Never read Follett but certainly keen for Brandon Sanderson's 5th Stormlight book sometime next year, they are huge books, he's definitely become my favourite writer despite being a bit meandering in prose sometimes.
The guy raised $40m in a kickstarter and pumped out 4 novellas this year, it's impressive how much of a literary machine he is.
Perhaps I went into this series with unrealistic expectations but I found it pretty disappointing. Same for Rothfuss. There is a huge volume of older fantasy novels that are a much better investment of time, IMO.
What kills Sanderson for me is the dialog. Real people don't talk like a Mormon sunday school teacher. No warrior on a field of battle is going to yell "oh butterfingers!" in the middle of a battle.
I don't think he is super great at dialog, either, but I like how his cursing is world-specific rather than just reusing what we think of as cursing in our world. He has quite a bit of it in Stormlight Archives (see: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7204-swearing-in-rosha...) but it doesn't "offend" us here in our world because it is specific to their world.
That's kind of a high fantasy trope. "Blood and ashes!" from Wheel of Time comes to mind. It's like how they like to use different measures of time and distance. "It took him a fortnight to travel all those leagues." Helps take you out of the real world.
It's the ultimate giveaway in the cosmere when someone curses with a different word than used locally, is the sure sign they are far more powerful than they seem.
Characters in general for Sanderson books tend to feel like Sanderson picked one trait, and something 'surprising', and made that their whole personality. Then he builds from there. They eventually become complex characters but for awhile after their introductions they feel like a cardboard cutout. And of course the characters still feel much more puritan and sterile than I would prefer.
Agreed. I read Sanderson for his superb world building skills. He does an excellent job of exploring how magic systems impact the world and societies within it. But the characters and dialog are all pretty weak. His books are all easy reads, and he’s prolific so it’s nice to have something reliable to fall back on when I’m searching for more substantial novels.
I bounced off of one of the early Stormlight books, maybe Way of Kings. Doesn’t mean it’s bad or others won’t find it rewarding. Sanderson rewards readers who are looking for world building and the reveal of the way things work.
I liked the first Mistborn trilogy, but couldn’t get into the later ones.
For recent large scale fiction that’s also not going to work for everyone, I really liked the Terra Ignota series. (But, if the warnings and the first chapter put you off, you’re not going to like it)
I think pillars of the earth and name of the wind were both entertaining but I was somewhat annoyed by both of their villains who just try too hard to make the reader hate them. We get it. The bad guy is evil.
Sanderson's villains do have their own shades of grey, even if it isn't quite as emphasized as in GRRM's books. The villain of the first Mistborn book was genuinely trying to keep the world safe; he was just terrible at it, and he had an evil god whispering in his ear for a thousand years. The Parshendi are first shown as just villains, but later books show their side of the story and they become far more sympathetic.
Yep, there's also a major character who has been pulling strings behind the scenes in about ten different books across various series. How good or bad they are depends on how closely their aims happen to align with the goals of the main protagonists of the story. Although it's really easy to miss; presently this is mostly easter eggs for sharp-eyed readers.
IIRC Sanderson has stated that he's trying to set up a Star Trek type setting. He's developing all these different cultures with different values, and eventually they're going to become space-faring and come into conflict with each other over their different priorities.
It took me three times over a few years to even finish The Way of Kings despite liking his other books, it's definitely a rough beginning but am basically hooked at this point.
That's a really interesting perspective to read because I feel almost exactly the opposite: liked TWoK and have been progressively disenchanted with each subsequent book.
TWoK reminds me of the (Mirror-Moon TL of the) original F/SN VN in that the author/TL being bad at realistic characterization actually enhances the experience. F/SN Shirou and TWoK Kaladin are both weird broken robots with warped perspectives, and exposing the reader to an exhaustive amount of the (creative and surprisingly involved) setting, both mundane and horrific, through those perspectives is actually pretty interesting in a literary way and ascends above what could otherwise have been just plain bad writing.
Other posts in this thread have referenced the development of Kaladin's character through the arc of the plot, and I think that's what lost me. "Fixed" Kaladin is an uncanny-valley imitation of a fleshed-out character; "broken" Kaladin is, intentionally or unintentionally, a lot more fun. I found myself actively disliking many of Sanderson's attempts at expanding his characterization, especially in RoW.
Stormlight started out so well but it is having the same sprawl problems that all Epic Fantasy faces. The more characters you introduce, the more plot you have to manage and the slower any character moves forward. Too many writers are reluctant to kill their darlings. Even GRRM, who was willing to kill Ned and surprise with the Red Wedding, lost control of all his threads years ago and that is why he'll never finish ASOFAI. It will require too much work to find "satisfying" ways to kill everyone off and lead the plot to an ending.
I could be misjudging because I read his Stormlight books with large gaps of time between readings but the first book, as I recall, was excellent while the later books quickly fell into YA territory for me. It seems to me that he either has found that his audience is much younger than I am and they crave a different writing style which he is happy to cater to or he is simply trying to write too much and doesn't spend enough time fleshing out descriptions. His sentences structures are bland as well.
The Wheel of Time for all of its warts sets a precedent in terms of how a world can be described all the way down to differences in clothing styles. Granted it did get a bit wearing reading about what people were wearing. So it was a bit extreme, but I find myself missing that in other books I read.
I need to look more into Sanderson's stuff, because the first of his books I cracked open seemed like it was written for an 8 year old. His narrative style is not something I enjoyed. I'm sure he meant it to be whimsical, but to me it just felt jarring and a detraction from the story.
FWIW, I also had the perception of his writing being more on the YA side, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Stormlight books (although I haven't read all of them yet). It's definitely not full-on Grimdark (for me that's a good thing), but still felt very mature. I don't think Sandersons sensibilities will ever let him write a sex scene or dialog with English profanity, but that doesn't bother me.
Yeah, I can easily recommend Sanderon books to people, and there is enough variety that people might like some and not others. Tress and the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter were both interesting, and Tress was especially a refreshing tale outside his norm.
You know he's an amazing author because whenever he is mentioned, people will come out of the woodworks to proclaim how they don't like his work, and the problems they have with it, as if that means anything.
This isn't to say that you have to like his work. Rather, he's so good, that instead of people promoting the epics they do like, they instead can't help but still talk about Sanderson. And that's incredibly powerful.
I really enjoyed Tress and Yumi/Nightmare Painter (couldn't get into the wizard one), not going to lie, his style is a bit cringy and he doesn't do humour well, along with what seems like a bit of moral preaching seeping in, but they are definitely fun books that are easily accessible. Same with The Emperor's Soul which his new novellas seem to hark back to. Yumi is him capturing that essence from a decade ago, though I wasn't really a fan of the ending.
Most fantasy genre fans have tried a bit of Sanderson simply due to how prolific and popular he is. Hence we all have opinions.
In the same vein, most fantasy fans will also have some opinion on Harry Potter. Or pop music fans will have something to say about Taylor Swift these days.
The guy raised $40m in a kickstarter and pumped out 4 novellas this year, it's impressive how much of a literary machine he is.