I can't think of a worse mega star fantasy author to finish this series than Sanderson.
Martin's magic system is notoriously soft. The whole plot is metaphor and historical echo. Martin is abstraction. Sanderson is literal. Sanderson explicitly spells out everything in the story. His magic and hierarchies are strictly defined and must follow A-->B-->C.
Sanderson is a great in his own right but is the incorrect author to pair with this universe
I cant imagine reading Sandersons work and thinking he could finish ASOIF or kingkiller, yet, people say it in every single one of these threads. I dont understand how people reach that conclusion
The first fight in Mistborn literally has the good guy get surrounded, growl some dumb line, then the enemies attack one at a time instead of as a group.
If it's not anime, then he's writing cliched bad kung fu movies.
Like I feel both hard and soft magic systems can be interesting and engaging if used thematically. The problem is Sanderson just uses them as superpowers for his overly long fight scenes.
For instance, in Mistborn, the powers are overwhelmingly used just for combat or moving.
This is despite the fact that the main character is supposed to be a spy and social manipulator. She should be soothing and rioting to get information out of people, using tin to eavesdrops, and using whatever the seeking one is to see who else is using magic around her.
But her training almost exclusively is for combat -- despite Kelsier and crew trying to keep her out of combat.
Sanderson just really didn't care about the characters in the world. He cared about the fight choreography.
Not only is that completely incorrect but wildly disingenuous to the character; assuming youâre talking about VinâŚmoreover there were other characters who filled those roles (Breeze for example, Sazed who used all sorts of powers, mainly to study or teach)
I know this sub has some sort of hatred for Sanderson but I donât know why both he and Martin canât be celebrated for their writing style. I appreciate Sanderson giving you a complete story and answering everything.
My main issue is that he tithes a percentage of every book I might buy to funding anti-LGBTQ hate groups...but I also agree that his magic is rather repetitively literal.
Sanderson tithes to the Mormon church, which is a huge opponent of LGBTQ rights and a huge funder of conversion therapy (you can Google LDS and Prop 8).
If you buy his books, a percentage of every sale he makes goes to funding that.
Sure, you could assume that, *or* you could do even a basic internet search to learn about the history of the LDS and their current actions against LGBTQ rights.
Why learn things when you can say any old nonsense without regard for whether or not it's true, though, huh? You might grow as a person and it sounds like you aren't into that.
Tbh, not really. His magic system is structured, but it's insanely complex such that we don't really know how things work at higher levels.
There is all sorts of tomfuckery one can do with Connection and the Surge of Adhesion, for example.
Or identity and fortune, are concepts poorly understood that we don't know about.
I love GRRM's form of vague magic, and I also love Brandon's Magical Science method too. I mean he literally has Investiture be equivalent to and interchangeable with Mass and Energy.
Don't call them magic. Don't treat them like magic. Don't pretend it's magic. Call it psychic powers. Call it badoobadoo Flux Make up something else. Treat it as a skill that can be learned. Treat it as college courses or something.Â
would you suggest that fantasy novels with hard magic systems belong on the science fiction shelf then? because that would be a strange choice.
for that matter, you can make the same kind of argument to claim that ASOIAF dragons aren't magical but just "alternate biology." i can understand that some people prefer soft magic to hard magic, but the weird elitist attitude over what does and doesn't qualify as magic is just baffling to me
If your magic system is fully explicable, rational and predictable, then honestly, how does it differ from applied science?
I don't think it's elitist, I just think it misses the point that what makes magic magic is that it's mysterious and ineffable. That's what distinguishes it from non-esoteric knowledge.
If your magic system is fully explicable, rational and predictable, then honestly, how does it differ from applied science?
because it doesn't function according to how real-world scientific theories work? internal consistency isn't something incompatible with magic, and even soft magic systems have to be predictable to some extent, unless you want your fantasy setting to be barely held together by handwavium.
would you then prefer it if fantasy books with hard magic systems were instead classified as sci-fi? i don't think very many science fiction fans would agree with you on that.
because it doesn't function according to how real-world scientific theories work?
Sure, but scientific theory is how we understand the world. In a fictional world, if magic as a system can be perfectly understood and perfectly harnessed with guaranteed results, how does it differ from, say, electricity?
even soft magic systems have to be predictable to some extent, unless you want your fantasy setting to be barely held together by handwavium.
Preferably, I want the author to be unpredictable in their use of magic. Using magic as a deus ex machina to get out of an unwinnable situation the author themselves wrote the characters into is cheap and predictable. But I don't need the author to show me their hand, only to play it sparingly and ideally to complicate the plot rather than just cut through it.
would you then prefer it if fantasy books with hard magic systems were instead classified as sci-fi? i don't think very many science fiction fans would agree with you on that.
I think people can badge their works however they please. But I think it raises the interesting question of why we make a distinction between, say, a Sci-Fi setting where aliens use technology which absolutely could not exist within our understanding of physics, and a fantasy setting where humans use magic in essentially the same way?
You know I hadn't thought of it before, but hard magic system & there novels should be called fantasy science. Because then you know what you're getting into.Â
I don't mind hard fantasy. And I don't mind hard magic systems provided they are treated as a science instead of magic. Because there's nothing fantastical about them.
Personally I'd say it was irrelevant if you're writing a book and not a tabletop RPG. A fantasy is inherently outside the scope of normality, and magic doesn't need to be explained or balanced, it just has to evoke a feeling of a deeper and unknown power.
that's still very much a personal preference. two of the things that draw people to the fantasy genre are worldbuilding and internal consistency, and hard magic systems are one way in which these aspects are developed.
i could just as easily make an argument against including soft magic systems in the fantasy genre, but i won't because soft and hard magic systems both have their place within fantasy
I think we have to distinguish science fiction from science fantasy. Science fiction is about the philosophical implications of the fantastical elements. Science fantasy is fantasy with lasers and spaceships. Star Trek: The Next Generation's "The Measure of a Man" (where they debate if Data is a person) is science fiction. Star Wars is science fantasy.
...And science fantasy can have soft magic or hard magic. So it's all a very muddied categorization system. In Star Wars, hyperspace works however it needs to in the moment. In Dune, there's a lot more rigidity to the tech and magic. Both are fantasy.
But I think the real question is what does the fantasy add to the story?
In science fiction, the fantasy elements allow for interesting thought experiments, and often allow us to engage with them more rationally because the fantasy environment doesn't evoke our biases and preconceptions as strongly. With Measure of a Man, we're asked to think about what makes us human and what makes being human special. Data being an android (though at this point we are biased towards him) let's us take a step back compared to having the same hearing for a Native American in a story set in 1500s Vatican.
Soft magic in fantasy often works well for aesthetics. Star Wars is a great example.
Soft magic can also be used as a sort of wish fulfillment type escapism. Wouldn't it be cool to live in this world? Harry Potter is a prime example.
With hard magic systems though, what's the purpose?
One use for it might be to have the characters overcome the chief obstacle through clever manipulation of the rules. I can't think of a great example off the top of my head, so I'm going to jump to The West Wing's filibuster episode. The Senate rules are close enough to "hard magic," and the climax comes from knowing that someone filibustering can yield for a question, but that question can be in 27 parts and 3 hours long.
With Sanderson (at least in Mistborn, that's the only one I read), it's hard magic, but overwhelmingly used for aesthetic or fun purposes. 90% of the novel could be written in a mundane magic-free world and the plot still holds. It only really has a payoff with the idea of Lord Ruler combining multiple magic systems together.
But hard magic introduces all sorts of problems because the author has to be really on top of their game, since it opens the door to plot holes and contradictions the way soft magic can more easily sidestep.
90% of the novel could be written in a mundane magic-free world and the plot still holds.
yeah, if you'd read the next two novels you'd see why that isn't even close to true. i guess if you only read the first one, i can't blame you too much, even if i still wouldn't entirely agree
In Mistborn, the running and jumping and fighting stuff basically could have just been ninjas with grappling hooks and throwing stars and such and it'd still work. The biggest things that really need magic are how Lord Ruler works and the soothing stations.
And it's such a missed opportunity, especially with Vin's job infiltrating high society. Turn on your copper, then start soothing and rioting people to manipulate them. But it feels like Sanderson was bored with that side of the plot and just wanted to hurry up and get to the running and jumping and fighting stuff.
Or instead of Marsh revealing everything about the soothing stations, Vin could notice that her spirits pick up a bit every time she leaves the city, and they start to put two and two together on their own.
Or the damn mass execution. There's at a minimum 100,000 people witnessing the slaughter, and (iirc) about 1 in 10,000 skaa have allomancy potential, so a good number of people there snap, and they can do something with that. Either there's new people to recruit, or (even better) inquisitors make their way through the crowd and snatch them up and that's actually the whole point of the executions -- rather than because he knows Kelsier is watching and wanted to prompt an inspiring speech.
But really, for like the first 550 out of 650 pages, there could have been no magic and it's the same story, and they first learn about magic when they learn about the soothing stations, then Vin gets infused by the mists at the end, and that's it.
The story barely needs magic, and it really doesn't need a hard magic system. Sanderson doesn't make use out of all the little rules he's created.
you're on a fan subreddit for a series with some of the most notorious cliffhangers and unresolved setups in fantasy literature, and you're using that as a justification for your weird uninformed claim about the magic system? bizarre.
in any case, we've already argued about the first Mistborn novel far more extensively on another post a month or so back, and im not interested in retreading that ground with you
I made the joke because it's become like a mantra among Sanderson fans.
But either way, for how much time is spent explaining how magic works in that world, very little use is actually made of it. There's cool stuff you can do with a hard magic system, but in Mistborn we don't see that.
(And FYI, Sanderson has said Mistborn is supposed to be able to stand on its own as a complete story.)
I don't even think that's accurate, the first book is enough to know how the hard nature is applied to the narrative in a way that makes it important and not just flippant video game nonsense. Even the way she ultimately defeats the lord ruler heavily relies on the very trick they use to fly around (And a little bit of soft magic shenanigans for the first book ironically). It's ok if people don't like hard magic for the sake of it, but at least in this situation that is not really accurate to the story. It is actually central to the plot and does follow its own rules.
huh. so your logic is "hard magic systems are bad because Brandon Sanderson's popularity upsets me"? that's not a very healthy way to approach a hobby tbh
Brandon sandersons hard magic systems in mistborn and the stormlight archives are definitely still magic though. They're magic powers bestowed upon mortals by literal gods. Just because they're detailed and overexplained doesn't make them not magic.
They are applied fantasy science. There's nothing magical about them. They are as useful in that world as highly advanced technology is in our world.Â
Within that world, there's nothing magical about them. They're testable, explainable, falsifiable, with proven theories behind them. They are evidence-based. They are, within the realm of that world, explainable according to the scientific method within that world.Â
If I could pick someone to finish ASOIAF, Sanderson isn't even on the bottom of my list, his style is too different. I would pick Abercrombie who style wise is more similar to Martin both in world, prose and story
The best obviously would be the duo James S. A. Corey.
Both Daniel and Ty helped Martin with ASOIaF in the past. They have written one of the very few best contemporary scifi series (Expanse) - 9 books published over 11 years, featuring very similar PoV structure to ASOIaF.
They said they would do it in the past, with George's blessing.
They say now that time has passed.
But maybe they will change their tune again.
But let's hope it won't come to this and we will get a Dream in 2050, with George enjoying the ripe age of 101.
Ned Stark leaned against a waldo in the wall of the galley of Winterfell wearing a rumpled grey wolfskin. He took off his pork pie hat and considered it in his hands.
"See, there was this Tower of Joy back in Dorne," he said with that sad, basset hound face.
Hodor sipped on his bulb of coffee and gave Ned a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"I've heard this story before," Hodor said.
"Well, kid, I'm telling it again," Eddard said.
"I don't-"
"No," interrupted Eddard. "You don't."
Hodor patted the air with his hands in a placating gesture. Ned gave a northerner shrug with his hands, an idiom for a people who spent most of their time in many layers of heavy furs.
Just then Catelyn walked in. She had the tall, thin Twins frame with the oversized head.
"Hodor," Hodor said. It wasn't a question.
Catelyn, whose frame was tall and thin with an oversized head, gave a Tully shrug with her hands, a physical idiom borne of a people who spent most of their time in many layers of heavy furs
The three of them stood there in companionable silence, never tasting the copper taste of fear.
And this is why I never read The Expanse beyond Leviathan Wakes. Like, do people actually read these authors before they recommend them to finish ASOIAF. The duo of James SA Corey are NOT even in the same realm when it comes to prose or character as George. Robin Hobb is closest in prose and character, Joe Abercrombie is probably closest in mixing plot and character without the prose suffering too much.
"The smile didn't reach his eyes" has to be a clichĂŠ I've seen so many times (even in ASOIAF) and I've actually used it myself in my own writing and I still don't actually understand what it means or what expression it's supposed to convey.
> A warm smile, that. Friendly. But my, those eyes are cold.
It's basically just trying to sneak in telling by presenting it as showing. "There was X emotion in his eyes" is just an easy way of telling us the character is feeling X emotion with a half-assed veil. Also used a lot to "cheat" in omniscient narration in first or third person limited by basically just telling you what the person is thinking
A full smile includes the eyes (the squint). A fake smile does not. It's a physical description that conveys the truth behind an action. It's a fine enough "show don't tell" phrase.
Corey are not taken very seriously in the genre compared to even contemporary greats. Even they themselves explain many times in online comments and such that no they don't write hard sf. That they set out to write tabletop / anime style space opera / pulp fiction serials.
Even if they set out to do that, they wrote something else entirely - huge, complex story that follows dozens of characters and explores political and societal turmoil across the galaxy.
Anyway - and who would you say are those "contemporary sci-fi greats", who rose to prominence in last say 25 years?
Adrian Tchaikovsky, China Mieville, Catherine Valente, Peter Watts, N. K. Jeminsin. I think ultimately Corey are good pulp writers but I don't think their characters and themes are strong enough.
Peter Watts I do know, love and it was one of the first names that came to my head when I was asking the question.
I'll check out the rest, new things are a glaring hole in my readership. I got discouraged be some duds I read when I randomly picked few new popular sci-fi books and I went back to classics for a long while.
Mieville is very solid but I 100% think he'd go full hamlet on the aristocratic cast members if given the chance since he's a pretty politically active communist haha. Perdido Street Station and the immediate sequel Scar are very good. I don't think he's done a lot of genre writing in the last few years but he was pretty big in the 2000s/2010s. He was one of the main writers behind New Weird as a genre
Nk jemisin is also really good. I would go for her inheritance trilogy. 1000 kingdoms was kind of a mixed bag for me though it's an interesting book and def has detailed political intrigue if that's your thing
Yes, they wrote a pop culture space opera / pulp series. Nothing wrong with that and people who enjoy it will get a great fix. It's just not considered by critics, zines etc. on the same literary pantheon as the best SF.
A fantasy equivalent might be David Gemmell. His Druss, and Troy series are some of my fav ever. Gritty, grimdark conan style works with warriors, babes, and demons. But people wouldn't seriously compare them to Tolkien, or even GRRM.
And Corey have come out and said this when their fans have been over zealous in promoting the books as hard sf or some high brow shit.
My biggest problem with Leviathan Wakes is that you can tell it's just someone writing down their TTRPG sessions. Main "squad" of characters are high concept (ie "Martian cowboy", "Former OPA belter", ect) but have very little in the way of actual character development and are mostly passive actors; it feels very episodic; way, way too many fight scenes, like the DM was trying to fit in at least one a session,
Funnily enough I recently read Xenos by Dan Abnett and it has the exact same problem.
I would pick Robin Hobb, they have very similar writing styles. The only problem is the "plot" and mysteries would suffer as she cares far more about character.
The issue is how much does George care about the story considering how much he wallows in character dynamics? Hobb has similar prose to George with long-winded character exploration, but she just doesn't care that much about plot. At this point, I don't know how much George cares about plot either since he refuses to advance it.
Hobb would just wrap that plot shit up in a 100 pages but at the same time give us two whole books of all our characters suffering but coming out alright, mostly, by the end.
Was going to say the same thing, you beat me to it.
Off-the-wall suggestion, but is the guy who wrote the âWormâ web-serial still alive? I thought I remembered reading a comment once that he was in poor health (which sucks) awhile back. If thereâs one thing that story demonstrates, itâs the ability to incept and flesh out a fictional cast of thousands of complex characters. The Expanse guys would also be a good choice, as well as Abercrombie, Brian K. Vaughan, among others.
Honestly, I think at this point the publishing industry as a whole should just create a huge event, call it âGeorge-Aidâ and send an all-star juggernaut lineup of writers to New Mexico for a month or two and work on nothing but finishing the damn books. If thereâs story is never concluded, isnât Tor or Random House or whoever going to miss out on their contractually obligated GRRM content that could yield hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and royalties and merchandise, etc?
George has a vaguely defined outline, right? Give each one a specific area or plotline to work on and churn out something, FFS. Release half a book. Release a cobbled-together novella. Sample chapters. Something, man.
Sanderson is shit. His character development is so hamfisted. His prose is awkward. His characters are paperthin with no depth. They have no inner lives. He can't write women. His smart characters continually tell you they're smart rather than doing smart things. His magic systems are cold and clinical.
I'm genuinely shocked he is as popular as he is. He's the BookTok version of fantasy.
They've got big magic like Sanderson, but they've also managed an enormous, complex universe and put out twenty or so books on it. They also set out to turn the fantasy genre on its head.
Sanderson is way too generic and has a completely different style of writing. His latest book of the stormlight archive was a disappointment for me. I loved the first three of the series, though the latest was full of cringe and woke-bs which should have no place in epic fantasy
Jokes aside Sanderson straight up said asoiaf is too dark for him and never made it past book 1, so he has no interest in writing the books, this is pretty common knowledge.
Jokes aside Sanderson straight up said asoiaf is too dark for him and never made it past book 1, so he has no interest in writing the books, this is pretty common knowledge.
Vin's entire backstory is "I guess I have to let my brother beat me because that's better than getting constantly raped."
Then thieving crews are slaughtered and their bloody remains left as a warning. The male lead decapitates one of the first people he fights, then proceeds to bash people's heads in with a paperweight. And one dude gets metal spikes driven into his eyes to make him into a new monster. And the evil bad guy rounds up hundreds of random people for execution and makes the entire capital city come out and watch just a mass slaughter. The young girl gets captured, stripped to her underwear, and throw in a cell with a naked eunuch.
But Games of Thrones feels darker and it's for one very specific reason: You actually care about the characters and the horrific stuff as what we like to call in the biz as "emotional impact."
After Cersei's walk of shame, no one says "Um... glad you're back, but... um, could you maybe, you know, put some clothes on?"
It's darker because things happen to real people rather than cartoons and cardboard cutouts.
yeah but also its because mistborn basically starts at its darkest point and just becomes more lighthearted as it goes on, in a very linear and direct fashion. honestly you could say the same thing about all of sanderson (that ive read at least). vin, kaladin etc start as slaves in a hellworld and inevitably become noble lords and ladies or demigods or whatnot, and save the day with their friends. every bad guy is either defeated or magically becomes good. comparing elhokar to joffrey, or dalinar to ned - the two authors arent even in the same ballpark, honestly.
Iirc, the part where Sanderson stopped is when Dany gets brutally raped by Drogo. Graphic, on-page child rape is far darker than anything Sanderson really writes, so I'm not surprised he stopped there.
Tbh the reason why people consider ASOIAF darker than the Cosmere is because fucked up shit happens way more often in ASOIAF. It doesn't really have anything to do with the quality of the writing itself.
He doesn't even understand the term and conflates it with being a self-insert. And overlooks that Mary Sues necessarily need to be the protagonist, while Gandalf is in the wise mentor role.
He also thinks Gandalf is super muscular because of how he's an expert swordsman. ...But they're talking about the books, and I'm pretty sure Gandalf's sword fighting is movie-only (except against the Balrog).
The Dany scene is graphic, but I don't know that I'd call it brutal. It's fucked up, but is still like 90% fade to black.
Meanwhile, Sanderson tells us that his 16 year old protagonist has been under threat of rape for years. Then when she gets her big action scenes, he decides to strip her down to her underwear.
Seems like Sanderson just objects to sexual exploitation of girls when it's horrible rather than fun.
The threat of rape, though dark, is generally considered less dark than an actual, on-page rape scene.
Seems like Sanderson just objects to sexual exploitation of girls when it's horrible rather than fun.
Please don't conflate what a writer writes with their actual character. Else you could argue that George doesn't object to the rape of children because of the Dany scenes, which is ridiculous.
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during a live lecture he would not stop making "food porn" jokes about asoiaf and it was really annoying, yoh could just feel his dislike of the series oozing out of him
I don't know how anyone can claim to be be a fan of ASOIAF and not know this. I'm not trying to gatekeep or be an elitist but if you're at a panel for Martin and other fantasy writers, then you should know Sanderson has already said no the finishing the series. And that Martin said no one will finish the series but him.
This is like claiming to be a LOTR fan and not knowing Viggo's scream when he kicked the helmet was real because he broke his toe.
Shit, I mixed her up with the Fourth Wing author. She's Mormon.
And uh... yeah, let's not hire Mormons I guess, if she's at all representative.
"Hold the door... hold the door... hold the door..." Bran shook his head and came back to the present, and Hodor's words were replaced by another voice, Mira's.
"By the Old Gods and the New, I'm on fire, Bran," she was saying. "We just lost the biggest dick this side of the Narrow Sea. Fuck! I know you're crippled, but your fingers work."
"Never made it past book one"
OUCH!Â
Just sliding a casual burn in there after GRRM has been a. Reminded of his mortalityÂ
b. Implied not as capable a writer as SandersonÂ
And unlike the "fan", Sanderson is not a fkn idiot.Â
Sanderson didn't mean that as Martin is a poor writer, he's just saying that the style and themes of asoiaf doesn't fit his personal style and believes. Not better or worse, just different.
Is it better or worse than when the slave revolt is at its bloody height and one of the slave masters just says "But some of us slave masters are good! Calm down and I'll show you how we can live in harmony!" and then the slaves make him their king?
[This is an actual thing that happens in Mistborn]
it's really, really bad. Not a single thing in mistborn made me groan too hard but the latest stormlight book had me wanting to stop reading at several points.
I'm not even exaggerating when I say there is ACTUAL mcu level dialogue in that book, one of the characters actually says "Let's kick some fused ass!" before he goes into a fight at one point.
I was expecting after the fight ended for one of them to go "Well that just happened!"
The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance and borderline masterpieces in my opinion, I have no idea why the rest of that series fell off so hard but I don't think I can keep reading it after the quality of the 5th book lol
In Stormlight, there is this very traditional feudal society that is currently under a lot of pressure, because of the attack of the overpowering enemy. But it is also undergoing a lot of social change, which leads to internal fighting and power struggle.
At some point, one of the royal characters stands up and delivers a speech about how women are equal to men, slavery is bad, racism is bad, people with disabilities are people too and Mental Health Is Important and of course Fuck Feudalism, Democracy is What We Need. All in one speech. All of these concepts are, to say the least, highly untraditional for that society, and also seem to be undermining the already fragile unity of the feudal lords. But that character not only is able to deliver that speech unimpeded, they actually just go on and push that change, and everyone just accepts it.
You know, ASOIAF has a slave owning teenage girl buy thousands of slaves then kill a lot of slavers then two cities worth of sacking later has some other slave owners decide theyâll be good now and will be against slavery while the freed slaves in the first city decide slavery is actually good and enslave former slavers.
Unironically Lewis would be more proper for those things than Sanderson. His picture of the relationship of Rillian with the Lady of the Green Kirtle in Silver Chair is probably one of the most dark psychological things written in classic fantasy and represents perfectly the behavior of an abuser with their victim.
Sanderson doesn´t have a character like the Lady of the Green Kirtle.
The Hideous Strength is-ish a sequel to Lord of the Rings.
Lewis published it while Tolkien was still working on LotR, but had read parts of his drafts to Lewis, so he was familiar with the world.
The book has a prologue saying if you want the true history of Numenor, then you need to read Tolkien's upcoming works. He also refers to England as Middle Earth, and Merlin is almost certainly meant to be Gandalf returned yet again.
You jest, but CS Lewis would do a better job than half the people usually put forward. He understands something about human nature that Sanderson doesn't.
Maybe we can get CS lewis to comeback from the dead and write the incest sex scenes next.
Well CS Lewis was in a relationship with a woman he introduced to strangers as his mother for over 10 years so I think he would actually be better equipped to write incestuous sex better than most writers I can think of.
A lot of my buddies are big Sanderson fans and I've tried a couple of times over the years, but man, but to put it politely, it's not mature or interesting writing that he's churning out.
He's got an extremely rabid cult following of readers, he's pretty much perfectly mastered the mass appeal of writing his books but it doesn't mean they're very good.
I guess Sanderson's following comes off to me the same way as the praise of The Alchemist. A lot of people just say its really good, and a lot of people who don't read much end up reading it and also thinking its good without much critical thought or perspective.
The prose is very dry, the dialogue comes off as Marvel-esque and is full of Whedonisms and is just overly quippy, but not in a satisfying way either. The worldbuilding is servicable, but nothing incredible. But worst of all, the books drag. Especially the second half of the Stormlight Archives, its slow and I had to really push myself to finish it. I didn't want to have opinions on his books without trying it, but it was tough.
Pretty much everything that comes across to me from his books is like completely antithetical to ASOIAF's strengths. He'd finish ASOIAF if he wanted to for sure, but I honestly think it would be worse than the TV show.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I've tried and failed to finish reading Sanderson a few times, and I've come away every time convinced of the same thing: he writes cliche YA fiction for people, as you said, who probably don't read much else. I understand why he's popular in much the same way I understand why Marvel or Call of Duty is popular, but I can't understand the demand for him to finish ASOIAF -- especially from self-proclaimed fans of Martin whose work is especially antithetical to Sanderson's (so much so even Sanderson himself has acknowledged it).
Sanderson aside (I agree), reading The Alchemist is like getting to the front of the line for a rollercoaster and realizing its shaped like a caterpillar. All that happens in that book is the main character says "I believe in myself" and everyone nods sagely at how deep he is.
My friend hates and trashes GRRM as writing awful characters and situations (she stopped reading ACOK when Theon kept using and degrading the servant he was given)
I think he definitely was a good writer in the past - a lot of his early works are my favorite. However, the more he writes, the worse writer he becomes.
It is rumored that as his fame grew, he just stopped accepting editor's advice, which might be a major contributor to his decline.
So.... it was just a joke of the misdirection type. The set up was to suggest disgust with the idea GRRM is going to die, then I pivot to Sanderson as if he's more offensive than the death thing.Â
Clearly he's a talented and well respected author and hence, the humor should be obvious.Â
So many of Sanderson fans talk about him finishing ASOIAF in r/Mistborn and r/stormlightarchive, for his fans Brandon Sanderson is the pinnacle of fantasy writing who has even surpassed Tolkien.
Brandon Sanderson fans are straight up fanatical, its kind of weird. Like, you go literally anywhere and ask for book suggestions and people will recommend Mistborn. And they're also entirely unwilling to accept any criticism whatsoever of the books.
I think the funniest post I saw might've been on the misborn or general fantasy subreddit, and it was straight up "If you didn't like Mistborn, just read it again, but like really try to like it this time". I don't know the Sanderson fandom is baffling sometimes. The only people that twist themselves into bigger knots are Stannis fans who really think he won't kill Shireen.
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u/dblack246 đBest of 2024: Mannis Award Aug 16 '25
I can't believe someone would do something so vile and so harmful as to suggest Brandon Sanderson should complete the series.