• 63 Posts
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Joined 3 年前
Cake day: 2023年7月11日
  • banazir@lemmy.mltoBooks@lemmy.world•What book(s) are you currently reading or listening to? June 02
    2·
    3 天前

    I just finished The Gathering Storm by Brandon Sanderson. Per request, I’ll leave some thoughts about it here.

    While I know Jordan wrote some of this book, I personally regard it as Sanderson’s work. As such, I felt it was a huge improvement over Jordan’s writing and for me, the best book in the series since The Fires of Heaven. This confirms to me a fact that has been bouncing in my mind for a long while: I don’t think Robert Jordan is a very good writer. He certainly had an interesting story to tell in a captivating setting, which is why I continued to read this far, but his idiosyncrasies are somewhat infuriating.

    … Which is why this book is so refreshing: the plot actually moves along, things actually happen, characters don’t constantly sniff derisively or adjust their clothes when annoyed, nor is the reader incessantly hammered with how oh so different the sexes are in the setting, when they act pretty much the same. On that note, the characters feel more reasonable here, and not as unlikable as is Jordan’s wont. While still arrogant and bullheaded to a fault, they feel more understandable in their actions. I think I even saw some character development typically lacking in the series.

    While I will again take a break between books, I’m very optimistic about the last two books in the series. I probably won’t read the prequel, but we’ll see.

  • banazir@lemmy.mltoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world•Self careEnglish
    3·
    9 天前

    My inner critic is brutal. It uses all my intelligence against me, and will always find enough wiggle room to where I can’t really outright debunk any of its claims. Even if I do, it doesn’t acknowledge it in any way, it just picks another vector of attack. It was pivotal for me when I realized it wasn’t trying to argue with me or improve my behavior. It doesn’t care about truth or evidence, its only mission is to make me feel like the worst shit ever shat. It only welcomes argument because that gives it attention and more room to attack. Once I realized I had been playing by the wrong rules, I could actually start moderating it. Not by telling it to shut up, but by pointing out that I can see what it’s doing. I can just let it yammer on, and it hates that I don’t engage with it. It hates to be seen for what it is, because it sounds fucking ridiculous, especially when it gets desperate. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

    Having an inner critic is important, but if your parents dialed yours up to eleven, you just might want consider what the actual rules of engagement are.

  • banazir@lemmy.mltoBooks@lemmy.world•What book(s) are you currently reading or listening to? May 19
    3·
    19 天前

    Having recently finished book 10, yeah, it’s sort of difficult. It’s kind of the culmination of Jordan’s navel gazing where the whole book has maybe two chapters that move the plot along, and not a lot at that. Practically nothing happens, and the progress could’ve been just quickly summarized in the next book. Note that I did like the book, and I’m not saying it’s bad or anything, just sort of emblematic of what I find most annoying about Jordan’s writing. Luckily, the next book picks up the pace considerably and develops a sense of urgency.