Things Brandon Sanderson did better than Robert Jordan

[Suttree]

Yeah, there are a few people that take things too far.

 

 

I couldn't have done it.

 

Not sure what that has to do with anything?

 

Also the his own world verse someone elses explanation doesn't really fly to my mind. If it was too rushed(and it was) you have to adjust work load accordingly no?

[jedman67]

I'm saying that the workload for the same number of pages is exponentially greater for finishing someone elses work than for writing your own.

[Suttree]

Sure but I was pointing out that he worked on various projects including an entire first book in his own series during that time frame. That would seem to indicate more time could have been spent on polishing writing for WoT.

 

It's well documented that BS "slaps words words down on a page"(his own description) which leads to rougher drafts than many other authors. He likes the process of creating, polishing not so much. In fact they changed his writing process after how rough the writing was in ToM was to address the issue. I argued for months here on DM that the extra time and the changed process would make a positive difference. Unfortunately that didn't end up being the case.

[ratswot]

All I can say is thank the light for Brandon Sanderson!

 

When I first started reading TWOT I enjoyed the way RJ wrote. For me that has always been the main attraction of the series. However, as has been discussed many times, from book 6 onwards RJ seemed to have lost the plot. His writing became very monotonous and it was hard to get through the books. In fact I gave up reading for a while and only started again once I heard RJ had passed away. The first thing that became apparent with Sanderson was he wrote the way RJ used to write and this sparked a renewed interest for me. Unfortunately I feel RJ had already done some irreparable damage to TWOT which even Sanderson couldn't fix.

[Suttree]

@ratswot

 

I'm sorry, are you saying the WoT is better off for RJ passing and not being able to complete the series?

 

As for Brandon writing how RJ used to write, their styles are not even remotely similar. In fact Brandon has explicitly stated he was not going to try and match RJ's style.

 

Also by monotonous do you mean the plot slowed down? Book 6 btw was Lord of Chaos which frequently ranks as one of the top rated books in the series. The plot may have gotten away from him around book 9 but he clearly showed he had it under control and was going in the right direction with KoD.

[ratswot]

@ suttree

 

Absolutely! RJ was making a mess of TWOT. Whether it was writer's block, his illness or something else, I felt RJ lost the plot after Book 6. As the OP pointed out things went steadily downhill from LOC until we were saved by Sanderson.

 

To each his own on writing styles. BS would not have been picked to finish the series if he couldn't continue in the same vein as RJ. Perhaps when BS "explicitly stated he was not going to try and match RJ's style" he meant post LOC! ;-)

[Suttree]

 Perhaps when BS "explicitly stated he was not going to try and match RJ's style" he meant post LOC! ;-)

 

Ha! That was well done.

 

Indeed to each his own with writing styles. Brandon's unpolishd pose(they literally had to change his writing process post ToM to address it), numerous mistakes, timeline issues, inability to write certain characters(Mat is a big example) and "tell don't show" style grated on many long time fans. Again RJ as of CoT obviously had hit a slow spot but KoD turned things around greatly. Brandon did a few things well and the pace did pick up compared to CoT but that was more where were in the story arc than anything else.

 

I think it does a huge disservice to the Creator in suggesting anyone else could have finished the series better than he could have.

[Cybertrolloc]

I found the claim that BS plotted the end to be more worth a wtf myself.

[ratswot]

 

I think it does a huge disservice to the Creator in suggesting anyone else could have finished the series better than he could have.

 

 

Mistakes and writing pose aside, if it wasn't for Sanderson we'd stil be waiting for RJ's next book. 23 years to finish a series, need I say more?

[Suttree]

 

 

I think it does a huge disservice to the Creator in suggesting anyone else could have finished the series better than he could have.

 

 

Mistakes and writing pose aside, if it wasn't for Sanderson we'd stil be waiting for RJ's next book. 23 years to finish a series, need I say more?

 

 

Well yes you do actually. As of KoD it was 15 years and RJ said he was wrapping up in one more book. With the amount of bloat and filler that were in these last three books it is obvious they never should have been split. One book in two volumes would have been more than sufficient. I guess it really it comes down to writing styles and what people prefer. Brandon's style is very surface level, high action and blunt while RJ was more descriptive, had better and charcterization and much stronger prose.

 

No one could have wrapped the series up like RJ could have and it's a bummer that we have a story which likely veered wildly away from the one RJ wanted to tell. That said we do owe our thanks to Brandon for finishing despite the many problems in his work. It will be interesting to see how his own Stormlight Archive unfolds. We have seen any number of talented writers run into that mid-late funk(GRRM, RJ, Erikson), curious to see how BS handles it.

[ratswot]

Well yes you do actually. As of KoD it was 15 years and RJ said he was wrapping up in one more book. With the amount of bloat and filler that were in these last three books it is obvious they never should have been split. One book in two volumes would have been more than sufficient. I guess it really it comes down to writing styles and what people prefer. Brandon's style is very surface level, high action and blunt while RJ was more descriptive, had better and charcterization and much stronger prose.

 

No one could have wrapped the series up like RJ could have and it's a bummer that we have a story which likely veered wildly away from the one RJ wanted to tell. That said we do owe our thanks to Brandon for finishing despite the many problems in his work. It will be interesting to see how his own Stormlight Archive unfolds. We have seen any number of talented writers run into that mid-late funk(GRRM, RJ, Erikson), curious to see how BS handles it.

 

 

You're accusing Sanderson of using "bloat and filler"? ;-) LOL, RJ would never ever have been able to finish the series off in two books. Things had ground to an excruciating halt by KOD with many plot lines left hanging. Sanderson had no option but to change the tempo of the books if he ever hoped of finishing the series. Don't forget, two years passed in TWOT years but 23 passed in ours.

 

I totally disagree on the story veering away from what RJ intended. From what I've read RJ and his wife had already plotted out how the series would end. BS merely wrote it up.

 

I've had no problems with Sanderson's work completing TWOT. I honestly don't think I'd have finished reading the series if RJ was still penning it.

[Suttree]

 

Well yes you do actually. As of KoD it was 15 years and RJ said he was wrapping up in one more book. With the amount of bloat and filler that were in these last three books it is obvious they never should have been split. One book in two volumes would have been more than sufficient. I guess it really it comes down to writing styles and what people prefer. Brandon's style is very surface level, high action and blunt while RJ was more descriptive, had better and charcterization and much stronger prose.

 

No one could have wrapped the series up like RJ could have and it's a bummer that we have a story which likely veered wildly away from the one RJ wanted to tell. That said we do owe our thanks to Brandon for finishing despite the many problems in his work. It will be interesting to see how his own Stormlight Archive unfolds. We have seen any number of talented writers run into that mid-late funk(GRRM, RJ, Erikson), curious to see how BS handles it.

You're accusing Sanderson of using "bloat and filler"? ;-) LOL, RJ would never ever have been able to finish the series off in two books. Things had ground to an excruciating halt by KOD with many plot lines left hanging. Sanderson had no option but to change the tempo of the books if he ever hoped of finishing the series.

Indeed I am, as have many others. RJ's "filler" was so riddled with hints and foreshadowing that it would take a massive rewrite to change anything. More so the quality of writing never dropped.. With Brandon you could quite literally cut out whole sections and not change a thing. Additionally it takes him an appalling amount of time to convey information, his "tell don't show" style and seeming inability to use literary devices such as ellipsis to advance the action stretches things in a portion of the story that should have zero bloat. You can not compare the pace mid-late in a series with the pace in the ending, it's apples and oranges. Where we were in the story arc is what sped things up as much as anything. Not to mention KoD had greatly increased the pace and pointed things towards the finish. We will have no idea if pace is a strength for Brandon in a series this long until we see a comparable situation in Stormlight Archive.

 

Take some of the Gawyn scenes for instance:

It's appalling how many POVs and pages Brandon has needed to write that story. Typically, we might have gotten one Gawyn shortish POV in Dorlan (typically prologue stuff) where he learned Egwene's captive, and he is thorn, and then nothing until suddenly he interrupted a Siuan/Bryne scene with a sudden arrival, his growing frustration mentioned only via observations of Siuan from then on (we didn't need a Lelaine scene making completely irrelevant and stupid inquiries about orchards in Andor (!) we just needed a reference by Siuan that Lelaine was manipulating Gawyn, until as a last resort Siuan went to him for the rescue. For the rest, we needed one confrontation with Egwene, and one conversation with Elayne or Bryne or Siuan, not three scenes of the same whining and self-pity, with each of them in turn...

Again as I said now that we have seen the results with the structural issues, writing quality that varies so wildly, and how artificially stretched out these three books were it's clear RJ had the correct idea for what was needed to wrap things up(important to note Brandon argued for one book as well).

I totally disagree on the story veering away from what RJ intended. From what I've read RJ and his wife had already plotted out how the series would end. BS merely wrote it up.

You totally need to read up on the Q&A's then. RJ had written only 200(notes and finished scenes combined) pages out of the 2500(total after the split) and Brandon created over 50% of the material from scratch with no guidance.

 

Question

Did you have to invent any of it yourself, or did Jordan leave a lot of it for you?

Brandon Sanderson

 

He left some of it for me, and then I had to make the rest. As you're reading through the books, probably about half and half. Half will be stuff that he wrote notes on, half will be stuff that I wrote.

 

as for what those notes looked like:

 

Brandon

The thing about the notes is that a lot of the notes were to him, and so he would say things like “I’m going to do this or this” and they’re polar opposites. And so there are sequences like that, where I decide what we’re going to do, and stuff like that. And this all is what became the trilogy that you’re now reading.

I think Mr Ares summed up the overall situation well here:

RJ is hardly venerated as a legend. It's simply the case that, for all his flaws, he was a more polished author than BS. He was, perhaps, admitted indulgences that BS wouldn't be, and therefore BS might never have been able to get away with what RJ did, and so would not produce anything as reviled as CoT. Then again, RJ wasn't entirely satisfied with CoT, it was published as it was due to a desire to get something out rather than rewrite from scratch - could the less successful BS manage the delays inherent in starting the entire book again? KoD is seldom acknowledged as the greatest book in the series - its flaws are well known and well noted, but it has a great deal of merit in its own right, not purely as the best book after a string of bad ones. KoD was a book that was held up as good, but not the best the series had ever been. TGS and ToM were hailed at first, but then it really sank in what people had, an it became clear that it was not all that it could be. Sometimes you have to take a step back from the work. It took time for people to take that step back from TGS and ToM, and to see the flaws. People aren't seeing RJ as better than he was, they're not revising their opinions of him upwards, merely their views on Sanderson downwards, in response to a renewed appreciation of what, exactly, he brings to the table.

[clutzyninja]

The question for me would be, "Could anyone have finished the series better than BS?"

I mean, of course it's different.  Different writing styles aside, WoT is an entire world which was created and existed inside RJs head.  You could know the books by heart, and still never know as much about the world as RJ did.  No one could.  

It all comes down to opinion too.  You may not like BSs writing style, and you can quote reasons why they're not as good, but literature is art, and art is 95% subjective.  His style of prose and pace are his own, not RJs.  I happen to like both of them, mostly because I engross myself in the story, not the writing.  By the time BS picks up the series, the world is firmly planted in my mind to the point where structure just simply doesn't mean all that much.  I can just be told what happens and my imagination can take care of the rest.

As for the OP, if we're getting down to brass tacks, I would say that I enjoy the female characters more in the BS books, and beyond that it's just differences, not preferences for me personally.  That's my $0.02 anyway.

[Pralaya]

I liked the fact that he kept it all concise and tight. There were too much brooding by characters in the later works of RJ which Sanderson kind of erased. The characters were more livelier, I thought

[MarkDiLillo]

I personally think that there are fans (note: not even professional authors) who could have finished the series better than BS.  But again, the problem I've always had with BS was not his lack of talent, but more with his obvious lack of effort on this project.  It's almost as if he slapped words down on paper and sent it off to the printers without even a second thought.

[ratswot]

 

 

Well yes you do actually. As of KoD it was 15 years and RJ said he was wrapping up in one more book. With the amount of bloat and filler that were in these last three books it is obvious they never should have been split. One book in two volumes would have been more than sufficient. I guess it really it comes down to writing styles and what people prefer. Brandon's style is very surface level, high action and blunt while RJ was more descriptive, had better and charcterization and much stronger prose.

 

No one could have wrapped the series up like RJ could have and it's a bummer that we have a story which likely veered wildly away from the one RJ wanted to tell. That said we do owe our thanks to Brandon for finishing despite the many problems in his work. It will be interesting to see how his own Stormlight Archive unfolds. We have seen any number of talented writers run into that mid-late funk(GRRM, RJ, Erikson), curious to see how BS handles it.

You're accusing Sanderson of using "bloat and filler"? ;-) LOL, RJ would never ever have been able to finish the series off in two books. Things had ground to an excruciating halt by KOD with many plot lines left hanging. Sanderson had no option but to change the tempo of the books if he ever hoped of finishing the series.

Indeed I am, as have many others. RJ's "filler" was so riddled with hints and foreshadowing that it would take a massive rewrite to change anything. More so the quality of writing never dropped.. With Brandon you could quite literally cut out whole sections and not change a thing. Additionally it takes him an appalling amount of time to convey information, his "tell don't show" style and seeming inability to use literary devices such as ellipsis to advance the action stretches things in a portion of the story that should have zero bloat. You can not compare the pace mid-late in a series with the pace in the ending, it's apples and oranges. Where we were in the story arc is what sped things up as much as anything. Not to mention KoD had greatly increased the pace and pointed things towards the finish. We will have no idea if pace is a strength for Brandon in a series this long until we see a comparable situation in Stormlight Archive.

 

Take some of the Gawyn scenes for instance:

It's appalling how many POVs and pages Brandon has needed to write that story. Typically, we might have gotten one Gawyn shortish POV in Dorlan (typically prologue stuff) where he learned Egwene's captive, and he is thorn, and then nothing until suddenly he interrupted a Siuan/Bryne scene with a sudden arrival, his growing frustration mentioned only via observations of Siuan from then on (we didn't need a Lelaine scene making completely irrelevant and stupid inquiries about orchards in Andor (!) we just needed a reference by Siuan that Lelaine was manipulating Gawyn, until as a last resort Siuan went to him for the rescue. For the rest, we needed one confrontation with Egwene, and one conversation with Elayne or Bryne or Siuan, not three scenes of the same whining and self-pity, with each of them in turn...

Again as I said now that we have seen the results with the structural issues, writing quality that varies so wildly, and how artificially stretched out these three books were it's clear RJ had the correct idea for what was needed to wrap things up(important to note Brandon argued for one book as well).

I totally disagree on the story veering away from what RJ intended. From what I've read RJ and his wife had already plotted out how the series would end. BS merely wrote it up.

You totally need to read up on the Q&A's then. RJ had written only 200(notes and finished scenes combined) pages out of the 2500(total after the split) and Brandon created over 50% of the material from scratch with no guidance.

 

Question

Did you have to invent any of it yourself, or did Jordan leave a lot of it for you?

Brandon Sanderson

 

He left some of it for me, and then I had to make the rest. As you're reading through the books, probably about half and half. Half will be stuff that he wrote notes on, half will be stuff that I wrote.

as for what those notes looked like:

 

Brandon

The thing about the notes is that a lot of the notes were to him, and so he would say things like “I’m going to do this or this” and they’re polar opposites. And so there are sequences like that, where I decide what we’re going to do, and stuff like that. And this all is what became the trilogy that you’re now reading.

I think Mr Ares summed up the overall situation well here:

RJ is hardly venerated as a legend. It's simply the case that, for all his flaws, he was a more polished author than BS. He was, perhaps, admitted indulgences that BS wouldn't be, and therefore BS might never have been able to get away with what RJ did, and so would not produce anything as reviled as CoT. Then again, RJ wasn't entirely satisfied with CoT, it was published as it was due to a desire to get something out rather than rewrite from scratch - could the less successful BS manage the delays inherent in starting the entire book again? KoD is seldom acknowledged as the greatest book in the series - its flaws are well known and well noted, but it has a great deal of merit in its own right, not purely as the best book after a string of bad ones. KoD was a book that was held up as good, but not the best the series had ever been. TGS and ToM were hailed at first, but then it really sank in what people had, an it became clear that it was not all that it could be. Sometimes you have to take a step back from the work. It took time for people to take that step back from TGS and ToM, and to see the flaws. People aren't seeing RJ as better than he was, they're not revising their opinions of him upwards, merely their views on Sanderson downwards, in response to a renewed appreciation of what, exactly, he brings to the table.

 

 

I completely disagree  but I am not going to get into any further discussions on this subject with you. I've made my point and reading from what others have posted the vast majority agree with me. RJ for all essential purposes killed off a very good series he started. Sanderson resurrected it, and under the circumstances, gave the series a very good ending. 

[szilard]

Sorry for qouting so many comments (English is my only 3. language and I don't want to ruin the board with my poorly constructed sentences.)

 

 

This is really scary:

 

Mr Sanderson: if the book had been 80% of the way done, they wouldn't have needed to hire me, they wouldn't have needed to bring me in. When a book is 80% of the way done, that's when you get a ghostwriter, or Harriet just does it herself.

 

From another forum:
 

Somebody else on another thread said it best. There is a difference between reading Jordan and reading Sanderson waiting to collect a paycheck.

 

 That's it. And:
 

Poobah
Lord High Everything Else
Members
2,091 posts
Posted 26 February 2013 - 06:55 PM

There's a fuckton of people who were going to go buy it regardless of whether or not a digital copy was on sale. And it seems as time goes on and more details get released/leaked it's not like there was much legacy to protect, and the whole thing seems more and more like a blatant cash grab. The party line shifted from "we have all the major plot points and a ton of writing Jordan himself did, and Sanderson is just going to fill in a bit / Sanderson is just doing the writing, all the actual plotting has been laid out" to "Sanderson is doing some original stuff to bridge the gaps where there wasn't that much to go on in the notes" to "ok there really wasn't that much in the notes, Sanderson had to pretty much make up most of the last three books, especially the final one".

 

 

 

----------------------------------

reading from what others have posted the vast majority agree with me.

 

You are a Mr Sanderson-fanboy/fangirl, it is clear. Nothing is wrong with that. But give me a definition on this: vast majority!

 

The  4-5 star reviews that you can find on amazon/goodreads are fake (MARKETING stuff, nothing more): they have never touched a WoT-book. Forums: you only need 4-5 subreg, and lo! Mr Sanderson's books are better! The masses will follow leaders, so if you are assiduous, they will repeat with you: these books are so great!

 

I think most (=casual) readers are like that:

And I read the last book nearly two years after reading the previous two, which I also read years after the rest of the series. So I don't even remember many of the minor characters, much less their mannerisms or personal details.

 

Which is exactly what some of us WoT nerds are most interested in, hence Sanderson "ruining" the series for us. I think a large part of why aMoL went down so much better than ToM was that, in addition to the heavy action content playing to Sanderson's strengths, we were immunized or callused and had given up on expecting WoT-type writing from these books, so it was able to meet lower expectations.

Re: Please give a few examples..... DomA Send a noteboard - 25/03/2013 07:23:01 PM

Examples might not help you much. You admit being a casual reader, and there's nothing wrong with that, but if you're not a re reader who paid a lot of attention to each of the secondary character's voices, I doubt you noticed what was off or missing or that you would care much. The Brandon books are massively better received by the casual fans like you and that's ok. The more invested fans who paid a lot of attention to details (and Jordan was a rewarding writer for those, as he was extremely consistent with the details and character voices) are understandably far less satisfied with the result.

A lot of characters were simply off. Their body language was different, the tone of their lines was different, the things they focused on during their POVs was off. They felt like re-cast actors going through RJ-planned scenes.

RJ was a devil for details. Brandon threw in many trademark RJ things, but often they were used just in the wrong places, and that's noticeable for those who paid attention.

 

For others, it's more subtle. They're for the most part not really "off", but some layers of their personalities or that made the flavor of their POVs were gone. They became thinner, more one-sided or reduced to a few core elements. Egwene is one of those, and I bet it owed much to the fact RJ left for her a lot of unpolished first draft dialogue and Brandon used it more or less "as is" without adding the trademark Egwene stuff that RJ would have added in further drafts once the core elements of the scene were laid out.

For other characters, it's more like breaking continuity in their character development. For some it's as if Brandon hit rewind, and made them go through late series phases again, in new scenes. It's like Brandon did this to get into the characters, which is fine, but normally those "writing exercises" should have gone to the cutting room floor afterward. Eg. of this: Perrin in TGS and early TOM.

With some, Brandon struggled more to find the voice, and didn't have that much to go by (they didn't have many POVs before) and they came up a bit suffering from the KJA/"Dune" syndrome (ie: Brandon re-hashed old stuff or clichés from their culture to write them, making them feel a bit like caricatures). Aviendha is one of those.

For others it's not so much their voices were completely off on the whole but that Brandon made one big continuity error then ran himself into walls with them. xy and yx are two examples. Both have mini-arcs in AMOL that are based on such continuity errors. To those who spotted the errors, their arcs made no sense.

Then there were those who were completely off. E.g. xy or Mat.

 

Overall, Brandon also dealt with the secondary cast in a very un-RJ way. In his hands they were less characters but cardboard puppets bearing their names, when he remembered to include them at all. For the most part Brandon didn't bother, instead he created picket fences with names to fill those minor parts. It's noticeable in both TGS and TOM that in the beginning of the books he paid more care to include "real players" and the more he progressed, the more he started either re-using a single player over and over (eg: Naeff in TGS) or start to introduce tons of picket fences (all those new Asha'man, AS, warders, Two Rivers people, Aiel...). I guess for more casual readers it didn't matter as they couldn't tell them apart from existing minor players, but when you can it did matter.

 

That's remind me:

 

this is the opinion of the majority right now on Mr Sanderson's books :

I don't think I'll ever read them again.

 

Sorry, you have to live with that.

 

++++++

 

Sutt and Mr Ares got it right:

 

Shrug. Call it presumptuous if you want but when an author and the Team admit faults and change their process to fix them not sure how the books that caused that change could be considered some of the best in the series? They went so far to say they needed to make sure they get AMoL "right". Which very much to me implies they did not do so in the preceding books. In addition people are arguing that there is nothing wrong with either *** or TGS and ToM. That just doesn't make any sense when Team Jordan have flat out admitted the issues with both.

 

Mr Ares

    "Well, BS said: I might have done more with xy if I'd had the time and the pages."

Funny that WoK is actually about 100 pages longer than AMoL.

Which is not to say that there were no problems in them. Did you have no problems because the problems were not so glaring that you noticed them, or because there were no problems to be noticed? If there are no problems, then would you care to offer an explanation for why Stephen Cooper felt unable to construct a coherent timeline? The guy managed it for the first eleven books, and then found too many contradictions in the Sanderson books. By saying that you didn't have a problem doesn't actually address the criticism, it sidesteps it.

Saying you enjoyed it is all well and good, but this is the Quality Discussion thread - enjoyment has no bearing on quality. As for the objective/subjective discussion, let us not fall into the trap of thinking that all opinions are equal. "I liked/didn't like it" is a beginning, not an end. What did you like/dislike, and why? Some people are very good at explaining why they felt a certain way, at breaking down the problems and triumphs of the writing - for WoT or anything else. If someone offers an opinion on what worked or didn't work about xy, yx, chapter z, or anything else but is able to back it up, that is worth more than those opinions which are not backed up. Take xy as an example: if someone said they didn't like his ending because there was a cliffhanger for him set up in the last book, since then he has undergone a profound change, he then has a very abrupt death after x pages of screen time over the novel, and it feels rushed, poorly set up, and not like a natural development of where he was in the narrative from where we saw him last, and while he has tended to be a fairly minor presence he has been a catalyst for some important things, and this was just a throwaway death. Trying to counter that with "xy was never that important" or "there wasn't time or space" don't really address the criticisms put forward.
 
To give another example, xy has changed - that much is noted in the text. But how he went from the person he was to the person he is isn't expanded upon. We don't even have a decent implication, only the vaguest suggestions, nothing solid to base our guesses on. Some of these changes to his character make for important plot points. To suggest that this was done to preserve surprise doesn't address the criticism, firstly because the information could be revealed after the surprise, and secondly because sacrificing coherent narrative for a surprise is bad writing. It brings to mind something I once read from Neil Gaiman, where he talked about his writing. He explained that to make the paragraph work to best effect, he had to remove the best sentence from the paragraph - the whole without was stronger than the sum of its parts. The surprise was a good moment, but that one moment is not more important than the novel as a whole - if the book as a whole is weaker for that big moment, then giving xy a weaker entrance but a stronger overall storyline is the way to go. I appreciate that that is a difficult choice for a writer to face, but it's part of the job.
 
Now, these criticisms might still be subjective, but your defences of the book to not truly get to grips with the criticisms people are levelling at it.
 
Shared by the vast majority? Even if true, that merely speaks to a quantity of opinions, not a quality. If twenty people love it for every one that was rather disappointed, but not one of those twenty can offer a decent defence of their view, or a good rebuttal to the criticisms of that one guy, then that one guy's viewpoint is worth more. As Harlan Ellison said: "You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No-one is entitled to be ignorant." Or how about this article: https://theconversat...ur-opinion-9978. "You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for." It might be subjective, it might just be opinion, but how much you liked it, how popular it is, these things do not speak to quality in the slightest, and this thread is interested in quality.

 

It's a little bit harsh:

 

04-25-2013, 06:11 PM
Ieyasu's Avatar     
Ieyasu Ieyasu is offline
Elder

You know, I think its funny, but the worst 3 books (written and constructed) in my series are the last 3 with Sanderson. Spines are splitting, glue is melting, whole chunks can come out... and they havent been read anywhere near as many times as the first half of the series... all original first edition hard backs... I find it apt that the very books are failing as hard as Sanderon's badly written jokes... I sure am glad Ive got some worthless side character to tell me those jokes are funny, or that the battle plans are brilliant, cuz I wouldnt have understood that without them telling me... anyway, my copy AMoL starting falling apart on my first re-read of it, I think that stands pretty accurate for Sanderon's literary talent...

[Mr Ares]

@ suttree

 

Absolutely! RJ was making a mess of TWOT. Whether it was writer's block, his illness or something else, I felt RJ lost the plot after Book 6. As the OP pointed out things went steadily downhill from LOC until we were saved by Sanderson.

 

To each his own on writing styles. BS would not have been picked to finish the series if he couldn't continue in the same vein as RJ. Perhaps when BS "explicitly stated he was not going to try and match RJ's style" he meant post LOC! ;-)

RJ's style post-LoC: good prose, sluggish pace. RJ's style pre-ACoS: decent pacing, good prose. Sanderson's style: decent pacing, bad prose. Not seeing the upside, if I'm honest. If this is what being saved feels like, I'd rather not be.

 

 

 

I think it does a huge disservice to the Creator in suggesting anyone else could have finished the series better than he could have.

Mistakes and writing pose aside, if it wasn't for Sanderson we'd stil be waiting for RJ's next book. 23 years to finish a series, need I say more?

Yes. RJ produced books at a reasonable rate (not as fast as Sanderson or Erikson, but still faster than guys like Martin, Lynch and Rothfuss). Further, he showed an awareness of the problems with writing a series like this - with CoT, he admitted it didn't work as well as he had thought it would, but was left with a problem: either he scraps what he's written and starts from scratch, leading to years of delays, or he produces a book which isn't very good. People complain either way, mind you. And there's no guarantee of a highly praised book at the end, either - A Feast for Crows, A Dance With Dragons and Wise Man's Fear have all been strongly criticised, after years of the authors being criticised for not getting the damn books out. In the end, RJ was drawing things together. Then he died, and we get Sanderson, who splits the book into not one but three, despite not having written all three yet, with each book being progressively weaker in structure. RJ's stated reason for not splitting the last book, for wanting a massive AMoL, however unrealistic that might have been, was structural - he didn't think it could be split and still be two good books. Point proved. We got an ending. Maybe, and I do stress this is only a maybe, we got it faster than we would if RJ was still alive and in good health. But given the choice between a good ending later or a bad ending now, I would wait for the good ending. We got the quick ending, not the good ending.

 

 

Well yes you do actually. As of KoD it was 15 years and RJ said he was wrapping up in one more book. With the amount of bloat and filler that were in these last three books it is obvious they never should have been split. One book in two volumes would have been more than sufficient. I guess it really it comes down to writing styles and what people prefer. Brandon's style is very surface level, high action and blunt while RJ was more descriptive, had better and charcterization and much stronger prose.

 

No one could have wrapped the series up like RJ could have and it's a bummer that we have a story which likely veered wildly away from the one RJ wanted to tell. That said we do owe our thanks to Brandon for finishing despite the many problems in his work. It will be interesting to see how his own Stormlight Archive unfolds. We have seen any number of talented writers run into that mid-late funk(GRRM, RJ, Erikson), curious to see how BS handles it.

 

 

You're accusing Sanderson of using "bloat and filler"? ;-) LOL, RJ would never ever have been able to finish the series off in two books. Things had ground to an excruciating halt by KOD with many plot lines left hanging. Sanderson had no option but to change the tempo of the books if he ever hoped of finishing the series. Don't forget, two years passed in TWOT years but 23 passed in ours.

 

I totally disagree on the story veering away from what RJ intended. From what I've read RJ and his wife had already plotted out how the series would end. BS merely wrote it up.

 

I've had no problems with Sanderson's work completing TWOT. I honestly don't think I'd have finished reading the series if RJ was still penning it.

Sanderson is indeed guilty of bloat and filler. Consider the economy with which RJ could set up a plotline - not that he always used great economy, but he was capable of it, even in CoT. Look at Rodel Ituralde - a brief segment in CoT prologue, then another in KoD prologue, then a few references by the Seanchan later in KoD. It was simply set up, well executed. Then Brandon writes chapter after chapter on it, showing us things we didn't need to see, things that were covered. Egwene's plotline in KoD was a single (admittedly longer than average) chapter. One chapter, to take her from prisoner to being seen as a viable Amyrlin by the WT. Now look at TGS - what does Mat do for that entire book? The only plot relevant thing that happens is him taking the letter from Verin and her getting him to Caemlyn. Admittedly, Hinderstap was added in on Harriet's order, but the order to add in more creepy bits could be accomplished in other ways. In KoD, things were drawing together, and towards a climax. And we've seen plenty of evidence of how well RJ could write a climax. How bloated is Dumai's Wells? Or Rand's battle with Sammael? Or the Cleansing? Sanderson is content to spend scenes doing nothing, chapters accomplishing what RJ could in a scene. RJ was willing to over describe, to favour certain phrases, but he was better at structuring his scenes, and at revealing information. So much of the worldbuilding done in RJ's books is a few lines or references scattered here and there. Sanderson tends to blunt exposition, and not always exposition that is needed to begin with. I've seen RJ's style described as like a lazy river, content to meander along its course but always heading towards the sea - just not always by the most direct route, and willing to take its time getting there. I think it's a description with a lot of merit.

 

The question for me would be, "Could anyone have finished the series better than BS?"

Well, szilard has just quoted a post of mine that talks about subjectivity and opinions, so I don't need to repeat myself, and I'll just focus on this. Could anyone have done it better than Sanderson? Probably. For me, the most damning point is that I think Brandon Sanderson could have done it better than Brandon Sanderson. To give an example, in the second Mistborn book, a character was often absent. This lead to readers asking where he was, what he was doing, etc. In the third book, despite the character not being hugely active for a lot of the plot, Sanderson took steps to rectify his previous mistake - he had a few check ins with the character, a brief paragraph or two that showed he hadn't been forgotten, despite these bits not shifting the plot forward hugely. This is a lesson he then ignored in the writing of AMoL. (I'd like to be more specific, but this is the non-spoiler board, so I'll stick to generalities.) Had he taken the time to rework TGS, TOM and AMoL, give them further rewrites, he could have produced a stronger trilogy of books. Had Team Jordan been more concerned with pushing him to do those rewrites and produce the books than just to get a book out in a timeframe that proved unreasonable, a stronger work could have been produced. I think that Sanderson did not do as well as he could have done. Given how much of a fan of the series he professes himself to be, given how it's his life's ambition to be a professional writer, I have to say I find that pretty damning.

[ratswot]

FFS STOP BLAMING SANDERSON! Do you think the books would have gone to print had RJ's wife and co-editors not liked what he'd written? Sanderson was a tool used to complete the series. You guys are making out as if he hijacked the books and told a completely different story. That's just rubbish.

 

I cannot emphasise how happy I am Sanderson took over. RJ KILLED TWOT.

 

As I've said before had RJ continued writing TWOT 1) we'd still be waiting for the next book and 2) between books 6 and 25 only 10 TWOT days would have passed! No matter though, at least we'd be fully up to date with latest women's fashion in Murundi and Tear! ;-)

[Suttree]

FFS STOP BLAMING SANDERSON! Do you think the books would have gone to print had RJ's wife and co-editors not liked what he'd written? Sanderson was a tool used to complete the series. You guys are making out as if he hijacked the books and told a completely different story.

 

Actually we have been very measured in our posts. You haven't really addressed anything brought up and seem to just be fishing for a reaction at this point. You do realize there is a difference between hate/blame and realistic critique correct? Also I like how you just skip past the quotes showing how much Brandon had to create on his own. You were dead wrong on that point.

 

 

As I've said before had RJ continued writing TWOT 1) we'd still be waiting for the next book and 2) between books 6 and 25 only 10 TWOT days would have passed!

 

Funny considering 3 months passed between books 6 and 7. Now please, if you don't agree with some of the Sanderson literary critique that has been mentioned address the points and explain why we are wrong.

[Mr Ares]

FFS STOP BLAMING SANDERSON! Do you think the books would have gone to print had RJ's wife and co-editors not liked what he'd written? Sanderson was a tool used to complete the series. You guys are making out as if he hijacked the books and told a completely different story. That's just rubbish.

Brandon wrote the damn thing. Yes, Harriet and the rest of Team Jordan had input and so there is blame all round, no-one is denying that. I even pointed out Team Jordan's role in the failure of the last three books. A substantial amount of invention was required to fill in the gaps in the notes. Brandon was not just a man hired to turn notes into prose, he was a man hired to write a novel. He was more than just a tool, and his successes and failures are both on his head.

 

I cannot emphasise how happy I am Sanderson took over. RJ KILLED TWOT.

 

As I've said before had RJ continued writing TWOT 1) we'd still be waiting for the next book and 2) between books 6 and 25 only 10 TWOT days would have passed! No matter though, at least we'd be fully up to date with latest women's fashion in Murundi and Tear! ;-)

It's easy to say things like this. Especially the typical exaggerations regarding the passage of time and the amount of time spent on clothing. Care to put in a bit about baths, you seem to ave missed that one out. Considering that Ulysses takes place over a single day (today, as it happens), I don't see how the quality of a book corresponds to the amount to time it covers. We might be waiting for the next book still, but that's not automatically a bad thing. We could have a bad book now or still be waiting for a good ending. I would rather wait. As it is, we got bad books, but at least we got them quickly. Rather than wait an extra couple of years for the author to finish, we got something rushed. And it will always be rushed.

 

As for RJ killing WoT, no, he didn't. He may have killed it for you, but that's not the same thing at all. The series was still topping the bestseller lists, still had thriving fan communities, and still showed every sign of being alive.

[Barid Bel Medar]

I've left this topic alone since it was created a while ago and was pretty dead. Recently it seems to have been resurrected. 

 

The nature of the thread is ultimately redundant and can only lead to conflict. A great deal will simply be put down to subjective opinions, and those things that can be quantified dismissed when it doesn't matter. 

 

Of course, there's nothing wrong with expressing opinions on the matter, but this thread is not the best to do so. It is pitting one author against another rather than discussing the quality of the series and books. Again, expressing these opinions is fine, but to have a thread dedicated to the subject will inevitably cause problems. 

 

All opinions are welcome from all angles of debate, and everyone should feel free to have their say. All opinions are respected whether they are shared by many or few. However, to sustain a discussion references and examples are necessary. Otherwise, it is just opinion v opinion, which will not go anywhere. If you are going to dispute something, have "proof" or examples of why, otherwise, to avoid unnecessary and pointless conflict just agree to disagree. 

 

I won't lock the thread, but it shall be monitored closely. Keep the discussion civil and relevant and not let it dissolve into accusations and name-calling because someone does not share an opinion. 

[False Dragon1991]

I don't know why but I kinda prefer they way Gathering Storm is written compared to some of the previous books. It feels IMO more direct and engaging. There were times where I felt RJs books did waffle on a bit. I am especially liking the Rand and Nynaeves arc in this and it has a consistent theme with people feeling the weight of change on them much more severely as the Last Battle approaches with them looking back on the past. Especially how Rand has taken a turn for the worst and has became incredibly dark whilst at the same time showing a great deal of change in his grim fatalism. It also lends urgency to the rescue of Moiraine.

 

I haven't enjoyed it as much as the Great Hunt or some of the early books but its very good. 

 

Not sure how other WoT fans think about these later books.

[יונתן אלכסנדר]

Everything.

[Suttree]

Everything.

 

How enlightening.

 

All opinions are welcome from all angles of debate, and everyone should feel free to have their say. All opinions are respected whether they are shared by many or few. However, to sustain a discussion references and examples are necessary.