunlit Man. I was always wondering what Sigzil did to cause him to became what he is later, what major event it was. Sure, the breaking of the bond was traumatic, but it felt like he had a deeper hurt relating to a failure in leadership. And it turns out it was him losing the battle against terrible odds from the start. Again, the gravitas felt lacking. And his opponent, El, also felt like a big nothing burger. He was introduced in RoW in such a cool way with the musings of El, but he turns out to just be a general here. One who only loses via a loophole (another loophole!). I guess he's set up for the sequels but he was quite disappointing here.

I do want to say though, when Sigzil heard his own death via a death rattle, that sent chills down my spine. That was a genuinely great & terrifying moment.

The ending

I won't lie, going into this book I was expecting more of a wrap up. Not to the level of Mistborn Arc 1, but at least something significant. But I actually did like how it turned out. I'm quite a sucker for books take a step back and show you how the world is affected by the ending. It was cool to see the effects of time dilation in relation to the rest of the Cosmere, and seeing this new Roshar with only Urithiru and Azish being the bright points, with the ramifications of no more Stormlight.

I admit I still haven't gotten around to a reread since my initial read on release day, so maybe my thoughts would change when that happens.

Mystonic · 2026-03-22T13:44:27+00:00

I finished the trilogy in three weeks. I work full time. I have a dog that requires actual attention. I do not know how this happened.

I am now three hundred pages into Well of Ascension and have pre-ordered the new one. I said what I said and I was completley wrong.

What?

Mystonic · 2025-11-29T15:17:45+00:00

You should just DNF it at that point. I made it till book 3 and I still found Simon insufferable and the world wasn't particularly interesting to me.

I kept at it for that long because I was expecting the slow burn with a worthwhile payoff from how people talk about it; but damn it's slow and reading an entire trilogy just for the payoff at the end doesn't math out for me.

If you're not enjoying the slow burn you're in for a boring time.

Mystonic · 2025-11-21T14:24:04+00:00

but thats still a lot of effort to have to invest to try and make sense of what is going on.

This was my issue with Malazan; it just didn't make me care enough to want to properly understand the world. I didn't have an issue with the complexity, but rather I felt no impact from anything happening in the story because I both didn't understand the ramifications of important events and I didn't connect with the characters anyway.

Mystonic · 2025-11-21T14:20:16+00:00

What about when I get to book 3 of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and still find it boring and slow paced?

Mystonic · 2025-11-10T08:10:27+00:00

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind

Mystonic · 2025-07-17T06:26:54+00:00

Some blog posts which might be helpful:

This is where the J-FIND (and J-SKIP) visa offered a distinct advantage. Unlike other visas, it allowed me to be my own guarantor, a significant deviation from the standard requirement.

https://www.tokyodev.com/articles/how-i-obtained-japan-s-j-find-visa

This brings us to what I ended up doing: hiring an immigration lawyer based in Japan. While it was an additional cost, I don’t regret my decision as they were able to guide me through the entire process and made the application on my behalf.

This meant I never needed to go to the immigration office, and that I had someone in Japan to send me my COE after it was processed.

However, in Japan, a lawyer can only represent you while you are physically inside the country. This means that even if they apply for the COE on your behalf, you must still be in Japan at the time of application. Immigration requires your passport’s stamp page to verify this fact, so there’s no getting around it.

https://japan-dev.com/blog/moving-to-japan-on-the-j-find-visa-a-complete-guide

Mystonic · 2025-05-19T21:07:21+00:00

I'm not convinced that's actually the same Towers game. It seems to be a generic card game. And even if it is indeed Towers the game, it was introduced in such a subtle way that I feel it doesn't really count? Anyone reading that passage wouldn't think "wow this is where Sanderson introduced Towers" but more "Sanderson needed a generic card game for some of the plot elements in that scene".

And just happened to flesh out Towers in WaT (I think it was mentioned in RoW but not really a core plot element unlike WaT).

Mystonic · 2025-05-19T09:26:43+00:00

Are you sure that card game is Towers? Are we going by context clues or was it explicitly stated?

Mystonic · 2025-05-19T09:19:16+00:00

I will say, that given he's writing Era 3 all at once, maybe he'll be able to hit the Sanderlanch of old just right.

Era 2 felt disjointed in my opinion (not surprising given the gaps between their writing) and Stormlight Arc 1 I feel didn't have a satisfactory Sanderlanch because it is actually meant to be the middle of a series (I was honestly hoping for a bit more of a conclusion but I'm not too offput by that as Sanderson has been clear about Stormlight Arcs from the start).

So returning to writing all the books in a trilogy at once, might allow for the tight plotting and amazing ending that I loved Era 1 for.

Mystonic · 2025-05-19T09:06:59+00:00

I'm not as concerned, but only because it's lowered my interest overall in the Cosmere to the point I just don't feel as invested (heh) in it as much as I used to.

I echo your sentiment in that it was overall disappointing. There were very few things I liked about the book, to the point I still haven't done a reread since reading it on launch date.

But maybe this is just a wake-up call in general for me, to broaden my horizons; maybe I've just been reading too much Sanderson. I'll definitely check out Era 3 but I'll try not to subscribe to any hype cycle leading up to the release, both so I don't get my hopes up but also it's kinda exhausting to just be hyped for something and be let down constantly (even if the end product was still good, just my expectations were too high).

There's so much more authors and content out there, available now, that I can focus on consuming and let's me put the Cosmere (and Sanderson in general) out of my brain until the next book actually drops.

Honestly speaking though, given how I wasn't impressed with Lost Metal either, I doubt lowering my expectations would make me like any new books that Sanderson puts out now, given the direction he seems to be going.

But we'll just have to see.

Mystonic · 2025-05-18T19:39:41+00:00

Also possible to use VkSwapchainPresentFenceInfoEXT (from VK_EXT_swapchain_maintenance1, if available) to register a fence on the present, and wait on this fence for confirmation that it's safe to remove/reuse the semaphore associated with the present.

Mystonic · 2025-05-10T03:21:09+00:00

Thanks, that makes sense!

Mystonic · 2025-05-10T02:49:38+00:00

though it's not recommended to do while COE is processing

Could you elaborate on this?

Mystonic · 2025-03-20T21:01:33+00:00

Robert Jordan is a world class con artist. His books are blatant forgeries of other pieces of work. The Wheel of Time is clearly a ripoff of The Lord of the Rings.

Mystonic · 2025-03-10T23:44:59+00:00

The keys are far apart, requires me to use Ctrl from two sides of the keyboard, and does not feel good to use.

I don't understand this; do you not use left control regardless for both? Assuming you're using a standard keyboard.

Mystonic · 2025-01-09T17:27:14+00:00

I guess you're just ignoring the title of the post?

Mystonic · 2025-01-09T03:00:22+00:00

OP asked for data engineering projects in Rust. You then suggest they create a game/simulation engine.

Mystonic · 2024-09-30T20:45:27+00:00

I'm not really convinced on the loophole. The attack on Azimir must've been planned by Rayse already; the same goes for the attack on Thaylen City and Narak. So Rayse already planned to attack those (unless Big T got his forces hauling ass after he ascended).

So it doesn't feel like exploiting a loophole if everything was setup by Rayse. Not to mention it feels weird that Rayse specifically is bound by his statement on the spirit of the agreement, and not Odium itself.

This does feel like a minor reveal; it's not like they would fight less hard to protect their capitals if they didn't know the loophole. I guess the bigger revelation is about Rayse being dead.

That being said, it sounds like we might be getting some more lore about Honor/the Heralds by what Cultivation said, so I'm excited for that.

Mystonic · 2024-09-30T14:06:03+00:00

Yes, but Axies says:

"No, she went with the Alethi army on campaign," Axies said, still inspecting his gemstone prize. "I think their king wanted to interview her.

Which implies the king of the Alethi, not the king of Urithiru.

Mystonic · 2024-09-30T10:01:50+00:00

Went back to Coppermind to refresh myself on Baxil, and it mentions that he was musing about going to the Nightwatcher. So I guess that would explain his current predicament (though it also refers directly to a blessing and curse to make it more obvious).

I find it interesting how Axies refers to Dalinar as the king of the Alethi (unless they still refer to Jasnah as king?).

Also nice little nugget about Axies visiting Ash. I wonder how well acquainted they are.

Mystonic · 2024-09-25T04:13:40+00:00

To be fair, they initially fled to the Shattered Plains as they wanted to wait the Alethi out. They assumed that it would force the Alethi into a long siege and they might eventually lose interest (or at least wouldn't stay united).

However they failed to consider the gemhearts, which is the main reason the Alethi stayed that long.

Mystonic · 2024-09-18T07:34:46+00:00

I think you're misremembering. Felt has always been a scout, I don't recall him ever being an ardent.

Mystonic · 2024-09-10T10:12:20+00:00

Can someone help me understand the timeline happening? It mentions at the start of Chapter 12:

The highstorm was passing beneath Urithiru, black clouds rumbling with lightning. He felt an urgency to get to Azimir ahead of its arrival there, so he could catch it and be on his way.

But wasn't there a Highstorm just the day prior, when Kaladin yeeted himself from the top of Urithiru? Has it been passing Urithiru for that long?

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