The Brandon Sanderson Thread

[Frank Fitzpatrick]

He treats writing like a 9-5 job, which sounds kinda obvious, but at the same time is pretty uncommon for a lot of writers (even those for whom writing is their only occupation).

I actually think this can have a reverse effect though, quality-wise. He produces a shitload of material, but I think a lot of it suffers from A.) not having enough time spent on the individual project and B.) not having time to gestate before being pushed out of the gate. This might just be my bias though. I personally haven't especially liked what I've read by him. I haven't hated it or anything, but aside from some clever worldbuilding, he's not doing anything that special in my opinion. And I don't think it's for lack of skill, but from putting a lack of effort into individual works. Which is absurd, because he's clearly putting a ton of effort into writing. I'm just not sure how well he's managing it.

That being said, he's also extremely successful and well-liked, so he's doing something right.

I think this is a good assessment. I've only read the Mistborn Trilogy but everything you stated above, I agree with upon reflection of those books.

[Migey]

I actually find that he's constantly improving in almost every aspect, and while none of us ever expect him to become truly amazing, the amount of time he spends writing, combined with his genuine passion and creativity, and apparent openness to new ideas and probably criticism too means that I think he will continue to improve. You can see how insanely drastic the improvement has been by glancing through his books in rough order of release.

You can start with Elantris, which was so bad in almost every aspect past the premise and neat ideas that it never should have been published. Then onto Mistborn, which was great in some ways but really lacked in others, particularly the second book. Good ideas but the qualitiy of the writing was often substandard and the characters often appeared to be archetypical cut-outs of characters rather then ones with actual depth (although I found this improved a great deal by the third book). Then on to... what was next. Warbreaker? It may well have been written by a different author then Elantris. Tightly controlled and paced with characters with a great deal more depth and complexity, an interesting plot and well constructed world (mostly...). Some genuinely surprising reveals before the first act even finishes, and he managed to genuinely surprise me with how the final act unfolded.

I'd argue that was his best work, but you can still keep seeing his progression. Compare Alloy of Law to the earlier Mistborn books (even if his god damned 'witty' dialogue makes a bombastic return). After this point he really starts to branch out.The Stormlight Archive, his foray into epic fantasy, certainly had problems but it also is leagues ahead of the earlier Mistborn books and did enough right that I'm confident he will soon learn how to handle writing such large books without the mistakes he made. His most recent book, The Rithmatist (which I'm dissapointed to see so little discussion on) was again an amazing improvement on his earlier works. Again very tightly controlled and paced, with a small cast of well-developed characters, and a pretty unique premise for the protagonist.

Even that had it's problems, but with every book you see how his writers craft is getting better, and already he has down some of the lessons which take other authors years to even begin to grasp. Additionally, he's never gotten any slower at releasing books, and I don't think this has impacted his learning as a writer. I think what is msot encouraging is that while he is still learning some things, the bits he does grasp, he really gets, in in a way few other authors do. Particularly when it comes to things like his magic systems, he truly seems to understand how to make them interesting, engaging, and tense. You can see some evidence of this by looking at some of the things he writes on his blog, such as Sandersons First/Second Law, which are 2 guidelines for magic systems which make absolute sense to me, and display the presence of an actual craft to the way he writes these things, as opposed to just doing ''whatever seems cool'', which I suspect too many sub-par authors do.

The point of this ramble was that he has been doing nothing but getting better as an author, and I see no reason to beleive this won't continue. He'll never have the subtlety of Abraham or be as polished and smooth as GRRM in his better works, but I wouldn't be surprised if eventually, he's not far off.

Edit: And I am genuinely dissapointed in the lack of discussion on The Rithmatist. That was a fairly cool book.

Oh, and I realise I've left out his novellas in my analysis. I think there's more I havnt read but Legion I thought was garbage, 20 or so pages of pretentiousness, but The Emperor's Soul I actually found surprisingly engaging and interesting, if slightly predictable. So I guess he's not great at everything.

[Frey Pie]

I have mixed feelings about BS. I enjoy his own books, and am looking forward to the next installment of the Stormlight Archive. Im forever grateful to him for giving A ending to the WOT. However, one thing really bugs me about AMOL-was it so hard to get the numbers right??? Was it so hard to even get the fighting skills of the people right (the Aiel). The channelers? Just give the Shadow a few million extra trollocs, Drakhar etcetc. Give them more Dark men and sisters. Give them more batshit insane Aiel channelers. All these were relative unknowns, and could have been done. Just why fuck around with the numbers we do know? And a few paragraphs where everyone meets again would have been nice....we have been waiting for years to see Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene and the gang all together again

Other than that, i enjoy his works and admire his methods and dedication to the job

[Ded As Ned]

I hate it when he start explaining rules and terms in middle of action sequence.

I dunno, I see this complaint repeated often, but I actually liked the explanation in the middle of the action. Maybe it's a personal taste thing, and I'm obviously in the minority... but it actually helped me enjoy the scene, suspend disbelief, and keep reading. Without it I think I would have found it to be a bit too much and would have thrown in the towel right then and there.

Maybe it's the old D&D and MERP RPGer in me, but I like knowing the rules and laws in which I'm working in a particular story. :dunno:

[Ded As Ned]

I have mixed feelings about BS. I enjoy his own books, and am looking forward to the next installment of the Stormlight Archive. Im forever grateful to him for giving A ending to the WOT. However, one thing really bugs me about AMOL-was it so hard to get the numbers right??? Was it so hard to even get the fighting skills of the people right (the Aiel). The channelers? Just give the Shadow a few million extra trollocs, Drakhar etcetc. Give them more Dark men and sisters. Give them more batshit insane Aiel channelers. All these were relative unknowns, and could have been done. Just why fuck around with the numbers we do know? And a few paragraphs where everyone meets again would have been nice....we have been waiting for years to see Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene and the gang all together again

Other than that, i enjoy his works and admire his methods and dedication to the job

Of all the problems with aMoL you're going to complain about the numbers? I think BS did a great job with the hand he was dealt, but that was by far the least of my gripes with the WoT conclusion. Also I'm pretty sure that it was either Rigney's notes or his wishes via Harriet that the SuperGirls and Boys were not to meet back up over coffee... although I don't have a reference for that handy. So I don't lay that at BS's fault. And I found it to be one of the (very) few bitter-sweet, realistic things about the WoT ending.

[Werthead]

I would agree at this point that I don't think Sanderson taking more time would really improve his output. Overall it's seems like we get what we get with him.

Which is kinda sad to me since Elantris -> Mistborn was such a huge improvement I was hoping for great things from him, but he seems to have plateaued after the 1st Mistborn.

I would have said gone to bloat too, but Alloy of Law is pretty tightly paced so I think it's just that he's decided bloat is the name of the game for Stormlight and not that he can't tighten his writing up anymore.

I thought it was interesting that he said that Way of Kings would be the biggest book by far in Stormlight (at just under 400,000 words) and it looked like that was the case, with Words of Radiance coming in at 300,000 words. Then things changed and instead it's coming in at 360,000. Still shorter, but not what I think people were really expecting when he suggested the other books would be notably shorter. Quite a few Malazan books are shorter than 360,000 words, by comparison.

[Frey Pie]

Of all the problems with aMoL you're going to complain about the numbers? I think BS did a great job with the hand he was dealt, but that was by far the least of my gripes with the WoT conclusion. Also I'm pretty sure that it was either Rigney's notes or his wishes via Harriet that the SuperGirls and Boys were not to meet back up over coffee... although I don't have a reference for that handy. So I don't lay that at BS's fault. And I found it to be one of the (very) few bitter-sweet, realistic things about the WoT ending.

Ya it's the one simple thing that there is actually no reason to have wrong. It's my single biggest complaint

[Ded As Ned]

Ya it's the one simple thing that there is actually no reason to have wrong. It's my single biggest complaint

It's certainly a valid gripe, just one I didn't even really notice along with the really loud plot holes and personality shifts I was irked by, so I was a little surprised when I first read your post. I still really enjoyed the book, and was glad to just have the thing over with, and thought Brandon did a decent job.

[Frey Pie]

It's certainly a valid gripe, just one I didn't even really notice along with the really loud plot holes and personality shifts I was irked by, so I was a little surprised when I first read your post. I still really enjoyed the book, and was glad to just have the thing over with, and thought Brandon did a decent job.

Oh i agree i couldnt be more grateful that we got an ending and he facilitated it. I guess i just feel that anyone can make mistakes, plot or character wise, but numbers is literally something we can easily estimate from other books and logic

[Shryke]

I dunno, I see this complaint repeated often, but I actually liked the explanation in the middle of the action. Maybe it's a personal taste thing, and I'm obviously in the minority... but it actually helped me enjoy the scene, suspend disbelief, and keep reading. Without it I think I would have found it to be a bit too much and would have thrown in the towel right then and there.

Maybe it's the old D&D and MERP RPGer in me, but I like knowing the rules and laws in which I'm working in a particular story. :dunno:

It's terribly akward and breaks up the action sequences alot of the time. Especially in the interlude fights in WoK.

[MisterOJ]

I haven't gotten around to reading Steelheart yet because it didn't really sound all that good to me and the reviews were pretty lukewarm at best.

However, Amazon is selling the ebook edition of it today for $4.99. That's the right price point for me, I think. I'll be picking it up.

[End of Disc One]

I haven't gotten around to reading Steelheart yet because it didn't really sound all that good to me and the reviews were pretty lukewarm at best.

They were? On all the message boards I visit people seem to really like it. I loved it personally, a lot more than The Rithmatist.

[MisterOJ]

They were? On all the message boards I visit people seem to really like it. I loved it personally, a lot more than The Rithmatist.

That was just the impression I got from skimming through a bunch of Goodreads reviews. I could be wrong though.

[Migey]

It's really exactly what it looks like on the cover and exactly what you can expect from Sanderson. Nothing more needs to be said: you should know if you'll like it from that description alone.

[aceluby]

Sanderson has become my go-to author when I want something easy and light. First it was WoK after my re-read of ASOIAF, which was a great breather after the intense reading of my re-read. I also finished Mistborn before getting into Hobb again, simply because her characters are so complex and flawed that it's almost a breath of fresh air to have, for lack of a better word, 'simple' characterization. After this it's on to Alloy of Law before WoR comes out, at which point I'll get into one of the other heavy hitters around here, either Bakker or Abercrombie. I like him for what he provides, straight forward, easy reading that can be a nice break for the dark, bleak fantasy that has recently dominated the genre.

[Gaston de Foix]

All those folks dissing Sanderson for the quality of his writing/plotting/characters should just give thanks for his professionalism. A lot of cited authors fail to sustain quality over a series. Brandon is the only one who improves consistently from book to book. I'd take honest striving and continuous improvement over a big splash and fade-away and/or erratic output. A lot of authors- feel and express guilt, anger, frustration at their fans for loving their work and wanting more of it, like yesterday.

[Migey]

That's what I've been saying for years, and I do think that a lot of people agree. That said, criticism of his skill of a writer isn't invalid because of it. I agree with what you say, but people can still have issues with his writing, however much it may improve.

[Gaston de Foix]

That's what I've been saying for years, and I do think that a lot of people agree. That said, criticism of his skill of a writer isn't invalid because of it. I agree with what you say, but people can still have issues with his writing, however much it may improve.

The criticisms of his writing are valid, up to a point. He has improved dramatically in quality from Elantris to Way of Kings. Someone like GRRM honed their craft in shorts, screenwriting, mosaic novels and novels that didn't really break out in the public consciousness. Sanderson is doing it right in front of our eyes (as to be fair, are people like Daniel Abraham).

[David Selig]

All those folks dissing Sanderson for the quality of his writing/plotting/characters should just give thanks for his professionalism. A lot of cited authors fail to sustain quality over a series. Brandon is the only one who improves consistently from book to book.

I disagree. His last WoT book was easily the worst of the three, and the first one easily the best.

[Shryke]

The criticisms of his writing are valid, up to a point. He has improved dramatically in quality from Elantris to Way of Kings. Someone like GRRM honed their craft in shorts, screenwriting, mosaic novels and novels that didn't really break out in the public consciousness. Sanderson is doing it right in front of our eyes (as to be fair, are people like Daniel Abraham).

He improved from Elantris to Mistborn, but WOK is at best a plateau and feels more like a drop.

Nothing I've read of his has shown a real sustained rise in quality since Mistborn.