don't be a coward

And the feeling is mutual

Way of Kings is honestly a more like a prequel for the series. It’s pretty much ONLY setting up the characters and world building. So if you don’t get into that you might not finish.

Way of Kings is the best book in the series, so if you didn't like that, then you won't like the series.

Jordan tended to ramble (especially about women's clothing), but I wouldn't say he was a worse writer. Some of his writing was exceptional. It started tapering off near the end because he was dying. Book 11 especially is a hard slog. But when he was healthy he had some great writing.

Sanderson is a great writer too, but he uses a different pacing style, which is more modern. So his writing will click more with people today. I really loved how it picked the pace back up with WoT after the slog, brought it all together, and finished the epic story. Jordan had extensive notes, and he and Sanderson worked together to ensure the story was finished. I really love that Sanderson respected Jordan's work, and finished it as Jordan would have instead of trying to make it his own thing.

I love both authors, and have read all of WoT and everything Sanderson has written. If you want to give an original Sanderson book a try, start with Mistborn. That book is very good, and isn't a 1000 page introduction to a 14,000 page saga. It's short and there are two more books that conclude the trilogy. He wrote more Mistborn books later, but they're in a whole different era, and weren't to my liking. The original trilogy is great!

Way of Kings is the best book in the series, so if you didn't like that, then you won't like the series.

Jordan tended to ramble (especially about women's clothing), but I wouldn't say he was a worse writer. Some of his writing was exceptional. It started tapering off near the end because he was dying. Book 11 especially is a hard slog. But when he was healthy he had some great writing.

Sanderson is a great writer too, but he uses a different pacing style, which is more modern. So his writing will click more with people today. I really loved how it picked the pace back up with WoT after the slog, brought it all together, and finished the epic story. Jordan had extensive notes, and he and Sanderson worked together to ensure the story was finished. I really love that Sanderson respected Jordan's work, and finished it as Jordan would have instead of trying to make it his own thing.

I love both authors, and have read all of WoT and everything Sanderson has written. If you want to give an original Sanderson book a try, start with Mistborn. That book is very good, and isn't a 1000 page introduction to a 14,000 page saga. It's short and there are two more books that conclude the trilogy. He wrote more Mistborn books later, but they're in a whole different era, and weren't to my liking. The original trilogy is great!

Axehounds, Parshendi, chulls, chasmfiends, songlings, rockbuds, etc.

Oh and the generic “cremling”

Fire as base is needed. To make hydraulic or other tech, you need metal, and to work with metal, you need fire to melt and form it. An aquatic species can evolve to an advanced intelligence, but it can't evolved to an advanced tecnology. Dolphinse have a great intelligence, not far from the humans, but they never can be a tecnologic advanced species, they don't have even hands to manipulate tools. They use tools in a basic way, they even use old fishernets they found on the ground to hunt fishes (observed in the Mediterraneo). But manufactoring it is other thing.

Don't care how smart you are, you ain't shit without metallurgy followed by electricity. No metallurgy, no electricity, no tech.

Ever read a science fiction novel where the aliens evolved underwater? The author has to twist the story in knots to try and explain how they gained anything advanced without fire.

You can’t compare an elephant trunk to the human hand

Complex limb? Let me see an elephant tie a granny knot. Maybe with training? OK. Do a square knot.

Complex communication? Elephants have communication skills on par with a 3-4 year old human. An intensely trained dog might top 200 words. My vocabulary is an easy 50,000 words. Yours is too.

Binocular vision is a must, that's a given. Damn near every animal on the planet has it, even some worms.

Yes, you can have 4 or more legs, but it isn't an advantage because energy efficience, same as more than two eyes ith an mobile head don't make much sense. Nature evolution don't waste energy. Humans a very efficient runners, which can beat several animals in a hunt. In the past they made a test between an horse and an trial champion, the horse lose it. Yes it was faster as the human, but not on long distance. There are championships like Ironman and others, where are races of 500 km, a horse can't even 42 km without a break. Efficience of two legs.

Dr Angela Collier has done a video essay on why aliens won't be silicon-based. She's not a biologist but an astrophysicist but the focus of her video is mostly about how carbon chemistry and cosmic abundance is better suited to producing life.

Well, viverridae are called feliforme for obvious reasons, bit their genealogic tree is way far from felidae. Yes, there are certainly a lot of other examples of convergent evolution.

Dolphins and whales might be intelligent, but their bodies do not allow them effective use of complex tools. Same for birds.

Octopods do have a body that is flexible enough, but having evolved in water is a huge limiting factor. But some are able to move around outside water, so it's not too far fetched to imagine becoming a global species.

My cat. Seriously, stop looking at my lazer pointer and start chasing that freaking dot wtf. I swear sometime she chase it just to entertain me, else i'll be standing there waving like a total idiot.

None of those animals have human levels of intelligence except for the humans. When was the last time you saw an orca use calculus to solve the mysteries of the universe, or antibiotics to cure their sickness? They're smart, but they're nowhere near as smart as humans.

I've seen a wasp unscrew a screw I thought was in pretty tight.

The premise is that they won't invent advanced things such as screws because the survival pressure is less intense

Crab people. Crab people.

„disarm a crab“ 🦀🔪

I sure the fuck wouldn't want to fight a giant crab. I just don't think they could build an interstellar space ship, that's all.

We explode them, they explode us. Oh also they enslave captured humans or just outright eat them.

Wow. Creative and hurtful. You should feel proud.