The Brandon Sanderson Thread

[Stego]

First, there is no debate. There is the justly angered and the apologists.

He gave up his career because those who dabble in fan fiction will never have the chance to be respected in the industry. (Particularly if they use their real names.)

[The Evil Hat]

It's easy to dismiss people's ideas when there's 'no debate'. perhaps there's really only realists and people who can't stop whining? Also, i think that a major part of the fan fiction label is that it's unpublished. if more people had the ability to write published works in their favorite author's worlds, i think we'd be seeing a whole lot more fan fiction.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Stego' post='1742734' date='Apr 2 2009, 18.12']First, there is no debate. There is the justly angered and the apologists.

He gave up his career because those who dabble in fan fiction will never have the chance to be respected in the industry. (Particularly if they use their real names.)[/quote]

Ahh, sweet Nerd Rage.

[Shryke]

[quote name='The Evil Hat' post='1742748' date='Apr 2 2009, 18.29']It's easy to dismiss people's ideas when there's 'no debate'. perhaps there's really only realists and people who can't stop whining? Also, i think that a major part of the fan fiction label is that it's unpublished. if more people had the ability to write published works in their favorite author's worlds, i think we'd be seeing a whole lot more fan fiction.[/quote]

Seriously, this makes a whole lot of authors "Fan Fiction Writers".

[Werthead]

Do fanfic authors usually have access to the actual writer's full notes (which were written just for this contingency) and write the stories with the full approval of the actual writer's editor, spouse and publisher and the writer himself (because Jordan did give permission for someone else to finish his series, after all)? :huh:

If you want to disagree with the decision, fair enough, but I think launching an unwarranted personal attack on the person is not really appropriate.

[Eurytus]

[quote name='Stego' post='1742734' date='Apr 2 2009, 15.12']First, there is no debate. There is the justly angered and the apologists.

He gave up his career because those who dabble in fan fiction will never have the chance to be respected in the industry. (Particularly if they use their real names.)[/quote]

Guy Gavriel Kay says you're wrong.

[Lies And Perfidy]

[quote name='Stego' post='1742734' date='Apr 2 2009, 15.12']He gave up his career because those who dabble in fan fiction will never have the chance to be respected in the industry. (Particularly if they use their real names.)[/quote]
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem%27s_Lot"]Interesting.[/url]

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Emerald"]Very interesting.[/url]

[Eurytus]

[quote name='Lies And Perfidy' post='1742857' date='Apr 2 2009, 16.50'][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem%27s_Lot"]Interesting.[/url]

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Emerald"]Very interesting.[/url][/quote]

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conan_Chronicles_(Robert_Jordan)"]And even.......
[/url]

[Zach H]

Gaiman also wrote a Matrix short story.

[Werthead]

Stephen Baxter started his career writing [b]Warhammer[/b] short fiction. Ian Watson alternates [b]Warhammer[/b] stuff with his original fiction (it pays the bills). Greg Bear has written [b]Star Wars[/b] and [b]Star Trek[/b] books and is going to be writing a [b]Halo[/b] trilogy.

I'm not sure if they're the right comparison though. In fact, I'm not sure if this situation is precedented. An author is dying and gives permission for someone else to finish their work before they die? JRR Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien (assisted, in a minor way, by Guy Gavriel Kay) come to mind over [i]The Silmarillion[/i], or maybe David and Stella Gemmell, but on both occasions the original author was able to speak to the person who would be finishing the work about it. Brandon was only picked after RJ's passing.

[kuenjato]

[quote name='Stego' post='1742734' date='Apr 2 2009, 16.12']First, there is no debate. There is the justly angered and the apologists.[/quote]

And there are those who think RJ descended sharply in quality and now take great amusement at the amount of nerd rage at the newest trilogy -- in itself quite appropriate, given Jordan's constant bloat-justification "three more books" answer as to how long the series would continue.

Jordan OK'ed that 'tard-crayon [i]World of the Wheel of Time [/i]book and submitted [i]The Crossroads of Twilight [/i]for publication. He's hardly the paragon of integrity his fanboys make him out to be (usually in regards to his wishes to publish a two thousand page manuscript, fooking pipe dreams those were).

[Stego]

I care about the wheel of time, so I am a fanboy in a nerd rage.

It is certainly a precedented [url="http://www.amazon.com/Roger-Zelaznys-Dawn-Amber-Trilogy/dp/1596870214/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238738057&sr=1-3"]situation[/url]. Another example is Kevin J. Anderson.

Baxter, Watson, and Greg Bear (sans Blood Music. 1983 was a long time ago.) are hardly highly respected in any way. Writing homages to long dead, under appreciated, and barely read authors are hardly the same thing. Still, Gaiman came up in comics and has always played in someone else's sandbox. He can take characters in original directions at times, but he's never actually been one to create anything of his own. Taking the Jungle Book by Kipling and making it happen in a graveyard, for instance, is not originality.

Guy Kay did not write The Silmarillion, he simply assisted Tolkien.

As for Rigney himself, he never set himself up to be a serious author. He always wrote under a pseudonym because he wrote silly shit. Certainly the industry never showed him any respect. I do not find him to be a great author in any way. But I do know that his series touched an entire generation of fans in one way or another. And doing anything but following his wishes is just cashing in on his name.

Furthermore, his books went to shit because they stopped being edited. I blame his wife for that, too.

Oh, and the haters should read Knife of Dreams. His last written work was as good, or better, than anything he had previously written.

[Analu]

Just speaking for myself, I thought "Knife of Dreams" was mildly better than CoT, but it was still pretty bad. It's always baffled me why everyone thought it was some huge comeback for RJ. But then, I've only read it once and have pretty much forgotten everything that happened, except for Rand losing his hand and not giving a fuck.

As for Sanderson, the jury's still out for me. I read "Mistborn" a while back. Thought the magic was excellent, but everything else was pretty blah. The chapters with Vin and Elend were some precious reading time I'd like to have back. It's the reason I haven't bothered reading the rest of the trilogy.

I truly hope he kills it with the final WOT volumes, but I have my doubts. Only good thing about this whole "splitting it into 3 volumes" thing for me is that if the first volume blows, then I won't have to bother buying volumes 2 and 3. I'll just read the cliffnotes version.


I guess I should also add that while I've pretty much soured on the WoT series, I thought it was the greatest thing ever 10 years ago, and I'm very appreciative of the hours and hours of entertainment that it gave me.

[Mexal]

I like Mistborn. Great books :)

[publius]

If Robert Jordan were still alive, writing this final book, he may have finished it in one volume, but he probably would have had to change the outcome of some threads and left out others to make it fit. However, if Sanderson were to do the same thing, the same people complaining today would probably still be complaining about the lack of respect to RJ's legacy.

The WOT has doubled or tripled the amount of books that the series was originally meant to be. Was the series meant to be 3 books or 6 books, I can't remember?

I don't understand why it takes such a great leap of faith in believing that RJ didn't have a clue how long the final book would be.

[Jerol]

I really fail to see the problem here. A dying man does everything he can to make sure that someone can finish his life's work. He underestimates the length of it. Gee, I can't think of a reason why but maybe's it because HE WAS DYING! :tantrum: A respected young author is asked to take the deceased's notes and fashion a book from it. He soon finds out that in order to tie up all the plot threads (not doing so would cause nerd rage the likes of which have not been seen since the release of the third X-Men movie) and include everything the dead man wanted, it was going to take a LOT of pages. The guy has been working heroic hours to get this all done, putting his own career on hold to close this historic series. Albeit, this will surely advance his career if it all goes well. But give the kid a freaking break! Comparing him to Stephanie Meyer? :stunned: Why stop there, why not invoke Tairy or that little dick that writes the dragon books? Some people need to, in the immortal words of William Shatner, get a life! :smileysex:

[Werthead]

[quote]It is certainly a precedented [url="http://www.amazon.com/Roger-Zelaznys-Dawn-Amber-Trilogy/dp/1596870214/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238738057&sr=1-3"]situation[/url]. Another example is Kevin J. Anderson.[/quote]

False comparisons. John Gregory Betancourt did not have Zelazny's permission to write further [b]Amber[/b] books. Neither Kevin J. Anderson nor Brian Herbert had Frank Herbert's permission to write further [b]Dune[/b] books (although Herbert Jnr. claims that his father had suggested collaborating with him on future [b]Dune[/b] work, that was no more than an idle thought from the sound of it). My understanding is that whilst neither series was really 'finished' on the author's death, the action didn't simply stop [i]in-situ[/i] as KoD does.

On the other hand, Robert Jordan [i]did[/i] give his permission for another author to finish the book and prepared notes and dictation specifically for that purpose.

[quote]Furthermore, his books went to shit because they stopped being edited. I blame his wife for that, too.[/quote]

I had more time for this POV when I believed the misinformation that Harriet only started editing the books around LoC. However, when I found out that she'd edited all of them from the very start, I had less patience with it. Robert Jordan simply became far too popular and 'powerful' (in the literary sense) to be edited any more. I think it was a failure on both his part, his editor's and also his publisher's.

[quote]Oh, and the haters should read Knife of Dreams. His last written work was as good, or better, than anything he had previously written.[/quote]

KoD is an improvement on the three books that came before it, but isn't quite up to the quality of this series at its best. The book is still riddled with moments that don't quite make sense and, ironically, long-running storylines are wrapped up anticlimatically or dissatisfyingly. The book did finally turn Egwene and Nyaneve into fully-rounded, human characters, which RJ should certainly have been congratulated on, although it took him 21 years and 3 million words of writing to do it.

[quote]Was the series meant to be 3 books or 6 books[/quote]

Six books. Some people say it was supposed to be a trilogy, which may be a reference to the fact that the initial contract was perhaps only for three books, or the fact that it would have been easy (more or less) to turn TDR into the end of the series if it had not sold well, although Min's visions in TEotW show that Jordan had planned out the whole story from the start, more or less.

[quote]Just speaking for myself, I thought "Knife of Dreams" was mildly better than CoT, but it was still pretty bad.[/quote]

It [url="http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2008/11/knife-of-dreams-by-robert-jordan.html"]improves[/url] on a re-reading as part of the entire series, which I did last autumn, and the step-up in quality compared to PoD, WH and CoT is very noticeable. That said, the first half of the book still features a lot of traditional [b]WoT[/b] fucking around not getting anything done before stuff finally starts to happen and get resolved.

[needle]

[quote]ust speaking for myself, I thought "Knife of Dreams" was mildly better than CoT, but it was still pretty bad. It's always baffled me why everyone thought it was some huge comeback for RJ. But then, I've only read it once and have pretty much forgotten everything that happened, except for Rand losing his hand and not giving a fuck.[/quote]

I so agree. Except I have no memory of Rand losing his hand. :lol: did he really?

*shrug* I think Sanderson is a terrific writer. Sure, he lacks polish, and there are clunky bits, and a touch of YA about it - but it's a long time since I've read anything that got me turning the pages so quick, or waiting impatiently for the postman to bring me my next installment. But then, I like books that make me want to read, not just books that make me want to think. Deluxe hamburger of the want more now kind.:P

[fionwe1987]

To get back to topic, that [i]was[/i] an incredibly bad paragraph, but somehow, it seemed to fit Vin's character at that point. It must have been a long time since she and Elend were in a ball, and the change in the situation (from Elend being ignored by women to Elend becoming the apple of their eye) must have irritated her enough to give rise to this kind of crappy thinking.

Off topic:
I respect Sanderson that he cared enough for WoT that he is ready to put his career in the line to complete it. He must be just as aware as anyone here that if he screws up aMoL , he's going to end up losing a lot of readers for his future books. Which would be a shame, since he really can write, and is a way better story teller than many new authors like Rothfuss and Lynch.

[End of Disc One]

[quote name='fionwe1987' post='1743433' date='Apr 3 2009, 09.16']*shrug* I think Sanderson is a terrific writer. Sure, he lacks polish, and there are clunky bits, and a touch of YA about it - but it's a long time since I've read anything that got me turning the pages so quick, or waiting impatiently for the postman to bring me my next installment. But then, I like books that make me want to read, not just books that make me want to think. Deluxe hamburger of the want more now kind.[/quote]

Sanderson isn't the most talented author out there today, but his strength is in his discipline and work ethic. He takes revisions seriously and listens to his advance readers. He has a good sense where places in his early drafts drag so that his final works seldom if ever have a boring page.

Edit: quoted wrong post.