r/Iteration110Cradle

I was listening to blackflame when I suddenly realized that something said doesn’t add up with the information given about the sword sage. In chapter three, Yerin says
“Master wouldn’t let me draw my sword on a wooden man, if it didn’t bleed, it wasn’t good enough for training.”
But in the prologue of wintersteel we see that this isn’t true.
“When he walked inside and down to the basement, he found Yerin sparring against the training dummy he’d left for her.”
Clearly the sword sage had Yerin fight opponents that were not alive and did not bleed. I forgot to mention that this is my 5th reread of the series.

I'm at the very end of The Knight, so my bad if this gets answered. But my burning question is, if the D'Niss are from another iteration (whether that be the Void or otherwise), why don't the Abidan step in? I mean the D'Niss have caused way more damage than Li Markuth and he was stopped almost instantly. I know the most likely explanation is just that the D'Niss are a cool enemy that Will Wight wanted to include. But I still wonder if we'll get an in universe explanation.

Is he still making them?

Ladies and gentlemen... I have finished Wintersteel. Again, you were not lying. Because this...

This is one of the best books I have ever read in my entire life.

I very, VERY rarely give a 10/10 rating to something. Even my favorite books tend to peak at a 9/10, but this might be it.

As I said in my other reviews, I've been loving Cradle so far. The first 3 books were good, but in my opinion it wasn't anything truly special. I legitimately liked it and would recommend it to people, but I wouldn't go "that's one of my favorites ever!" over it. But it had some specks of grandiosity. Some elements of the worldbuilding were great, some elements of the character work were great, but it didn't come to its full potential. Then, things got way better after book 5, and from that point onwards it was truly special. I read more this last month than I read in years because of it. But there were still some points that needed clarification, some elements that needed a little more work...

Then, we come to this. People always talk about "setup books", and how they're important to a series but end up not being very enjoyable. Wintersteel is what I like to call a payoff book. And the reason I've been talking about the whole series instead of just this book or the one before it is because this is not just a payoff for Uncrowned; it's a payoff for the whole series until this point.

You wanted to see what Eithan's Path was and him fighting seriously? Here it is. You wanted to see what the difference between Herald and Sage was and what you need to become a Monarch? Here it is. You wanted Lindon and Yerin to have absurd fight scenes and extremely satisfying progression the whole book? Here. You wanted to finally know HOW DID A BUNCH OF JADES KILL A SAGE? We finally have the answer! You wanted top tier romance that actually goes somewhere? You wanted the most hype scenes you have ever seen in your entire fucking life that will make you want to jump around your room like a madman? It's. All. Here.

Even if I try, I cannot find a single flaw in this book. I just can't. This is a 6 star read for me. It's 200 pages longer than the usual Cradle books before this and I didn't feel it at all. I wish it was 300 pages longer.

So yeah... Even if the rest of the series is not as good as this, this book alone makes it worth it. I'll never forget how awesome the experience of reading this for the first time has been. I'm already a bit sad because I've read 2/3 of it. Will Wight, please write 12 more books in this universe (lol). And thank you for this.

I’m really not a fan of the new covers, I know they’ve been around for a minute now but they haven’t grown on me at all. Does anyone know of any way to switch back to the original covers on audible? I don’t even know if it’s possible but I gotta try lol. Thanks

That is all. The lack of resolution to the foreshadowing is physically painful.

I've been trying to compile as much info as I can about the Eight-Man Empire and realized, outside of Larian, that there is very little. Mainly what I want is the name of each warband, their leader, and their path assuming they follow one specific path. Here's what I have so far:

Long-Sight warband - led by Larian on the path of the whispering wind

Ghost-Blade warband - un-named herald with a green cleaver

Blood-Chorus warband

Flame-Gift warband

Green-Stride warband

Nine-Hands warband

2 un-named warbands

Del'rek of the Shann - a sacred elephant. Mountain Sage, path of singing bones. Unknown warband

Kethri - the spider sage. Unknown warband

I want to make a Lindon build, but I can’t decide whether to go with a proper dragon build, or a black fire build. Black fire looks more like pure madra in Elden Ring, so it would more just be for the name, whereas dragon fire looks more like what I imagine Lindons looks like. I also don’t think I want to run with a regular weapon, I was thinking the Iron Ball with an ash of war that could look like pure madra would be cool. I was hoping some of you gamers might be able to help me think of some good ideas to replicate his techniques and vibe.