The fact that Sanderson wrote The Gathering Storm is Obvious

[Mr. Micawber]

The fact that Sanderson wrote The Gathering Storm is Obvious...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...because any other author would have used the opportunity to end Elayne's reign of terror against the readers of the Wheel of Time. Or Faile's, I'm not picky here.

[cortezthekiller]

Seriously, guys, this kind of speculation is ridiculous.

 

I would literally bet a lot money that nearly all of the things are so "obvious" that BS wrote or RJ wrote, you guys got completely wrong.

 

What's the point of picking it apart like that?

[Seafolk Sedai]

well, here's my two coppers:

 

I didn't care one white who wrote which parts. I read it for the story, and didn't pay attention to the sentence structure or the number of exclamation points and whatnot, and I think that made me able to enjoy it a lot better.

 

I will say, something I noticed and have not as yet seen mentioned elsewhere, was the use of the phrase "bloody ashes". this didn't bother me at first, because the first time I noticed it, we heard it said by Ituralde, and I figured maybe it was a domani thing. Then Mat started saying it and that's when it really bugged me. It just kind of stood out and took me briefly out of the moment.

 

It's not a huge thing...but it was never used before. NEVER. Blood and ashes, blood and bloody ashes, yes. Bloody ashes? no.

 

I meant to ask about the choice at the book signing I went to last fall, but at the last minute changed my mind because I was afraid to spoil something for anyone else.

 

[Duskfire]

t's not a huge thing...but it was never used before. NEVER. Blood and ashes, blood and bloody ashes, yes. Bloody ashes? no.

 

Thats your problem? Whats the difference between blood and bloody ashes and just bloody ashes. Its just a shortening, it still means the same thing. Its these weird minor quibbles with the book that I dont really understand.

[Salome]

I feel like I'm in the minority here and my apologies to everyone who disagrees with me. I am now about 250 pages into gathering storm after reading the whole series from scratch again (about my 10th time) and I have to say, thus far I REALLY am not enjoying it.

 

Don't get me wrong, all was not good pre RJ's death, we had books where virtually nothing happened and hours and hours of describing clothes and necklaces and hairstyles to the point where I REALLY no longer cared. On top of that alot of the characters seemed to be designed to be increasingly annoying. Every woman was a bossy know it all and every man was a tooth grinding dimwit in their company, not to mention the sudden and unneeded diversion into lesbian land, when every other woman seemed to have had a pillow friend at one time or another. (and Perrin's "I LOVE FAILE!" motivation of the past few books was becoming hellishly boring. Yes we knew he was earnest, yes we knew he wasn't dim just slow and methodical and yes we knew he would get Faile back, we didnt need bludgeoned over the head with the fact on and on for nigh on 3 books) I could go on at some length about some of the parts of the characters which annoy me immensely (and i suppose i just have), not to mention the amount of times RJ wrote one of the most annoying lines in fantasy to ever be put on paper; "things weren't like this in a book", in what can only be seen as an incredibly smug self reference of "oh look how different my book is!"

All these things were building into a host of characters which were becoming tiresome, plot lines which were dragged out and being bogged down by an over the top commentary upon the gender divide and detail which was just simply unneeded. However saying ALL OF THAT, RJ could still build moments where ones pulse raced. The battles with Ishamael, Sammeal and Rahvin. Mogheidans capture and the slow reveal about Moirainne. The intricacy of the characters and their depth still intrigued me and the many flaws they had made them seem more human and to be blunt, he was a good writer, who could convey his image of this world to the writer in a way which sparked the imagination.

 

However i am now about 1/3 of the way through a gathering storm and so much more annoys me. True the needless and endless description of clothes has ended which is to be celebrated and the pace is no longer laborious, but his actual style of writing is jarring to say the least, all this "Siuan Said", "Egwene said" midway through a sentence, is simply distracting and puts a needless long space between two halves of the same sentence. However it is not just the change in style which is jarring to the reader, the much more painful change is that we've spent 11 books of people trying to work out what's going on in each other's heads without ever just telling them the truth. I've always liked that about the series as it resonates with me as quite true to life, rare is the person who turns round and says bluntly "I love you", much more often people run about wondering "does he like me?" and worrying themselves silly about it, while trying to interpret mundane signs into meaning more than they do "well if he calls me in the next 20 minutes, that means he DOES love me" and so on and so forth... however Sanderson instead opts for charecters and just the internal monologues in general being more direct than this, however this leads to some amazingly over the top and cheesy comments from the characters which is just shoddy writing. One prime example of this tooth achingly bad bad writing is in Chapter 8 (in which the entire dialogue between Siuan and Bryne is just simply bad):

 

She hesitated. He was watching her, bathed in the glow of the two lights, eyes thoughtful. Reserved but not accusatory. "That question drove me here, you know," he said. "It's why I hunted you all that way. It's why I finally swore to these rebel Aes Sedai, though I had little wish to be pulled into yet another war at Tar Valon. I did it all because I needed to understand. I had to know. Why? Why did the woman with those eyes - those passionate, haunting eyes - break her oath?"

 

I swear I almost gagged when reading that line. True it echos the sentiment from earlier in the series where Bryne wonders why he followed her all the way to Salidar and surely it couldn't be just for a pair of pretty eyes, but thinking a muted version of it is vastly different thing to having the character crank it up a few levels and full on "Miles and Boon" himself into saying something that was just so out of character for him.

 

In short I personally feel that although BS has a better pace to his story telling, he lacks the subtlety of RJ, which made the series for me. So far the book has had the feel of a boy trying hard to fill a mans bigger shoes and never quite managing to do so.

 

I truly hope the book (and the writing) picks up soon!

[Charlz Fel]

Salome: I agree that the increased directness of the characters was a bit jarring at times.  There's a particular comment of Faile's to Perrin that I can't imagine Jordan writing (although, again, I'm going to be conservative and say that, just because I cannot imagine it, does not necessarily mean it did not happen).  But I was not, in general, as bothered by this as you seem to be.

 

Minor note: the first sentence of the paragraph you gave is of the form "_____ hesitated."  (See my previous post.)

 

I also would point out that "things weren't like this in a story" refers to the sort of stories that the characters were familiar with, not the sort we read.

[Charlz Fel]

[since Salome has given the impression that s/he has not read the entire book yet, I will point out that the following contains spoilers.]

 

 

There are also a few particular scenes that I think are Sanderson's rather than Jordan's, because of something good that Sanderson did.  There are two places in the book where a main character (Rand and Egwene, respectively) does something surprisingly resourceful that I imagine very few readers would have anticipated.  First, when Rand attacks Graendal.  Second, when Egwene figures out how to defend the Tower, in spite of the fact that she can barely channel.  In both of these cases, it is set up so that we start to wonder if the character has gone insane, and then reach a sudden "aha" moment and are awed at their resourcefulness.  There has been at least one reveal of this sort before in the series--Rand's plan for Asmodean--but I don't think it has nearly the impact of what was done in these two scenes.  On the other hand, I can think of at least one similarly awesome moment from Mistborn [it occurs during a fight between Kelsier and an Inquisitor].  Thus, I am inclined to believe that Sanderson wrote these scenes, and did something good with them that Jordan would not have.

[Salome]

Thanks Charlz,

 

I understand that the reference in the books are too the books the characters themselves read, however one must take fantasy not in complete abstract. Comments such as "this isnt the way it ends in a book" etc... play on the readers understanding of the function of most plots in the fantasy genre and thus within the plot it is of course a reference to the characters past reading, while in reality it is a none too subtle way of the author saying "look my book is different from other books in this genre".

 

Also may I ask, at what point did Channelling stop being a Verb and become a noun. I swear that in the series pre Sanderson, the term "channeler" was only used in the time of legends, instead the longer prose of "woman who could channel" or something of that ilk was continually used in the third age. However in Gathering Storm everyone keeps saying Channeller. I'm not sure if I've just missed this change in RJ's writing or if this is an actual change in this book.

 

I suppose my point with the last post, which got a bit lost with me being somewhat specific about certain things which were bugging me, is that simply alot of the characters are VERY different in this book. The characters have developed over 11 books and 15 years and it's almost as if close friends have suddenly had a complete over haul in their personality in many of the scenes. Everyone seems a tad darker and more maudlin. Also alot of the writing just doesn't engage me as much as the other books did, even when RJ prattled on about dresses for ages, I still didn't really think of putting the book down in disgust. However Sanderson seems prone to having his characters make overly grand speeches and it grates with me immensely. I no longer feel like I'm watching a troop of old beloved characters try and save the world, instead it feels like some horrid 2D version of them have taken over and sapped them of the soul which made them who they were.

 

The best example of this from a euro-centric viewpoint, is that it is somewhat akin to watching a series on the BBC of channel 4 in the UK and then having it remade by hollywood the next season. Sure you have the same actors and the plot is roughly similar, but the subtelity and poetry of the writing has been sacrificed for a faster paced script and over the top heartfelt monologues.

 

As I said, maybe I'm just being harsh and judgmental, but I have got to about chapter 14 now and I have thrown the book down in disgust several times and this was before I noted the change of author. As I had actually forgotten that RJ had died when I started reading the book, it was only upon getting about 5 chapters in and continually asking myself "WTF is going on with this book? It's nothing like the others!" that I remembered. That will teach me to read covers in the future.

 

I truly do hope this book gets better. I've been reading this series since I was VERY young and it is the only series I have ever reread multiple times. So having it end like this is quite disappointing to me.

[tinote]

I agree with salome . I have finished the book and the characters feel different to me . Yes he may may be following RJ's story but the way in which he potrays the characters is different from all the other books . Can u truly say that the way the characters were expressed truly reflected the build up from the other books ?

 

Honestly, and bluntly, the few chapters devoted to Perrin and Mat are unnecessary bulky to this already long book. Neither fit in well with the internal struggles of Egwene and rand ,  and they feel out of balance.

 

Because the primary focus are the internal struggles  ( for Rand the darkness and Egwene healing the tower ) it is difficult for BS to write it as RJ would hav and also we wouldn't hav wanted a ghost writter to do it because it is likely they would hav done it badly.

 

I loved reading the book but that does not change the fact that it felt different to reading the other 11 books , time will tell in the next 2 books whether were giving to early a judgement . Sanderson is a great writer and a fan he will have his own bias or ideal on the characters , don't all  writers  and do we even know that RJ might hav gone in the same direction

[farthammer]

Really it seems the series is so incredibly long that some people have grown so sensitive to RJ's writing style that it is basically impossible for anyone besides RJ to have finished the series.  Some of these criticisms are so nitpicky you would think someone rewrote the Bible in ebonics or something.

 

I hope the next time we see Lan BS writes him in jarjar binks style and Loial in jive turkey.

[talligan]

Really? You guys found that? There were a few jarring scenes but I think I only found them jarring because I was trying to look to see how Brandon's writing was different. Once I got past that I didn't really care and was swept along with the story.

 

I'm sorry you're not enjoying it, but I'm glad I did :)

[Anoxanmore]

Well I don't know about you but every woman should have a pillow friend.

 

Same for every man. :D

[cortezthekiller]

All I can say to the last 5 or 6 posts (minus the last 2), is that I am really glad this garbage is getting deleted when the forums move over.

 

Seriously.  ::)

[Chanur]

I enjoyed Jordan's writing for the most part, he was verbose and descriptive. I liked that to an extent. The trouble was he did not know how to turn it off. There was so much braid tugging and sniffing you could fill an entire book with nothing but that. TGS had less BTPP ( Braid Tugs Per Page) so I was very happy with it.

[Salome]

@Cortezthekiller,

 

Thank you for your reasoned and informed post. In no way was your post needless, not to mention pointless.

 

I have been civil in my debate here and I have not attacked anyone for liking the new writing style of BS. IF people like it, I actually envy them as I wish I could get into the book too. I was just expressing my feelings and thoughts on the most recent book.

 

If however you disagree, maybe a slightly more mature response would be in order than what you posted above, but then maybe I shouldn't have such high hopes for all users.

 

Regards.

 

Salome

[cortezthekiller]

You're right about that Salome, my last post was a little flame-ish.  I apologize for that, but I've stated my opinion on the matter in this thread a few times already.

 

I feel that all the nit-picking in BS's writing style is just that: nit-picking.  People are looking for differences and when they do that, they can find anything.  It seems like most of the people who have problems with the prose in tGS (not necessarily you, just most people), read the book with a bias already in mind that it's not going to be as good as RJ.

 

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, mine is that BS did a wonderful job, and I think there are few, if any, authors other than RJ who could have finished the books as well as Sanderson did.  In fact, there are some aspects of his writing style that I enjoyed more than RJ!

 

Anyway, again, everyone is entitled to an their opinion, I shouldn't have flamed you for yours.  I hope you can enjoy the next book more, I'm sure I will!

[Anoxanmore]

We should all be very, very happy that TG did not finish WoT.

 

Yes?

 

Yes. :D