An accurate commentary on my stance vis-a-vis Brandon Sanderson

[Suttree]

I always did say that whatever you say about Sanderson he's clearly improving: Mistborn is better than Elantris, The Alloy of Law is better than Mistborn. He seems to polish his craft for every novel.

Really? I don't agree with that at all. It seems as if he loves creating but not the "grunt work" of polishing his craft.

Many people say Warbreaker is his best work and to me the first Mistborn was superior to the other two. Alloy of Law was almost embarrassingly bad in places. It was essentially a writing exercise that he got talked in to putting out by his publisher. Additionally in the WoT each subsequent book got worse after TGS.

[Spring Bass]

Warbreaker is the best Sanderson novel I've read, although I've admittedly only read WoK, the WoT, the Mistborn Trilogy, and Alloy of Law so far.

[Migey]

That's pretty much all of it, Panopticon. Elantris isn't worth touching (despite a few neat ideas, it's pretty awful). He's got two very small novellas, one of which is kind of terrible (Legion) and the other of which is kind of interesting but forgettable (The Emperor's Soul). He has a YA book called The Rithmatist which I really enjoyed but again, it's kind of skippable. You've read more then enough to talk with confidence about Sanderson, as you've read all of his major stuff.

[Werthead]

I'd go with the idea of him getting better book-by-book, though have been some bumps along the way. Alloy of Law was, for me, Sanderson's most fun book because he didn't seem to be trying so hard to be epic and grandiose. He just kicked back and had some fun. I've been intrigued to see several reviews for Steelheart have said a similar thing, and that book's been rated quite high as well.

I liked Way of Kings but it was too long. The quality of writing in it, however, I felt was better than his previous books. Mistborn was pretty good. Elantris wasn't terrible as a debut - it was far superior to say Wizards' First Rule - but it was clearly a very early work with plenty of wince-inducing moments.

If I had to identify a key weakness of Sanderson's writing, it's that he sometimes feels very analytical. He's a student of epic fantasy and sometimes the weaker moments in his books feel like mechanical attempts to just 'do epic fantasy' without being driven by a compulsive need to get ideas out. That may not be true, but it's how his work sometimes feels.

[End of Disc One]

Sanderson's prose definitely keeps getting better. I'd still say his best book is Mistborn: The Final Empire. Though I still fully expect The Stormlight Archive to be one of the best fantasy series ever.

I'm reading Steelheart right now, and I like how Sanderson has taken a different approach to humor. In the past he has usualy tried and failed, but I really like what he does in Steelheart. I know he's been reading more Pratchett lately, so maybe this has helped (I haven't read Pratchett yet).

[Shryke]

I'd go with the idea of him getting better book-by-book, though have been some bumps along the way. Alloy of Law was, for me, Sanderson's most fun book because he didn't seem to be trying so hard to be epic and grandiose. He just kicked back and had some fun. I've been intrigued to see several reviews for Steelheart have said a similar thing, and that book's been rated quite high as well.

I liked Way of Kings but it was too long. The quality of writing in it, however, I felt was better than his previous books. Mistborn was pretty good. Elantris wasn't terrible as a debut - it was far superior to say Wizards' First Rule - but it was clearly a very early work with plenty of wince-inducing moments.

If I had to identify a key weakness of Sanderson's writing, it's that he sometimes feels very analytical. He's a student of epic fantasy and sometimes the weaker moments in his books feel like mechanical attempts to just 'do epic fantasy' without being driven by a compulsive need to get ideas out. That may not be true, but it's how his work sometimes feels.

I can't see how anyone can say WoK was better written then Mistborn.

The prologues alone (all 17 of them) and especially the intermissions with Mr-Walks-On-Walls were cringe-inducingly bad. Like, Elantris-quality writing if Elantris were a D&D Monster Manual.

[Darth Richard]

I find it kind of odd that everyone who says his prose keeps improving then lists a book published 2 or 3 years ago as his best.

[Migey]

It's a general rule. Not every single one of his books was better then the precise one before it, but if you mapped out the releases of his books and how good they are in terms of prose, there is a definate incline. Also, Warbreaker had fairly standard prose for him, but the writing wasn't necessarily what made it his best work.

[End of Disc One]

I find it kind of odd that everyone who says his prose keeps improving then lists a book published 2 or 3 years ago as his best.

That was his last original novel that that wasn't intended to be for a YA audience.

[Frank Fitzpatrick]

Sanderson's prose definitely keeps getting better. I'd still say his best book is Mistborn: The Final Empire. Though I still fully expect The Stormlight Archive to be one of the best fantasy series ever.

I'm reading Steelheart right now, and I like how Sanderson has taken a different approach to humor. In the past he has usualy tried and failed, but I really like what he does in Steelheart. I know he's been reading more Pratchett lately, so maybe this has helped (I haven't read Pratchett yet).

Really? I'm a hundred pages into Steelheart, and while I definitely agree his prose are better, I find his humour is still falling flat. But that's not such a bad thing. Comedy is a hard thing to do and not many are capable of doing it successfully.

I can't fully judge the book yet though, as I've still got a way to go.

[Werthead]

That was his last original novel that that wasn't intended to be for a YA audience.

What, Way of Kings? No, Alloy of Law was the last one in that vein. It's YA-compatible, sure, but no moreso than the rest of his work.

[End of Disc One]

What, Way of Kings? No, Alloy of Law was the last one in that vein. It's YA-compatible, sure, but no moreso than the rest of his work.

I forgot Allow of Law was a novel and not a novella. Anyway, it's short and he just wrote that one for fun.

[End of Disc One]

Really? I'm a hundred pages into Steelheart, and while I definitely agree his prose are better, I find his humour is still falling flat. But that's not such a bad thing. Comedy is a hard thing to do and not many are capable of doing it successfully.

I can't fully judge the book yet though, as I've still got a way to go.

It's the bad metaphors that I find humorous. The main character is the object of most of the jokes, and I don't think Sanderson has raelly done that before. He usually tries to make his POV characters the witty ones. In Steelheart, I like watching the main character try to make clever analogies and fail.

[Migey]

Yeah, it kind of works due to there being a character whos job it is to call Sanderson out every time he tries and fails to be humorous. I'm fine with him trying and failing to be funny, as long as he knows he's failing. It actually makes it kind of funny, ironically.

[Castel]

Yeah, it kind of works due to there being a character whos job it is to call Sanderson out every time he tries and fails to be humorous. I'm fine with him trying and failing to be funny, as long as he knows he's failing. It actually makes it kind of funny, ironically.

Good to see that someone has learned something from xXx:State of the Union.

[Darth Richard]

I was thinking of the people who talk about his prose improving then point to either Warbreaker or The third Mistborn.

Sure, some of the late ones are novellas....so? Prose is prose is prose. Unless its poetry.

[End of Disc One]

I was thinking of the people who talk about his prose improving then point to either Warbreaker or The third Mistborn.

Sure, some of the late ones are novellas....so? Prose is prose is prose. Unless its poetry.

Better prose =/= better book

[Migey]

Okay, so just finished Steelheart. His latest book, so while we're discussing him and his progression as a writer through his books, may as well review it.

First of all, about the prose; an actual improvement. I managed to read the entire thing in a state of immersion without ever being dragged out of the experience by some horrible prose or writing more then once (like when we find out that the futuristic Chicago has been renamed Newcago). Usually it happens at least a few times in his books, but the writing in this one was good, for him.

As for the rest of the book? Actually really good: I liked it alot, enough to push myself through the entire thing in several hours. It was really nice to see Sanderson doing something completely new, too. The Rithmatist was quite a departure from his previous works, admittedly, but not as much as this (talking of which, that makes this the second book he's written in a warped alternate history/future version of America...). It's not his usual fantasy setting, and this is easily the least defined the magic in his books has ever been, and it shows that he is at least attempting to move away from being "the guy who writes crazily imaginative and specific magic systems" to be, y'know, an actual author who can tell an engaging story. Most originally of all, the book, in a complete departure from anything Sanderson has ever done before, is essentially a caper about a small tight-knit group brought together in a semi-dystopian post-apocalyptic world to destablise the rule of an all powerful, supposedly imortal tyrant at the top of a brutal dictatorship by removing the basis of his power and then... oh wait. Nevermind.

You should know the basic premise if you're interested; people get superpowers and then turn into massive dickwads. Governments fall, the supervillians ('Epics') take power. The book is centered on Chicago as taken over by one of the most powerful Epics alive, named Steelheart, and the attempts of a small group dedicated to killing Epics to assassinate Steelheart and revive the hope of the downtrodden masses that the Epics can be fought.

The Epics are quite interesting, with a broad and varied range of powers (despite some similarities). The truly interesting part is their weaknesses, though. Every Epic has idiosyncracies to their powers (ie, no two are the same) and weaknesses, some of which are oddly specific. One epic referred to can only be harmed by someone of the age of 37, another can only be killed if 5 people are simultaneously trying to attack him at once, and another has weakened powers whenever they get an erection. The powers are fairly well thought out, as is their relation to the real world, with one notable, incredibly jarring exception. One minor epic has the power to fire a gun and never run out of bullets. That's all the description we get. Sanderson, that is not a superpower, that is just plain fucking retarded.

The story follwos David Something. As a protagonist, he's nothing special, but is handled fairly well, and while he isn't much of a character (rather, not much of a character we havn't seen seven fucking hundred times before) at the start, he gets some interesting development and feels human enough to empathise with, despite being somewhat Mary Sue ish (It's Sanderson, okay, what do you expect, characters who don't start as complete cutouts? Geez). The other characters are the usual assortment of Sandermen, admittedly. Deep, intense, and knowledgable leader guy with a supressed propensity for total ass-kickery, a mysterious past, agenda, and secrets to hide? Check. Zany charismatic individual who's always making really random comments and being generally random, just because? Check. Calmer, wiser, slower paced zen-like guy with a soft voice and obscure faith? Check. As well as some more stereotypes. Standard fare and all here. Despite that, the characters are still quite engaging, for a Sanderson novel (with the exception of that zany random guy who is just plain irritating) and feel fairly human.

Anyway. The book does pretty much everything right. It's fairly concise, being just shy of 400 pages despite feeling like it could've been much longer. As addressed in a previous post, Sanderson's trademark flat humour works surprisingly well, partly because it's not particularly present, and partly because whenever it does turn up, theres a character around to say "that's retarded, your jokes are so bad they're funny to laugh at". It's fairly well paced, with some pretty damn cool action (honestly, say what you will about Sanderson, but he's amazing as making action scenes in books easy to picture and feel awesome). There's few enough characters and enough time spent with them that none of them feel like they could be completely cut out without anything hapenning to the book, and enough interesting stuff happens, broken up with less intense sections, to keep the thing moving along smoothly.

Okay, so what sucks? For one thing, he took a bloody hike when the time came to think of names for everything. Newcago? Jesus. The epics are kind of unimaginative too (with the exception of Pink Pinkness, who unfortunately is only referred to and never shows up to give some colour to the rest), with names like Deathpoint (must have taken ages to come up with that. I wonder what he does?), Firefight (does he fight fire, or fight with fire? Read the book to find out!), and Nightwielder (who unfortunately does not ironically wield the powers of happiness and sunlight to confuse his enemies. But let me give some credit, this one is actually pretty cool). There are some twists later on in the story as well, most of which are fairly predictable, but which are fairly well handled mostly. The one I call most bullshit on has to go in spoilers though.

What the fuck with Megan? I was actually really pleased when she died, because it showed Sanderson was willing to do some interesting things, and this could have taken the character of David to some interesting places. I had a sneaking suspiscion that it was too good to be true though, and lo and fucking behold. Seriously, I don't believe there was no other way to do things and not bring her back, and no, you didn't need her to justify the existence of an upcoming sequel, and if you did, that's just plain sucky setup. Seriously, learn to keep dead characters dead, because it stops having any value whenever someone gets in danger if we know that A, they either won't get hurt, or B, will be magicked back to life again. Come on Sanderson, I'm trying to defend you here, but you don't make it easy for me sometimes.

Also, I was really dissapointed by how developing powers and using them 'made' people evil. I was hoping for a more interesting analysis of how power can corrupt and what it can do to people, and how the people who actually tried to do good with their powers were unable to in the face of even more powerful people abusing their powers for their own personal gain and blah blah blah. But no, just 'THE POWER MAKES THE PEOPLE WHO USE IT EVIL', as in literally using it makes one into more of an evil person because of some corrupting influence or something, which is kinda boring. Man, Sanderson. Take a good idea and just roll with it. You can do it. You're not a bad author, you're not unintelligent, I beleive in you.

On the whole though, the book is quite good, with enough interesting ideas, competently executed to keep one engaged. If you hate Sanderson anyway, then yeah look somewhere else, but this continues the trend of improving in some aspects on anything he's done before, staying the same on others, and being far, far superior to his earlier works. And it's cool to see him doing new things. Keep it up Sanderson.

By the way, this would make a fantastic film. Seriously. Screw Mistborn, if this had a good director and actors behind it, it could make one awesome film. It has pretty much everything a big-budget hollywood blockbuster that needs to set itself up for sequels needs; supervillians, a post-apocalyptic environment that would be perfect to spend an obscenely decadent budget recreating, some really awesome action scenes that would translate amazingly to film, an intense chase scene that feels like it was written for the express purpose of conversion to the big screen, drama, an awkward potential romance ish, an intense conclusion with multiple action threads to follow, and one single major plot thread left open to conclude the main story satisfactorily but leave room for sequels if the film works. Even the name works. I cannot imagine a book more perfectly suited to become a big budget hollywood blockbuster. It's gonna happen, now lets hope it doesn't suck.

Sorry for that overlong review. I get a bit carried away :o

[Darth Richard]

Better prose =/= better book

This, I agree with.

[Shryke]

I was thinking of the people who talk about his prose improving then point to either Warbreaker or The third Mistborn.

Sure, some of the late ones are novellas....so? Prose is prose is prose. Unless its poetry.

Your obsession with making all things equally good is strange and irrational.