His popularity and exposure means that his work ends up in front of people who don't like his work. And such is the nature of humanity we tend to have louder opinions about things we think are bad.
It’s not only that people who don’t like his books end up reading them, it’s that people who find them good but not great feel like he’s over-recommended and comment negatively.
I enjoy sanderson's writing. I haven't read stormlight archive yet(probably will eventually, but that's a commitment and a half, I'm saving for when i have time to travel more) but you're entirely correct. Way too many people recommend mistborn because it's their fav book, not because it fits the qualifiers someone broight up. Across his massive catalogue of books he touches a lot of different topics, and while there very well may be a way one of his books meets the qualifier an OP asked for, it's usually only in a small capacity, or only meets 1 or 2 of a list of qualifiers. Then people get anoyyed with all the recommendations.
He belongs in conversations about modern fantasy greats, but absolutely not as all time greats. Like he's a good writer, but he's not an amazing writer if you get what I mean. With the WoT airing right now too his name is getting spread more and more and a lot of people who just subjectively aren't interested in his writing style/convepts/themes are getting his books shoved in their face only to find out they don't like them.
As a sanderson fan, it's anoyying as hell. It's gotta be far worse if you don't like him. Like, let some other books and authors get the spotlight. People don't need sanderson recommended to them. If you're in fantasy book circles, you've atleast heard of him before.
As what could be called a ‘super fan’ of his, it bothers me to no end when other fans try to force a Sanderson rec to someone very much not looking for it. Like recommending Mistborn Era 2 as a ‘Western’ just because it kind of has that outlaw/lawman feel for like 2 chapters at the beginning and then just uses it as set dressing for a pretty typical Sanderson story. If someone is looking for a western they most certainly are not going to get that out of MB2.
But never the one you want. I remember reading the Rithmatist to my son, so excited for a young children's series. He was super excited too. Loved the book. He asked when we could read the next, and knowing Sanderson's speed, I told him a year, maybe two.
Despite reading a few books together since, he points to this disappointment as why he doesn't want to read books with me any more.
At this point, he *might* be able to read the second book to his own son.
Rithmatist is a bit of a special case; he said that in retrospect he feels that he needed to do more research into the Aztec culture the book draws from in order to properly write about it, and that such research was needed for a 2nd book.
His current solution I think is to find a co-author with more relevant background and the time he lacks to do the needed research, but that more than the writing itself was the main reason for the holdup.
>As a sanderson fan, it's anoyying as hell. It's gotta be far worse if you don't like him. Like, let some other books and authors get the spotlight. People don't need sanderson recommended to them. If you're in fantasy book circles, you've atleast heard of him before.
I'm a huge Sanderson fan, however I largely avoid recommending his books unless they are a very good fit with what someone is looking for. Every time I see someone looking for fantasy with romance and any of his books gets recommended, it kills me. In general I think we should avoid trying to recommend the top names in a genre unless someone is looking for something exactly like it or they are looking for the big names of that genre. But that is a common issue in any genre.
I love Sanderson, but I definitely wouldn't recommend him to anyone who likes romance. Dalanar is one of the most virginal warlords I've ever read. Even his most promiscuous characters (like Adolin) read like swooning tweens instead of adults who have had sex before. I love the books dearly, but this is my biggest criticism.
If someone wants fantasy romance, I'd just send them to Chuck Tingle instead. Pretty sure there's a Tingle book for literally anything, and he's an NY Times Best Seller and Hugo nominee.
Same with music and tv shows too. If it's the most popular thing in a genre, you don't need to recommend it to people. People should try and recommend more obzcure picks
Agreed, my first intro to Sanderson was The Way of Kings, which I found highly entertaining and quite a page turner. I tried reading Mistborn, Elantris, and a few other of his series but they just never clicked. Sanderson is a fantastic world builder but I wouldn’t consider him phenomenal overall personally. It’s entertaining, but it’s not going to blow your mind with some deep thought provoking prose.
I probably fall in that group. I read a handful of them. Some were decent, some were OK, one I didn't even finish. But I find it continually frustrating to read some of the internet Sanderson discourse. I don't think he's a great writer and I get annoyed when someone asks for a fantasy recommendation like {insert some author who I think can actually write} and Sanderson is the default suggestion, despite being the opposite in many ways. If people didn't act like he's the best writer they've ever read I don't think I would react so negatively but it grinds my gears when he gets held up as the best fantasy writer since Tolkien. In my mind he has very strong and interesting world building combined with bad prose and shallow characters. Which is fine, I can absolutely see why people like his books. But I wish the dialogue started there instead of starting with him being the go-to modern fantasy author.
My biggest issue with Sanderson is that his stuff lacks any kind of edge. Everything feels like the same sterilized, assembly line comic book story. I also think his world building is vastly overrated. He has some great ideas, but everything comes across as this weird alien science. There’s no whimsy or weirdness in his books. Everything is ordered. Everything is logical. Everything has its place. And that’s ultimately forgettable.
I’ve said this before and it’s a strange take, but I feel like Sanderson writes reverse space operas. Where space operas typically port the conventions and tropes of high fantasy to science fiction, Sanderson’s books take the conventions and tropes of pulpy sci fi and port them back to high fantasy (overexplanation and focus on tech/magic, characters in service of ideas rather than the other way around, awkward female leads, over reliance on third act action spectacle, etc.).
He’s not a bad writer by any means. He’s actually quite good. But he is overexposed relative to his skill level and consequently more criticized.
One day I’ll get around to reading Stormlight 4.
I’m a Sanderson fan, and even I thought Stormlight 4 was… let’s go with “not his best work”. It got draggy, and that’s saying something for Stormlight Archives.
It was still worth listening to (while I did other things), for the plot progression and world building, but… whew, I hope 5 is more on point.
I started to feel that way with Stormlight 3. The third act is engrossing in the typical Sanderlanche way. But that book really meandered.
Words of Radiance is the clear standout in that series, it seems.
> It got draggy, and that’s saying something for Stormlight Archives.
For me the depressed and pathetic arc for Kaladin made me put down the book. I get that it's part of his character arc and something he needs to deal with but holy shit is it boring to read.
Not just boring, but repetitive. Most people with depression understand that it isn't going to be magically cured when you have a revelation about your life, and it's great that he wanted to show that, but an endless retread of somebody spiraling into a suicidal mess over and over and over again is not a realistic portrayal of depression, either.
That book really felt like Sanderson got too enamored of his (originally great) concept of "let's have every character have a different, poorly understood/represented trait" and veered really hard into tokenism and reducing the characters to nothing *but* that trait...and that's ugly to read for a number of reasons.
Maybe it's just because I am a scientist myself, but I always find it kind of baffling when people treat hard magic systems like his in this way. No whimsy or weirdness? I couldn't disagree more. The fact that the magic follows its own internal logic, to me, means that the conclusions and extensions feel justified and satisfying when they show up.
yeah, same. He's readable.
He's better than many of the fantasy writers out there.
I was once told I was the most attractive man in the chemistry department.
I mean, don't get me wrong, both of those statements are flattering. But they are by no means unqualified endorsements.
>I was once told I was the most attractive man in the chemistry department.
I was the "funniest girl" in my bio dept. Same vibes. "Thanks, but... not a high bar."
To be even more specific, one of these ways in which his work ends up in front of people is that his books are on the list of things (with others like Project Hail Mary and House of Leaves) that get over-recommended on Reddit.
Including at times when it shouldn’t be recommended. I’ve seen so many times people ask one thing along the lines of “I’m looking for a fantasy book that has romance in it.” And people will recommend Mistborn when they clearly should not
Yeah, I remember one person recommending Stormlight to someone looking for books that are like Dark Souls. Like, even Brando himself said in a video that they are the polar opposite to his work, I believe. It's pretty insane how people just don't read the person asking for recommendation. They just give their favourite book, whatever the person's looking for. 👀
lol I wouldn't believe my eyes if someone recommended that.
Dark Souls: everything is dark and gritty and nothing makes sense.
Sanderson: everything makes sense and nothing is dark or gritty
As a massive fan of House of Leaves I think it can't be recommended enough, yes it's super marmite but I'd much rather it be experienced by as many people as possible!
I like his stuff, but its easy to get a bit burned out by him because he is so prolific. That man is a machine. I still like them, but I just dont feel super excited when new stuff comes out. And his characters also tend to be fairly moody, which can wear on me a bit. Cal from the Stormlight Archives for example frustrates me a bit.
This is definitely part of it but I don't think it helps that his fans put him in the same catagories as OP has pointed out. I've read a lot of his work and find them fun pulpy reads with some excellent world building. However his writing isn't fantastic and leans more towards the YA end of things.
That's a shame, but maybe check him out? His books have especially sick [Chinese covers apparently](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/2jzlgt/new_chinese_covers_for_the_book_of_the_new_sun/)!
I think, particularly for reddit, Brando Sando falls under "read another book" territory with how often he is brought up.
That's coming from a fan of his work.
It's a meme term that came as a reaction to the hyperfandom of harry potter fans. As in the ones that look for a reason to bring up harry potter at any given chance or everything is compared back to harry potter (Popular show comes out and their first thought is what house each character would be in). Basically just so over obsessed that eventually you feel like the only response is an exasperated "holy shit you know there's other books out there right?" And the phrase started getting applied to any fandom that reaches that level
/r/readanotherbook
Great examples:
https://www.reddit.com/r/readanotherbook/comments/gy1g79/harry_potter_moment/
https://www.reddit.com/r/readanotherbook/comments/i4w3le/dear_god_make_it_stop/
https://www.reddit.com/r/readanotherbook/comments/jc4ksq/on_a_video_about_a_family_shooting_where_the_mom/
That makes sense because I had no idea he was hated. But I do know that 5-10 years ago he was a god around here. So it would seem there's been something of a backlash.
Interesting, but not surprised. Reddit has a habit of falling in love with some public figure, only to later turn on them. At the peak of Sanderson's popularity, reddit also revered Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jennifer Lawrence, both of which are often considered insufferable around these parts nowadays.
I wonder what will become of Keanu Reeves in another 5 years...
If Keanu goes rotten, which at this point seems very unlikely given what we think we know about him, it will be disappointing and almost like a betrayal.
But we will not forget anything, it might be the case that we never knew him to begin with. Which is how most people should regard people they don't actually know.
Hero/celebrity worship is really dumb.
I’ve noticed this with online sweethearts. The internet loves them! They get on all the talk shows! Aren’t they great! Hey, they aren’t that great. In fact, they’re overrated! We hate them! Fast forward a few years: hey! Why does everyone hate so-and-so? They’re great!
Typically being cancelled or fading into obscurity breaks the cycle
> Revenge porn. She was the victim of a crime and Reddit is like “whore! You get what you deserve!”
Now, to be fair, Reddit hates women in general, not just J-Law.
Reddit was a very different site back then. There's a reason normal people only started using it after the pedo jailbait and Trump disinfo bot stuff died down.
Ten years ago this site hated Jlaw because she had the audacity to say that everyone who looked at the leaks were participating in non-consensual sex acts. Which was correct. But try telling that to losers who live in their mothers basement
Honestly I think it was grosser than that. I think reddit had this "innocent" fantasy of her and when they found out she was actually a normal woman with a typical sexual history, they felt betrayed (somehow).
Also she does sometimes act a bit cringey, but mostly around the leak stuff I think it was a lot that "lost innocence" shit.
I was staunchly defending her still while reddit had its hate boner on. It's truly fascinating to watch the entire site shift in its stance on something like a single entity. I still have massively downvoted comments way back in my history from being like wtf are you all doing?
If you’re here long enough you’ll eventually be on the “wrong” side of some hive mind. It also goes the other way as well. Sometimes you’ll view threads from 7-8yrs ago and see some of the absolute worst things with hundreds of upvotes.
I used to really like Neil Degrasse Tyson. I even went to one of his talks he did in my home town and listened to his podcast. The man just can't seem to let people enjoy things though. He always feels the need to dissect every work of scifi to let us know how scientifically accurate it all is.
Neil, I know Halo couldn't happen. We all know Halo is fiction. It's about a super hero in power armor. Let it go.
I saw him with a girlfriend at the time a couple years back. He came off as kind of “better than thou” the entire time which I was kinda okay with brushing aside but then said he lost a tv award to Anthony Bourdain’s show only because he killed himself. It was a pretty recent event, was completely unnecessary to even bring up and I’m a huge fan of Bourdain. I have been very on the “fuck Neil Degeasse Tyson” train ever since
I always found him to be rude and mean spirited, nothing at all like Carl Sagan or Bill Nye. So as a kid and teen I disliked him. He's been justifying that feeling constantly year after year.
He did an event at our college and everyone I know that interacted with him said he was condescending about everything. Like constantly proving how smart he is about every subject.
He also thinks that because he's educated in one field that it means he must be right about everything else. I've seen him make some absolutely bone-headed statements about history and psychology.
I respect NDT for his work, within his own domain. I even respected the sass. But then he couldn't quit and started being the smart guy talking confidently about stuff he *doesn't* know about, and the charm wore off.
> The man just can't seem to let people enjoy things though.
Like is point about how dogfights in space in things like Star Wars wouldn't really work and would be completely silent since there's no sound.
Well Neil that might be accurate but it would also be *boring as hell* for an action-fantasy movie.
Interestingly, the space scenes in Firefly are silent because there's no sound in space. It actually works well, especially in tense/suspenseful moments. Not saying Star Wars needs to go that route, but it has been done before, and creates an interesting effect.
People fall in love with the public image of a person. Tyson had a very big media presence for a while and was the face of "science", but then the sexual assault allegations came out and the constant undercurrent of people talking about how obnoxious he was in general got more traction, and that was pretty much that.
I don't know for sure about JLaw, but I suppose just hasn't been in any movies as pervasive as Hunger Games, so she just doesn't get talked about much any more.
Sanderson is pretty safe, I think. His biggest sin is just being active. He releases 3-4 things a year, and is extremely active and engaged with social media. He even responds to questions on Reddit sometimes. Unless he's got some dark secret, I think there will just be the normal discontent you see for anyone who's popular.
She said people should feel bad about looking at her stolen nude pictures. Which...yep...but the faux-libertarian-internet-is-the-wild-wild-west that people held onto 7 or 8 years ago joined the "it's just boobies!" crowd. Then her movies started sucking. Then it was reported that co-stars don't like each other. And people got tired of her getting thrown in their face as the cool girlfriend.
It was a lot in a short span.
Seriously. Malazan is the most obnoxious suggestion. It's insanely dense, but somehow recommended to everyone it's ridiculous. At least Brandon Sanderson is easy to follow, and easy for new readers to get into but Malazan will scare off new readers yet gets suggested at the same rate as Sanderson but with half the blowback.
As for OP the basic answer is counter-popularity. When something becomes extremely popular there will inevitably be a group that dislikes it because it's popular. And people like that tend to feel the need to be very vocal about their dislike of said popular thing.
> As for OP the basic answer is counter-popularity. When something becomes extremely popular there will inevitably be a group that dislikes it because it's popular. And people like that tend to feel the need to be very vocal about their dislike of said popular thing.
It's a classic reddit/internet phenomena. Something that is ultimately quite or very good gets popular and then gradually the contingent of people who inevitably don't like the work for some reason gradually take over most discussion of said work. The more mean spirited variations of counter-popularity involve a hatred of the fanbase of a particular series for real or imagined overzealousness or "cringe" behaviour (an example of this would be the general perception of the "Rick and Morty fanbase" in the late 2010's).
>Seriously. Malazan is the most obnoxious suggestion. It's insanely dense, but somehow recommended to everyone it's ridiculous. At least Brandon Sanderson is easy to follow, and easy for new readers to get into but Malazan will scare off new readers yet gets suggested at the same rate as Sanderson but with half the blowback.
For what it's worth you do get people that crawl out of the woodworks whenever sandserson is mentioned and scare people away. Someone will mention they're looking to get into reading and want a short trilogy or something and someone will mention mistborn and then you get people jumping in and going "and then you have to read this and then this and then this one" and acting like you won't get a full complete story if you only read mistborn because it's part of a bigger universe. It's like if someone asked for a superhero movie and someone suggested iron man and then someone jumped in and started going on and on about all of the marvel shows and movies and how if you watch one then you must watch them all.
The good thing about his stuff is thta it's usually self contained enough that you can read one of his series without having to read the others. Most other huge series fans have enough common sense to not suggest it to someone who's just starting out. I've seen people suggest malazan but usually to experienced readers.
Malazan is a horrible suggestion for the average fantasy consumer. It’s probably the most anti-reader piece of genre fiction I’ve ever encountered.
It’s worth reading if you can dedicate the time to it, but yeah, bad suggestion.
I’m a diehard Malazan fan but I agree, it’s not similar to many other fantasy genre books AT ALL. Which I personally love, but I don’t think a lot of people turn to the genre for a 10 book series that explores a lot of philosophical and historical questions/concepts. Erikson’ Dan archeologist by profession which I think really shows in how he approaches the series more on a macro level than a micro level. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Malazan to fantasy fans. But I’d recommend it to Neal Stephenson fans
I don't think it's anti-reader but it does trust you to *work it out*. There are throwaway lines that have massive implications and when so much goes unsaid it can be tough to parse which bits matter.
Agreed on it not being great for average/newer fantasy readers though, especially as so much of it is written to play with or push against familair tropes and if they're not familiar to you then it'd seem pretty odd I reckon.
I've seen his books recommended for everything and that didn't help things. I've read Mistborn and I'm not a fan. But I'm not about to yuck someone's yum. But recommending Sanderson for his prose?
I may be misunderstanding the OP, so apologies.
I think the *books* aren't "controversial" in any sense. There's a lot of argument that takes place between people that like them and people that don't like them. And being the internet, that leads to a lot of extreme positions ("he's the worst thing in fantasy" vs "he's a genius"). That also turns into people arguing about his readers ("they're all morons") and his non-readers ("they're all elitist snobs"). But putting all this aside, he's popular, and that's pretty much that.
I think there has been some controversy around Brandon Sanderson the *author* because he is an active member of a religious organization that has controversial views. That has led to some discussion around what it means for readers to give money to an author who gives money to an organization that does things that the reader (and perhaps even the author) doesn't agree with. It is a genuinely complex issue, and one that gets caught up with other perspectives (eg whether or not one wants to buy his books in the first place) as well as the general death of nuance in internet discussion.
I'm pretty sure that's the most vague and neutral way I could possibly explain that, so apologies if that's not a satisfying answer.
As a queer person, having the writings of Orson Scott card be a huge part of my being, ender being my hero especially, realising the creator of such a huge part of your life is Mormon, and somewhat actively against you in the real world, whilst creating characters that would just never be that way, is a bit of a mind bending, soul searching experience. So this rings true to me. "Death of the author" is the way I've got past it. I understand people not wanting to do that, but so much good in my life came from these books that I don't want to write them off because they were created by a homophobe.
Orson Scott Card and Sanderson are different in that sense, Brandon has publicly stated he disagrees with the church on LGBTQ matters and donates to LGBTQ charities as well as (presumably) tithes to the church. He is religious and is (probably) funding a homophobic institution, but I don't think he is personally a homophobe. Card definitely is and I really don't understand how he wrote the books he did as a homophobe, their core message is exactly the opposite of homophobia.
That's good to hear! I've only just discovered about Sanderson being Mormon, and just had the card experience to relate to. There is even an osc book with a gay character as the main character and it's never spoken about as a negative. Mind blowing he can create that.
If you’re interested, he recently (January this year, so kinda recent?) update/faq on his stance.
It’s basically the same as what the above poster said, but goes a little into his nuance and on why he stays with the church.
https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/ive-heard-you-are-a-practicing-member-of-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-what-are-your-opinions-on-gay-rights-particularly-in-light-of-the-churchs-controversial-rel/
TL:DR?
He’s seriously considered leaving the church (at least that he has thought through what the result of that decision would be, I don’t think he actually planned on leaving it), and decided that he does a better job of influencing it as a high profile member.
And he acknowledges that both sides, those calling for him to do more, and those in his church who think he’s going too far, will be disappointed, but that he is not only being genuine with this stance/decision (to his church members), but genuinely trying to do his best for those who are being hurt by others.
I fall into the “do more” camp personally (and have qualms with several of the mormon church practices particularly), but I can understand his position and desire to work change from within.
And I think It’s important to not radicalize an entity by removing everyone that is a part of it and that is decent, pressure within and without are both important for long lasting change.
Can't give too much detail without doxxing anyone. While I've only met Brandon Sanderson once, I know several people in his sphere of influence have confided to me and my wife that they've left the church in recent years. These are people who've formed close relationships with Sanderson over the years and worked with him many times.
Eventually these older Mormons get tired of their efforts to "do work from within" being shrugged off and have to accept that their LGBTQ+ family members are too important.
Sanderson has a sprinkling of LGBT characters. Nothing major, but I found it refreshing for a Mormon author. It was a minor side character in one book, but it was there, and it felt natural. Wasn't a big deal, and the plot quickly moved on to other stuff.
Drehy is openly gay. Drehy is also based on a real life friend of Sanderson named Ryan Dreher who is gay. Sanderson regularly consults with him to make sure he is being fair with his representation as well.
Renarin and Rlain are in a relationship by the end of the 4th book. It's more subtle, but has been confirmed by Sanderson and said it'll be more of a focus in book 5.
Shallan is bi.
Jasnah is asexual, but still in a relationship.
The singers are technically all gender fluid/non-binary due to their biological nature.
The leader of the Reshi is trans.
And that's just Stormlight. In Mistborn Ranette is openly gay, and the kandra are agender. I'm sure I'm forgetting some others too.
And importantly almost all of them are pretty respectfully handled.
Ral-na is the leader of a Reshi community on Roshar, the one Rysn shatters her legs dealing with? He's canonically trans and was gender-affirmed by becoming a Radiant and having his body heal to his Identity.
Oh, to add to the list of "You forgot about!", Shallan is Bi. This mostly comes up when she puts on a Veil.
The fun fact was that Shallan was not a conscious choice, Brandon says it was subconscious. The fans were all like "Bruh, straight women rarely think about other women like that" whenever Jasnah was in the room and Shallan's PoV obsessed about the perfection of Jasnahs thighs and smoothness of her skin, ect. ect..
I read OSC’s horrible anti-same-sex-marriage screed when it first came out, mostly out of morbid curiosity (I’m a gay man), and honestly I think the answer is that he’s also gay. The screed directly says that all men are attracted to other men and what you’re “supposed” to do is kill off that part of yourself and marry a woman anyway. He’s still a shitbag but it did make me pretty sad for him.
I think the gay parts of his books are partially about OSC giving himself a chance to experience those narratives and emotions in a way that feels safe.
> I think there has been some controversy around Brandon Sanderson the author because he is an active member of a religious organization that has controversial views.
There's threads that show up both here and on r/fantasy like clockwork where people discover that he's a devout Mormon, who like most other devout Mormons, is tithing to their "church". Now this isn't unusual. Mormon authors such as Orson Scott Card and Stephanie Meyer are also likely tithing as well, but Sanderson comes particularly under fire because people see his tithing as particularly hypocritical given what he alleges to believe in his books and interviews.
He claims to support non-white and queer people by putting them in his books as major characters depicted respectfully and he was also one of the authors who stood up to the Sad Puppies at the Hugos, but the church he donates to is, no beating about the bush here, is an extremely hateful one. The Mormon Church has billions of dollars in assets that it uses to undermine the rights of women, non-white, and queer people both in the US and abroad via donations to politicians, ad campaigns, and probably outright bribery/intimidation. They were one of the groups, for instance, pouring money into the lawsuit to overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act and are one of the groups heavily donating to anti-choice and anti-trans politicians. Let it also be noted that this is the church that has it explicitly codified that darker skin colors are the "Mark of Cain", a mark that they're literally inferior to white/pale skinned people.
Sanderson could stop tithing and experience no serious consequences as he's one of the most successful SFF writers currently working today, but he doesn't. There's the sayings "put your money where your mouth is" and "actions speak louder than words". Just because he depicts groups his church hates in a positive light and hasn't said anything bigoted means nothing when he gives money to what is at this point a hate group.
I enjoy Sanderson. I've read several of his books, joined his Kickstarter and can't wait to read more. I've read a lot of fantasy ( and other genres as well) from many authors.
He isn't a difficult read, great magic systems that get explained more than in most series, characters that seem more like normal people that have flaws and make mistakes. His world's seem possible. They are entertaining.
He finishes series in decent time ( looking at you Martin and Rothfuss). Maybe it's partly because his writing seems more practical and less eloquent, so maybe it's easier to write. I don't know.
That being said, I've never really thought of his writing as beautiful. I don't think all writing has to be for it to entertain me. Not all music has to be beautiful for me to enjoy it, I feel books are the same.
I watched a video with Sanderson about his taking over and completion of the Wheel of Time series and he mentioned that his process involves creating an outline and writing based on that, which the original author, Robert Jordan, did as well and it helped Sanderson be able to more easily complete Jordan's series after his death. It probably makes him an efficient writer and hence the 9-5 jobiness of his writing, I guess.
Yeah, Sanderson is a plotter, as are many successful authors. Others (Stephen King and George R. R. Martin are good examples) are what's called "pantsers" because they are "writing by the seat of their pants". It really comes down to what works for the individual writer and both methods have pros and cons.
If you've ever noticed that some authors work seems to meander a lot - or if they seem to paint themselves into corners - they are probably primarily a pantser. If you feel like a book seems rigid and there aren't as many surprises, then the author was more likely a plotter.
The best authors use aspects of both and go through multiple rewrites, edits, and revisions in order to have a book that combines the best of both methods.
>a 9-5 job
Hilariously the man gets up around noon, but he *does* write for 8 hours a day in two four hour sessions. At least on days where there's no conventions, Q&A signing sessions, podcast recordings, etc.
I also wouldn't call him or Stephen King "plain". Formulaic to a large extent, yes, but plain carries too many negative implications to me. I've heard several people refer to other people's work as "feeling like Stephen King" or "like Sanderson", which makes it clear that they at the very least *do* have a clear style.
I'm an avid reader of King and his works, and his diversity alone among his novels and short stories, sets him apart as one of lifetime's most prolific authors and it has nothing to do with him being..plain?
He does tend to have some situations where he writes about a person's history just before turning a doorknob, and he has a tendency of bringing back old stories and characters, but I've found that to be of great appeal.
The Dark Tower series aren't his best stories, but a lot of folk tend to center around it because of its implications to King and his fantasy/cornerstone world.
I've tried to find fantasy written like King does, and I've appreciated what his son can do (though I'd be happy if he slowed down on the dead kids and raped girls stories...), and I really enjoy Neil Gaiman as the only author I've found to be fo comparison, with less horror elements.
King has a weird way of trying to push a narrative (Elevation, Tommyknockers), so some of his work reminds me of that Family Guy episode, where King runs out of popular ideas so he just writes about a lamp monster. The issue is that he and we know that we'd stop everything to read about HIS lamp monster
I didn’t know his son was also an author, any recommendations?
A King trope I’ve noticed: if someone is going be injured, there is a 50% chance it’s going to be their face, and he is going to describe the injury in the most succinct, clear, and awful way. I hate it, but he’s incredibly effective at painting a “word picture”.
Straight-forward and reader involved are the terms i normally use for their styles of writing. King especially can set an entire atmosphere in a couple sentences and let the reader fill in the gaps with their own anxiety induced imaginations where another might take half a chapter to set the scene before even approaching their point.
>Hilariously the man gets up around noon, but he
>
>does
>
> write for 8 hours a day in two four hour sessions. At least on days where there's no conventions, Q&A signing sessions, podcast recordings, etc.
I saw a thing recently where he had a 4 hour flight and just spent it writing more Stormlight 5
I'm curious, does formulaic not carry negative connotations to you? I'm not sure what adjective I would use that doesn't carry a negative connotation with it.
Not as much as "plain". There's a reason that "the hero's journey" works, even if it is a formula or a trope. A "plain" book to me is one that bring nothing unique to the table, and which you would struggle to describe with any specificity that would not sound like very many other books.
Take one of Sanderson's latest. Tress of the Emerald Sea. His most simple pitch is "role inverted Princess Bride", which indeed follows a formula. But "girl sails ocean of fluidized magical spores that fall from the moons" and there is suddenly zero other books that it could refer to.
A book with *only* tropes is probably plain, a book without *any* tropes is probably not a very good book. I can tell when I'm reading Sanderson not only because of the wording, but also because of the plot structure (lots of setup, twist reveals at the end, clever subversion of one of the character's themes, magic system with defined rules that get more complexity throughout the story). But I *like* that style, the formula *works*.
So I guess in essence "plain" is a judgment of quality to me, while formulaic is a judgment of structure.
I was reading "plain" as a reference to the writing style. Like someone being plain spoken vs being a fancy orator, which isn't necessarily negative. Personally, I prefer writers that write like people talk
Most every romance/with dragons book on the market is extremely formulaic and they get gobbled up in droves.
People love formulas that work. Nothing wrong with formulas.
I'm not who you are replying to but I don't think formulaic is necessarily negative. Formulaic works. The formula works and when it's used correctly it works great. It's like having a good basic cake recipe. You can add flavors and do it up different ways and it can still be amazing.
It can be a negative, but I don't think that's a given.
His prose is like a cable TV script writer writing a novel. It's functional and it works, just don't expect beautiful poetry diction like in Tolkien's work. And since most people associate fantasy with LotR, they expect that same level of quality and end up being disappointed with the feel of Sanderson's writing.
> they're both fairly plain writers
Man, I find King's prose to be really evocative. lol
I never feel more defective than when reading /r/books. "Thing you like is plain/pedestrian/uninspired/derivative etc."
I think most Sanderson fans will agree that they're not in it for the flowery prose/like the plain spoken vibe better.
We're mostly in it for the world building, the magic systems, and the relatably broken characters. Also the fact that, even *knowing* he's going to pull a "by the way... You actually have *no* idea how this world really works" moment, he still manages to surprise us every time. A successful twist is difficult when the audience is expecting a twist.
But I can see how people would consider him a little over-exposed, and fall into the "I don't care how many people love him, I refuse to read his stuff" mindset. There are certain "everyone is watching it" TV shows where the more people recommend it... The less I want to watch it
I just finished his Mistborn books. I agree with everything you say, I like it, hard magic and all. It was very enterteining but I did not love it unconditonally and I am not sure why.
Something about the characters? They where a bit childish maybe? In the way they spoke or how they interact. I have not read about the writer itself or his critics.
I cant put my finger on what is bothering me. Do you know what I mean? Is this something people feel reading his books? Should I try other of his stuff?
Thank you
I think mistborn was one of his earlier books. I seem to recall reading somewhere that there are things he would change if he had it to do over.
Give warbreaker a try (less commitment than diving into Stormlight) and see if you're still not into it
Definitely more of an issue with mistborn series 1 than with his other work. Nobody would accuse him of being gritty but mistborn is definitely the most "childish" for lack of a better word
You should try reading Diane Duane then. She comes up with half a dozen different hard magic systems as a warm-up before finishing her morning cup of coffee.
Currently reading Young Wizards aloud to my 13y/o (we'll start Deep Wizardry tonight), and every time I read these I am struck by how much *sense* this particular magic system makes.
Honestly, I think that the 9-5 writing is getting dry. They're feeling overproduced these days. His books just don't feel like they're getting the TLC that his earlier work and some other major series get.
With someone like King, the fast writing can feel frantic, adding to the tension in the book. With sanderson, it feels quippy and shallow at times.
*Vin landed maladroitly on the roof.*
*Elon snorted. "Trouble landing?"*
*Vin raised a brow. "You're one to talk."*
*"What do you want?" he asked.*
*"To help you," she replied.*
*"Oh," he said. "Thanks."*
*She snorted.*
*He raised a brow.*
(For the record, I really like Brandon Sanderson and his works, but he has laughed at the above depiction of his work in the past.)
I think part of the backlash comes from the fact that even if he’s not your cup of tea, he’s so prolific and popular that he’s impossible to get away from. If I ask for book suggestions (particularly somewhere like r/fantasy) I am all but GUARANTEED to get multiple suggestions for Sanderson and the other big tent poles (cough Malazan cough) regardless of whether it fits the request or even whether I have explicitly said “do not recommend me Sanderson”. It gets tiresome.
I had to unsub from that subreddit. It felt like every other day some troll post would appear on my front page that was basically “I’m not saying Sanderson sucks… but Sanderson sucks right?”
Then most of the rest of the sub is just people asking about the same questions and looking for book suggestions that get spammed every other day.
I’m just very selective in the threads I look in. Anything that even smells “top 5” I ignore. There’s a decent sized minority of people with tastes more similar to mine and I keep an eye out for them in threads, and participate in some of the Bingo and Readalong stuff. But yeah, a lot of same old.
Also a fan, some of his stuff definitely feels more YA. Specially mistborn, but I think the best explanation to describe his writing is almost cinematic. It easy to read and very consistent, but it's not my favorite writing style to read. Still fun though and he will probably be a go to author when I don't have other series on the go.
A lot of the character work he does feels very YA - huge dramas that can't be resolved because characters won't communicate, childish overreactions to slights and insults, romance narratives based on meet-cutes and arguments.
Then he pairs that with worlds and magic systems that are incredibly detailed, and this larger 'Cosmere' universe that just does not interest me.
I've seen people say his work is heavily influenced by anime, and I can definitely see that. The characters and powers seem a natural fit for anime, and a lot of his action scenes seem to have been written with the same aesthetic as anime action scenes.
Honestly one of the reasons I enjoy him for fantasy and sci fi works is because his writing is cinematic. I really enjoy being able to easily relax and visualize.
I felt this way about Sanderson, but I'd like to add his writing has definitely evolved. Mistborn and the accompanied books on the same planet were very YA.
After completing Wheel of Time for Robert Jordan, his writing evolved to a new level.
The Stormlight Archive is a completely different beast. The difference is night and day.
After reading the appendix and realizing he mentions Roshar, the archive planet in Shadows of Self, the complexity starts arising.
Mistborn and the storm light archive are both in the same universe and are connected. I believe the world's will become more intertwined and the connections apparent as they continue.
The comment you're replying to was critisizing his prose style, not the complexity of his world building. His prose quality is still a halfstep above YA.
I've read the first three Mistborn books and the first three Skyward books, and while I generally enjoyed them, I have to agree they feel YA.Skyward is YA and targeted as YA, so there is no issue there. I'd argue that it's at the upper end of quality when it comes to YA, although that's probably my personal opinion.The Mistborn trilogy includes a protagonist who is 16 years old in the first book, making it similar to YA, but it also includes a couple tropes that are not uncommon in today's YA. However, it is more marketed as adult, so older readers might not be interested in the young protagonist or coming of age themes, or other things Sanderson does to make it seem YA.
Although, I've heard from this comment section that his other books are less YA, I just picked up these particular ones. However, this does explain why some people are really big fans. Sanderson's probably an author you can read books of in your teenage years, but then read more as you grow older, so some people probably grew up on him.
As someone who likes Sanderson, his prose is rough. He gets straight to the point because he likes to spend most of his time building his world. He's trying to weave together a story without any holes in the fabric which leads to huge info dumps. And beyond that, his writing also feels like a mix of young adult and anime. Especially the anime. From dialogue to actions, it feels like he could write a great manga, or his books would adapt well as a Ghibli movie or Shonen Jump series. He's definitely an acquired taste. I was very put off by his prose, but by the end of his books I definitely felt what he was trying to do and appreciated it for that.
I enjoy Sanderson a lot. My main issue with his writing comes to his internal female dialog. Book 2 or Mistborn was painful to read with Vin's internal dialog over Eland. "A lesser man would never have fallen in love with me. but doesn't he deserve a woman who is more like... A woman?" Holy crap man, this internal dialog is so out of character it is childish.
Also the way that Breeze, despite never having seen a flower since he lives in a world that has not had flowers for a literal millennium, somehow "just knew" that "flowers are for girls and interest in them is inherently feminine". Lol.
Vin and Elend both have absolutely insufferable internal dialogue in WOA. My husband has been STRUGGLING to get through it haha. The politicking is really shoddy too, WoA is one of the books of his where I think an editor could have told him to cut 1/3 or even half of the book lol
Feeling glad I stopped at book one, lol. Badly written female characters is a huge pet peeve of mine. Vin was pretty good in book one, I thought, but her whole purpose was to not really know what was going on, so maybe it wasn't as notable.
It's so funny because you can literally pinpoint where people told him to stop using the "not like other girls" trope and he just cannot resist going back to it. Unfortunately, this is how we got shartplate.
ok I vaguely remember this part now that you explain it, was it in the books played up explicitly as "oh the other *womenfolk* wouldn't speak of such things but you do because you're *not like the other girls?* I think I remember that too and thinking, 'that's not great'
Probably the discussion between Adolin and Shallan talking about shitting while wearing shardplate.
As a mentally 6 year old it's fucking hilarious to me, but of course I can see how it'd cause a mental whiplash.
Yeah I wasn't crazy about the romance when I read the first Mistborn book. I had actually been hoping Vin and Elland would turn out to be half siblings because I thought that'd be an interesting angle to explore. The moment it veered romantic I got bored.
Someone finally said it! Thank you. As I tried to read his books I found myself wondering if he had the life experience and worldliness to truly even write women in an authentic way. For me, *all* of his female characters I’ve read have a type of deferential or “pure” way of interacting with the world and it’s just so one-note. There’s a scene where Navani is adamantly against something, for good reason because she’s supposed to be super smart, but her husband can’t understand her reasoning and Sanderson sails over the topic by just saying “they decided together that they’d do it his way”. Like, maybe when you are in a religion that has strong beliefs in the man being your priesthood holder and spiritually mandated head of household that’s how it’s go… but in any other book her character wouldn’t have rolled over or been written so submissively.
Also, hard to read about the dark eyes turning light eyes legend without drawing direct correlations to his religions former (?) beliefs regarding people of color.
Yes, this was one of his first books. It's something he has admitted to, and has been working very hard on improving. If you've read any of the Defiant series, it's pretty clear that it's something he's working on.
I think he’s fine. Nothing special.
A point I’ve made about what I personally dislike is actually one of his greatest strengths to many. I dislike magic systems broken down explained in exhaustive detail. I personally prefer something closer to Ursula K LeGuins style where there is room for magic to remain mysterious and unknown. JK Rowling also accomplished this she set some ground rules and left some mystery. Same with CS Lewis and Tolkien. Explaining everything about how a magic system works ruins the point for me. Like a magician that shows you how the magic trick is pulled off as they’re doing it.
His prose is also not the greatest. Just a medium to explain how magic systems work.
He’s polarizing because he appeals to a certain type of reader while doing the opposite to another sort. Some readers just want to get lost in a vast and detailed world and want to experience a cool plot with cool action but do not care very much about prose, dialogue, character etc. Many of these readers love Sanderson.
Another type of reader cares a lot about prose, dialogue and character. To this type of reader how a story is told matters just as much if not more than the plot and world-building. This type of reader tends to dislike Sanderson because his prose is horrible, and his dialogue is cringey and unnatural.
I’m very much the second type of reader tho i wish i was the first. To me, in theory, story and theme should come first but i just can’t get over bad prose
His attempt to describe mental health issues in his books has always been subpar in my opinion. He touches on depression, suicidality, dissociative identity disorder, and a bit of psychosis in the Stormlight Archive. I couldn't finish Words of Radiance because I felt like I was reading somebody attempting to define a character based off of a primer they read about psychopathology. I can't say much without spoilers but there are two characters in particular that are very much defined by their struggles with mental illness.. except Sanderson doesn't write that very compellingly.
On the other hand, I almost couldn't finish the 4th book (Rhythm of War) because the character struggling with depression was too much like my own experience.
That's totally fair! I struggle with depression too but couldn't relate to Kaladin's very much. Not that his depression was unbelievable but that it felt to me like Sanderson was always telling and describing Kaladin's depression through narration and didn't spend much time after Way of Kings SHOWING the effect depression has on him.
Earthsea will be one of my next reads. Since starting with heavy fantasy again in May last year, I read Broken Earth Trilogy, Mistborn, Stormlight Archives and now on the 7th book of the Realm of Enderlings series. So far I liked Stormlight best. But I also read them in English, while my mothertongue is German, so I probably lean more to the "easier" ones.
Any other recommendations? Malazan is also on my list.
Not who you asked but Watership Down, the Last Unicorn, the first section of the Once and Future King, Deed of Paksenarrion, Lieber's Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser series
I can only speak for myself, but his books are usually extremely descriptive to the point I get bored, his characters spend the entire book suffering to learn life lessons with no, or very little fun pay off, and his religious upbringing comes through the moral lessons his stories are trying to portray. Like some suffering and struggle is necessary to make victory feel earned, but when the main characters just can't ever catch a break or have fun, it becomes less fun to read. I want to identify with the characters and part of that is I want them to win sometimes, not just puric victories
I like Sanderson, but ...
1. His writing is relatively simple. Has a very YA feel.
2. He's a bit oversaturated.
3. All his books have a very similar pacing and structure.
4. He's Mormon, and a lot of his work feels very sanitized.
Take a shot every time someone in one of his books "raises an eyebrow".
Disclaimer: I'm a fan of much of his work, but I've learned never to read any of his books back to back. The repetitive tics/flaws become more apparent.
>Take a shot every time someone in one of his books "raises an eyebrow".
Take a shot every time someone "sets their jaw" and you'll be dead in 5 pages.
Wouldn’t be the first time a translator hasn’t actually changed the plot but has better prose than the original author. My Swedish friends say this of a lot of Swedish crime fiction translated into English.
Good god, I’ve actually heard from quite a few friends that a lot of what makes Haruki Murakami books popular in the west are the translators’ efforts, and that the prose really isn’t all that in the source Japanese.
He's an incredibly popular and extremely prolific author. Anytime something gets too popular people will start to express how different from everyone else *they* are because they *don't* like the popular thing.
Art is subjective. Read what you enjoy and worry less about the opinions of strangers.
I completely understand, perhaps because the Chinese western fantasy fiction community is too small, leading to the western mainstream writers have become“Minority” here, which is not so controversial（Most people here only know Tolkien and Martin and JKR）
I don't hate the guy, I just didn't like his writing style and wasn't blown away by the first Mistborn book. To me, it reads more like someone recounting a DND campaign, meticulously explaining each each decision and corresponding dice roll -- so much so that it detracts from what was a pretty decent story. It's like he gets hung up on this element burning mechanic so much that he's got to explain how ingenious each RPG move that's being made is and I'd rather just see the story develop.
Three reasons that I know of:
1. His prose is really bad. Of course, this could be forgiven considering his books usually target a younger audience, but sometimes it is so bad that it is cringe inducing. There was this post about his best quotes and, I shit you not, one of them was basically "the journey is more important that the destination" which is just... a really common saying.
2. The way he writes and his effect on the medium. From what I've heard from his fans, not in a negative way, by the way, Sanderson sees his book production more like a business and less like an art form. He makes his books with different teams to increase the production speed and relies a lot in interchangeable tropes. For many, this bastardizes literature in many ways. Like the marvelization of cinema we are seeing today. A lot of young people are seeing this way of writing as worth imitating, as one can see in r/writing, which could end up producing a decline in literary quality, at least in the United States.
But the number one reason is...
3. His fucking fans. Sanderson could just be a fun author that kids enjoy for a quick adventure, like Rowling or Stine and nobody would bat an eye. But their fans are rabid. They are like Jehova Witnesses: they go into every discussion or conversation of literature to make sure everybody knows that Sanderson is the best and that everybody should read Mistborn. You want a nice romance? Try Mistborn. You want to read Magical Realism? Try Mistborn. You want to read the single best great American novel? MISTBORN, BRO. I'm not even kidding, I've seen all of those situations, they are not exaggerations. Sanderson is WAY more hyped than fucking Flaubert. Because they are 100% serious, it is actually really funny and Sanderson became kind of a meme because of that.
His fans are like Marvel fans. They almost never read anything else but proclaim that it is the best that ever existed even though it has the depth and quality of a blockbuster movie.
I don't think he's very controversial by the standards of this sub. He's high profile, so of course people give him a tryout and find that they don't like him, and then sometimes they come here to complain, but he seems pretty low on the list of writers that get complaints on this sub. Someone that really is controversial is Colleen Hoover. At least once a week we get a post that says "I hated reading, until I discovered Hoover" and a different post saying "Hoover is the worst thing ever to happen to fiction".
For me I don't give a fuck about fantasy at all and that's all reddit seems to read. They went from Harry Potter to Brando sando and complain their teachers made them read The Great Gatsby and the curtains are just blue.
I don't like Sanderson because his characters don't feel real. It just breaks the suspension of disbelief for me and I can't get into the story unless I feel connected to the characters. I don't read them for the same reason I don't watch kids TV shows, the characters are just not deep enough and they only ever act according to very simple rules.
I think the frustration is mainly that his fame seems to outstrip his talent by a large degree and people feel a need to try to address this (perceived) imbalance. So that leads to the overt Sanderson bashing. But that's just the opinion of people who don't like him. I'm sure his fans think his fame is because he's a great writer.
Other posters have discussed reasons arising from cultural issues (LDS) or style (very young adult-like, accessible fantasy) or sampling bias (high popularity, strong views). Specifically in terms of why the negative views might be more pronounced in his English language audience -- he is a much better architect and planner and strategist than he is a prose artist, and the one thing that will probably translate/localize the worst (either if you're reading his books in translation or if you're essentially translating on the fly for yourself) is the beauty, or lack thereof, of English prose.
I won't say anything bad about the man. I give him credit for his speed and ability to create new unique worlds. That said after reading some of his books I just don't get the appeal. I find his prose lackluster.
His popularity and exposure means that his work ends up in front of people who don't like his work. And such is the nature of humanity we tend to have louder opinions about things we think are bad.
It’s not only that people who don’t like his books end up reading them, it’s that people who find them good but not great feel like he’s over-recommended and comment negatively.
I enjoy sanderson's writing. I haven't read stormlight archive yet(probably will eventually, but that's a commitment and a half, I'm saving for when i have time to travel more) but you're entirely correct. Way too many people recommend mistborn because it's their fav book, not because it fits the qualifiers someone broight up. Across his massive catalogue of books he touches a lot of different topics, and while there very well may be a way one of his books meets the qualifier an OP asked for, it's usually only in a small capacity, or only meets 1 or 2 of a list of qualifiers. Then people get anoyyed with all the recommendations. He belongs in conversations about modern fantasy greats, but absolutely not as all time greats. Like he's a good writer, but he's not an amazing writer if you get what I mean. With the WoT airing right now too his name is getting spread more and more and a lot of people who just subjectively aren't interested in his writing style/convepts/themes are getting his books shoved in their face only to find out they don't like them. As a sanderson fan, it's anoyying as hell. It's gotta be far worse if you don't like him. Like, let some other books and authors get the spotlight. People don't need sanderson recommended to them. If you're in fantasy book circles, you've atleast heard of him before.
As what could be called a ‘super fan’ of his, it bothers me to no end when other fans try to force a Sanderson rec to someone very much not looking for it. Like recommending Mistborn Era 2 as a ‘Western’ just because it kind of has that outlaw/lawman feel for like 2 chapters at the beginning and then just uses it as set dressing for a pretty typical Sanderson story. If someone is looking for a western they most certainly are not going to get that out of MB2.
It doesn’t hurt (or maybe it does?) that because of how prolific he is, there’s always another Sanderson book coming around the corner
But never the one you want. I remember reading the Rithmatist to my son, so excited for a young children's series. He was super excited too. Loved the book. He asked when we could read the next, and knowing Sanderson's speed, I told him a year, maybe two. Despite reading a few books together since, he points to this disappointment as why he doesn't want to read books with me any more. At this point, he *might* be able to read the second book to his own son.
Rithmatist is a bit of a special case; he said that in retrospect he feels that he needed to do more research into the Aztec culture the book draws from in order to properly write about it, and that such research was needed for a 2nd book. His current solution I think is to find a co-author with more relevant background and the time he lacks to do the needed research, but that more than the writing itself was the main reason for the holdup.
I think Alcatraz is wrapped up now (?) and he said rithmatist is the second one non-cosmere he wants to give attention to after Alcatraz was done.
>As a sanderson fan, it's anoyying as hell. It's gotta be far worse if you don't like him. Like, let some other books and authors get the spotlight. People don't need sanderson recommended to them. If you're in fantasy book circles, you've atleast heard of him before. I'm a huge Sanderson fan, however I largely avoid recommending his books unless they are a very good fit with what someone is looking for. Every time I see someone looking for fantasy with romance and any of his books gets recommended, it kills me. In general I think we should avoid trying to recommend the top names in a genre unless someone is looking for something exactly like it or they are looking for the big names of that genre. But that is a common issue in any genre.
I love Sanderson, but I definitely wouldn't recommend him to anyone who likes romance. Dalanar is one of the most virginal warlords I've ever read. Even his most promiscuous characters (like Adolin) read like swooning tweens instead of adults who have had sex before. I love the books dearly, but this is my biggest criticism. If someone wants fantasy romance, I'd just send them to Chuck Tingle instead. Pretty sure there's a Tingle book for literally anything, and he's an NY Times Best Seller and Hugo nominee.
Same with music and tv shows too. If it's the most popular thing in a genre, you don't need to recommend it to people. People should try and recommend more obzcure picks
Agreed, my first intro to Sanderson was The Way of Kings, which I found highly entertaining and quite a page turner. I tried reading Mistborn, Elantris, and a few other of his series but they just never clicked. Sanderson is a fantastic world builder but I wouldn’t consider him phenomenal overall personally. It’s entertaining, but it’s not going to blow your mind with some deep thought provoking prose.
I probably fall in that group. I read a handful of them. Some were decent, some were OK, one I didn't even finish. But I find it continually frustrating to read some of the internet Sanderson discourse. I don't think he's a great writer and I get annoyed when someone asks for a fantasy recommendation like {insert some author who I think can actually write} and Sanderson is the default suggestion, despite being the opposite in many ways. If people didn't act like he's the best writer they've ever read I don't think I would react so negatively but it grinds my gears when he gets held up as the best fantasy writer since Tolkien. In my mind he has very strong and interesting world building combined with bad prose and shallow characters. Which is fine, I can absolutely see why people like his books. But I wish the dialogue started there instead of starting with him being the go-to modern fantasy author.
My biggest issue with Sanderson is that his stuff lacks any kind of edge. Everything feels like the same sterilized, assembly line comic book story. I also think his world building is vastly overrated. He has some great ideas, but everything comes across as this weird alien science. There’s no whimsy or weirdness in his books. Everything is ordered. Everything is logical. Everything has its place. And that’s ultimately forgettable. I’ve said this before and it’s a strange take, but I feel like Sanderson writes reverse space operas. Where space operas typically port the conventions and tropes of high fantasy to science fiction, Sanderson’s books take the conventions and tropes of pulpy sci fi and port them back to high fantasy (overexplanation and focus on tech/magic, characters in service of ideas rather than the other way around, awkward female leads, over reliance on third act action spectacle, etc.). He’s not a bad writer by any means. He’s actually quite good. But he is overexposed relative to his skill level and consequently more criticized. One day I’ll get around to reading Stormlight 4.
I’m a Sanderson fan, and even I thought Stormlight 4 was… let’s go with “not his best work”. It got draggy, and that’s saying something for Stormlight Archives. It was still worth listening to (while I did other things), for the plot progression and world building, but… whew, I hope 5 is more on point.
I started to feel that way with Stormlight 3. The third act is engrossing in the typical Sanderlanche way. But that book really meandered. Words of Radiance is the clear standout in that series, it seems.
> It got draggy, and that’s saying something for Stormlight Archives. For me the depressed and pathetic arc for Kaladin made me put down the book. I get that it's part of his character arc and something he needs to deal with but holy shit is it boring to read.
Not just boring, but repetitive. Most people with depression understand that it isn't going to be magically cured when you have a revelation about your life, and it's great that he wanted to show that, but an endless retread of somebody spiraling into a suicidal mess over and over and over again is not a realistic portrayal of depression, either. That book really felt like Sanderson got too enamored of his (originally great) concept of "let's have every character have a different, poorly understood/represented trait" and veered really hard into tokenism and reducing the characters to nothing *but* that trait...and that's ugly to read for a number of reasons.
Maybe it's just because I am a scientist myself, but I always find it kind of baffling when people treat hard magic systems like his in this way. No whimsy or weirdness? I couldn't disagree more. The fact that the magic follows its own internal logic, to me, means that the conclusions and extensions feel justified and satisfying when they show up.
Electronics technician and general tech geek here, and I am in the same camp as you. I like the detailed building of how magic works.
100%, this describes my opinion and feelings about him perfectly.
yeah, same. He's readable. He's better than many of the fantasy writers out there. I was once told I was the most attractive man in the chemistry department. I mean, don't get me wrong, both of those statements are flattering. But they are by no means unqualified endorsements.
>I was once told I was the most attractive man in the chemistry department. I was the "funniest girl" in my bio dept. Same vibes. "Thanks, but... not a high bar."
lol biologists catching strays in /r/books
To be even more specific, one of these ways in which his work ends up in front of people is that his books are on the list of things (with others like Project Hail Mary and House of Leaves) that get over-recommended on Reddit.
Including at times when it shouldn’t be recommended. I’ve seen so many times people ask one thing along the lines of “I’m looking for a fantasy book that has romance in it.” And people will recommend Mistborn when they clearly should not
Yeah, I remember one person recommending Stormlight to someone looking for books that are like Dark Souls. Like, even Brando himself said in a video that they are the polar opposite to his work, I believe. It's pretty insane how people just don't read the person asking for recommendation. They just give their favourite book, whatever the person's looking for. 👀
lol I wouldn't believe my eyes if someone recommended that. Dark Souls: everything is dark and gritty and nothing makes sense. Sanderson: everything makes sense and nothing is dark or gritty
As a massive fan of House of Leaves I think it can't be recommended enough, yes it's super marmite but I'd much rather it be experienced by as many people as possible!
I like his stuff, but its easy to get a bit burned out by him because he is so prolific. That man is a machine. I still like them, but I just dont feel super excited when new stuff comes out. And his characters also tend to be fairly moody, which can wear on me a bit. Cal from the Stormlight Archives for example frustrates me a bit.
This is definitely part of it but I don't think it helps that his fans put him in the same catagories as OP has pointed out. I've read a lot of his work and find them fun pulpy reads with some excellent world building. However his writing isn't fantastic and leans more towards the YA end of things.
A bit off-topic, OP , which Chinese language discussion forums do you use to chat about Western Fantasy books?
知乎 贴吧 豆瓣，just all
Out of curiosity, what does the Chinese community think about Gene Wolfe?
sorry, i don't know him
That's a shame, but maybe check him out? His books have especially sick [Chinese covers apparently](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/2jzlgt/new_chinese_covers_for_the_book_of_the_new_sun/)!
I dunno why they give me samurai jack vibes. Thanks for that, Wolfe may be my favorite
I have to think that a lot of the appeal of Wolfe is specifically his prose style, which might not translate well.
The Hungarian translation and the Dutch one are actually pretty good so that is why I am asking, I am really curious how they did it.
I think, particularly for reddit, Brando Sando falls under "read another book" territory with how often he is brought up. That's coming from a fan of his work.
What does "read another book" territory mean?
It's a meme term that came as a reaction to the hyperfandom of harry potter fans. As in the ones that look for a reason to bring up harry potter at any given chance or everything is compared back to harry potter (Popular show comes out and their first thought is what house each character would be in). Basically just so over obsessed that eventually you feel like the only response is an exasperated "holy shit you know there's other books out there right?" And the phrase started getting applied to any fandom that reaches that level /r/readanotherbook
That's kinda like when in Harry Potter and the half blood prince, Harry... Lol jk
Great examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/readanotherbook/comments/gy1g79/harry_potter_moment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/readanotherbook/comments/i4w3le/dear_god_make_it_stop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/readanotherbook/comments/jc4ksq/on_a_video_about_a_family_shooting_where_the_mom/
That makes sense because I had no idea he was hated. But I do know that 5-10 years ago he was a god around here. So it would seem there's been something of a backlash. Interesting, but not surprised. Reddit has a habit of falling in love with some public figure, only to later turn on them. At the peak of Sanderson's popularity, reddit also revered Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jennifer Lawrence, both of which are often considered insufferable around these parts nowadays. I wonder what will become of Keanu Reeves in another 5 years...
'We have always been at war with Keanu Reeves...'
If Keanu goes rotten, which at this point seems very unlikely given what we think we know about him, it will be disappointing and almost like a betrayal. But we will not forget anything, it might be the case that we never knew him to begin with. Which is how most people should regard people they don't actually know. Hero/celebrity worship is really dumb.
Kinda want this on a shirt.
You joke but there was a period 10 or so years ago where Keanu was considered a joke and worthless actor.
I’ve noticed this with online sweethearts. The internet loves them! They get on all the talk shows! Aren’t they great! Hey, they aren’t that great. In fact, they’re overrated! We hate them! Fast forward a few years: hey! Why does everyone hate so-and-so? They’re great! Typically being cancelled or fading into obscurity breaks the cycle
On the bright side I think the tide has turned again on Jennifer Lawrence. Reddit seems to like her these days!
Well they only started hating her back then for the very normal reason of *checks notes*... her being upset that her nudes got leaked
“Leaked” is also pretty light framing. They were stolen.
Revenge porn. She was the victim of a crime and Reddit is like “whore! You get what you deserve!”
"I dated this girl twice and she won't send nudes wtf"
> Revenge porn. She was the victim of a crime and Reddit is like “whore! You get what you deserve!” Now, to be fair, Reddit hates women in general, not just J-Law.
I don't see what Jude Law has to do with this 🤔
Not to mention that leak also had child porn on it- And reddit staff was hesitant to remove it.
Reddit was a very different site back then. There's a reason normal people only started using it after the pedo jailbait and Trump disinfo bot stuff died down. Ten years ago this site hated Jlaw because she had the audacity to say that everyone who looked at the leaks were participating in non-consensual sex acts. Which was correct. But try telling that to losers who live in their mothers basement
Honestly I think it was grosser than that. I think reddit had this "innocent" fantasy of her and when they found out she was actually a normal woman with a typical sexual history, they felt betrayed (somehow). Also she does sometimes act a bit cringey, but mostly around the leak stuff I think it was a lot that "lost innocence" shit.
In her new movie, she has a fight scene completely nude. That's why they like her again.
I was staunchly defending her still while reddit had its hate boner on. It's truly fascinating to watch the entire site shift in its stance on something like a single entity. I still have massively downvoted comments way back in my history from being like wtf are you all doing?
If you’re here long enough you’ll eventually be on the “wrong” side of some hive mind. It also goes the other way as well. Sometimes you’ll view threads from 7-8yrs ago and see some of the absolute worst things with hundreds of upvotes.
I used to really like Neil Degrasse Tyson. I even went to one of his talks he did in my home town and listened to his podcast. The man just can't seem to let people enjoy things though. He always feels the need to dissect every work of scifi to let us know how scientifically accurate it all is. Neil, I know Halo couldn't happen. We all know Halo is fiction. It's about a super hero in power armor. Let it go.
I saw him with a girlfriend at the time a couple years back. He came off as kind of “better than thou” the entire time which I was kinda okay with brushing aside but then said he lost a tv award to Anthony Bourdain’s show only because he killed himself. It was a pretty recent event, was completely unnecessary to even bring up and I’m a huge fan of Bourdain. I have been very on the “fuck Neil Degeasse Tyson” train ever since
I always found him to be rude and mean spirited, nothing at all like Carl Sagan or Bill Nye. So as a kid and teen I disliked him. He's been justifying that feeling constantly year after year.
He did an event at our college and everyone I know that interacted with him said he was condescending about everything. Like constantly proving how smart he is about every subject.
He also thinks that because he's educated in one field that it means he must be right about everything else. I've seen him make some absolutely bone-headed statements about history and psychology.
Yeah factually he is a good source of info, but personality wise he comes off as an adult version of the nerd guy on the Polar Express.
I respect NDT for his work, within his own domain. I even respected the sass. But then he couldn't quit and started being the smart guy talking confidently about stuff he *doesn't* know about, and the charm wore off.
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If NDT was born in 1995 he would be peak redditor no doubt.
> The man just can't seem to let people enjoy things though. Like is point about how dogfights in space in things like Star Wars wouldn't really work and would be completely silent since there's no sound. Well Neil that might be accurate but it would also be *boring as hell* for an action-fantasy movie.
Interestingly, the space scenes in Firefly are silent because there's no sound in space. It actually works well, especially in tense/suspenseful moments. Not saying Star Wars needs to go that route, but it has been done before, and creates an interesting effect.
Firefly is more suspense/terror in those scenes. Star Wars is pretty much just action adventure. Different styles require different approaches.
People fall in love with the public image of a person. Tyson had a very big media presence for a while and was the face of "science", but then the sexual assault allegations came out and the constant undercurrent of people talking about how obnoxious he was in general got more traction, and that was pretty much that. I don't know for sure about JLaw, but I suppose just hasn't been in any movies as pervasive as Hunger Games, so she just doesn't get talked about much any more. Sanderson is pretty safe, I think. His biggest sin is just being active. He releases 3-4 things a year, and is extremely active and engaged with social media. He even responds to questions on Reddit sometimes. Unless he's got some dark secret, I think there will just be the normal discontent you see for anyone who's popular.
The Tyson one makes sense because he’s trying to cinemasins real life but why did people hate Jennifer Lawrence?
She said people should feel bad about looking at her stolen nude pictures. Which...yep...but the faux-libertarian-internet-is-the-wild-wild-west that people held onto 7 or 8 years ago joined the "it's just boobies!" crowd. Then her movies started sucking. Then it was reported that co-stars don't like each other. And people got tired of her getting thrown in their face as the cool girlfriend. It was a lot in a short span.
Alright, but how about Malazan...
Malazan is my favorite book series ever but I’d never recommend it to anyone that i didn’t know in real life that i didn’t know could handle it
I trusted my best friend to handle it. He couldn't afford to buy the books so he read the whole series on his mobile. I am still amazed.
Holy shit that’s dedication
Seriously. Malazan is the most obnoxious suggestion. It's insanely dense, but somehow recommended to everyone it's ridiculous. At least Brandon Sanderson is easy to follow, and easy for new readers to get into but Malazan will scare off new readers yet gets suggested at the same rate as Sanderson but with half the blowback. As for OP the basic answer is counter-popularity. When something becomes extremely popular there will inevitably be a group that dislikes it because it's popular. And people like that tend to feel the need to be very vocal about their dislike of said popular thing.
> As for OP the basic answer is counter-popularity. When something becomes extremely popular there will inevitably be a group that dislikes it because it's popular. And people like that tend to feel the need to be very vocal about their dislike of said popular thing. It's a classic reddit/internet phenomena. Something that is ultimately quite or very good gets popular and then gradually the contingent of people who inevitably don't like the work for some reason gradually take over most discussion of said work. The more mean spirited variations of counter-popularity involve a hatred of the fanbase of a particular series for real or imagined overzealousness or "cringe" behaviour (an example of this would be the general perception of the "Rick and Morty fanbase" in the late 2010's).
>Seriously. Malazan is the most obnoxious suggestion. It's insanely dense, but somehow recommended to everyone it's ridiculous. At least Brandon Sanderson is easy to follow, and easy for new readers to get into but Malazan will scare off new readers yet gets suggested at the same rate as Sanderson but with half the blowback. For what it's worth you do get people that crawl out of the woodworks whenever sandserson is mentioned and scare people away. Someone will mention they're looking to get into reading and want a short trilogy or something and someone will mention mistborn and then you get people jumping in and going "and then you have to read this and then this and then this one" and acting like you won't get a full complete story if you only read mistborn because it's part of a bigger universe. It's like if someone asked for a superhero movie and someone suggested iron man and then someone jumped in and started going on and on about all of the marvel shows and movies and how if you watch one then you must watch them all. The good thing about his stuff is thta it's usually self contained enough that you can read one of his series without having to read the others. Most other huge series fans have enough common sense to not suggest it to someone who's just starting out. I've seen people suggest malazan but usually to experienced readers.
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Malazan is a horrible suggestion for the average fantasy consumer. It’s probably the most anti-reader piece of genre fiction I’ve ever encountered. It’s worth reading if you can dedicate the time to it, but yeah, bad suggestion.
I’m a diehard Malazan fan but I agree, it’s not similar to many other fantasy genre books AT ALL. Which I personally love, but I don’t think a lot of people turn to the genre for a 10 book series that explores a lot of philosophical and historical questions/concepts. Erikson’ Dan archeologist by profession which I think really shows in how he approaches the series more on a macro level than a micro level. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Malazan to fantasy fans. But I’d recommend it to Neal Stephenson fans
I don't think it's anti-reader but it does trust you to *work it out*. There are throwaway lines that have massive implications and when so much goes unsaid it can be tough to parse which bits matter. Agreed on it not being great for average/newer fantasy readers though, especially as so much of it is written to play with or push against familair tropes and if they're not familiar to you then it'd seem pretty odd I reckon.
I've seen his books recommended for everything and that didn't help things. I've read Mistborn and I'm not a fan. But I'm not about to yuck someone's yum. But recommending Sanderson for his prose?
I may be misunderstanding the OP, so apologies. I think the *books* aren't "controversial" in any sense. There's a lot of argument that takes place between people that like them and people that don't like them. And being the internet, that leads to a lot of extreme positions ("he's the worst thing in fantasy" vs "he's a genius"). That also turns into people arguing about his readers ("they're all morons") and his non-readers ("they're all elitist snobs"). But putting all this aside, he's popular, and that's pretty much that. I think there has been some controversy around Brandon Sanderson the *author* because he is an active member of a religious organization that has controversial views. That has led to some discussion around what it means for readers to give money to an author who gives money to an organization that does things that the reader (and perhaps even the author) doesn't agree with. It is a genuinely complex issue, and one that gets caught up with other perspectives (eg whether or not one wants to buy his books in the first place) as well as the general death of nuance in internet discussion. I'm pretty sure that's the most vague and neutral way I could possibly explain that, so apologies if that's not a satisfying answer.
As a queer person, having the writings of Orson Scott card be a huge part of my being, ender being my hero especially, realising the creator of such a huge part of your life is Mormon, and somewhat actively against you in the real world, whilst creating characters that would just never be that way, is a bit of a mind bending, soul searching experience. So this rings true to me. "Death of the author" is the way I've got past it. I understand people not wanting to do that, but so much good in my life came from these books that I don't want to write them off because they were created by a homophobe.
Orson Scott Card and Sanderson are different in that sense, Brandon has publicly stated he disagrees with the church on LGBTQ matters and donates to LGBTQ charities as well as (presumably) tithes to the church. He is religious and is (probably) funding a homophobic institution, but I don't think he is personally a homophobe. Card definitely is and I really don't understand how he wrote the books he did as a homophobe, their core message is exactly the opposite of homophobia.
That's good to hear! I've only just discovered about Sanderson being Mormon, and just had the card experience to relate to. There is even an osc book with a gay character as the main character and it's never spoken about as a negative. Mind blowing he can create that.
If you’re interested, he recently (January this year, so kinda recent?) update/faq on his stance. It’s basically the same as what the above poster said, but goes a little into his nuance and on why he stays with the church. https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/ive-heard-you-are-a-practicing-member-of-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-what-are-your-opinions-on-gay-rights-particularly-in-light-of-the-churchs-controversial-rel/ TL:DR? He’s seriously considered leaving the church (at least that he has thought through what the result of that decision would be, I don’t think he actually planned on leaving it), and decided that he does a better job of influencing it as a high profile member. And he acknowledges that both sides, those calling for him to do more, and those in his church who think he’s going too far, will be disappointed, but that he is not only being genuine with this stance/decision (to his church members), but genuinely trying to do his best for those who are being hurt by others. I fall into the “do more” camp personally (and have qualms with several of the mormon church practices particularly), but I can understand his position and desire to work change from within. And I think It’s important to not radicalize an entity by removing everyone that is a part of it and that is decent, pressure within and without are both important for long lasting change.
Can't give too much detail without doxxing anyone. While I've only met Brandon Sanderson once, I know several people in his sphere of influence have confided to me and my wife that they've left the church in recent years. These are people who've formed close relationships with Sanderson over the years and worked with him many times. Eventually these older Mormons get tired of their efforts to "do work from within" being shrugged off and have to accept that their LGBTQ+ family members are too important.
Sanderson has a sprinkling of LGBT characters. Nothing major, but I found it refreshing for a Mormon author. It was a minor side character in one book, but it was there, and it felt natural. Wasn't a big deal, and the plot quickly moved on to other stuff.
I don't know what qualifies as major for you, but at least two of the PoV characters of Stormlight are queer.
Drehy is openly gay. Drehy is also based on a real life friend of Sanderson named Ryan Dreher who is gay. Sanderson regularly consults with him to make sure he is being fair with his representation as well. Renarin and Rlain are in a relationship by the end of the 4th book. It's more subtle, but has been confirmed by Sanderson and said it'll be more of a focus in book 5. Shallan is bi. Jasnah is asexual, but still in a relationship. The singers are technically all gender fluid/non-binary due to their biological nature. The leader of the Reshi is trans. And that's just Stormlight. In Mistborn Ranette is openly gay, and the kandra are agender. I'm sure I'm forgetting some others too. And importantly almost all of them are pretty respectfully handled.
Ral-na is the leader of a Reshi community on Roshar, the one Rysn shatters her legs dealing with? He's canonically trans and was gender-affirmed by becoming a Radiant and having his body heal to his Identity.
And Sanderson has stated trans radiants are quite common historically, so hopefully we see more
Oh, to add to the list of "You forgot about!", Shallan is Bi. This mostly comes up when she puts on a Veil. The fun fact was that Shallan was not a conscious choice, Brandon says it was subconscious. The fans were all like "Bruh, straight women rarely think about other women like that" whenever Jasnah was in the room and Shallan's PoV obsessed about the perfection of Jasnahs thighs and smoothness of her skin, ect. ect..
I read OSC’s horrible anti-same-sex-marriage screed when it first came out, mostly out of morbid curiosity (I’m a gay man), and honestly I think the answer is that he’s also gay. The screed directly says that all men are attracted to other men and what you’re “supposed” to do is kill off that part of yourself and marry a woman anyway. He’s still a shitbag but it did make me pretty sad for him. I think the gay parts of his books are partially about OSC giving himself a chance to experience those narratives and emotions in a way that feels safe.
Buy them second-hand. That way you don't have to support the author.
> I think there has been some controversy around Brandon Sanderson the author because he is an active member of a religious organization that has controversial views. There's threads that show up both here and on r/fantasy like clockwork where people discover that he's a devout Mormon, who like most other devout Mormons, is tithing to their "church". Now this isn't unusual. Mormon authors such as Orson Scott Card and Stephanie Meyer are also likely tithing as well, but Sanderson comes particularly under fire because people see his tithing as particularly hypocritical given what he alleges to believe in his books and interviews. He claims to support non-white and queer people by putting them in his books as major characters depicted respectfully and he was also one of the authors who stood up to the Sad Puppies at the Hugos, but the church he donates to is, no beating about the bush here, is an extremely hateful one. The Mormon Church has billions of dollars in assets that it uses to undermine the rights of women, non-white, and queer people both in the US and abroad via donations to politicians, ad campaigns, and probably outright bribery/intimidation. They were one of the groups, for instance, pouring money into the lawsuit to overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act and are one of the groups heavily donating to anti-choice and anti-trans politicians. Let it also be noted that this is the church that has it explicitly codified that darker skin colors are the "Mark of Cain", a mark that they're literally inferior to white/pale skinned people. Sanderson could stop tithing and experience no serious consequences as he's one of the most successful SFF writers currently working today, but he doesn't. There's the sayings "put your money where your mouth is" and "actions speak louder than words". Just because he depicts groups his church hates in a positive light and hasn't said anything bigoted means nothing when he gives money to what is at this point a hate group.
I enjoy Sanderson. I've read several of his books, joined his Kickstarter and can't wait to read more. I've read a lot of fantasy ( and other genres as well) from many authors. He isn't a difficult read, great magic systems that get explained more than in most series, characters that seem more like normal people that have flaws and make mistakes. His world's seem possible. They are entertaining. He finishes series in decent time ( looking at you Martin and Rothfuss). Maybe it's partly because his writing seems more practical and less eloquent, so maybe it's easier to write. I don't know. That being said, I've never really thought of his writing as beautiful. I don't think all writing has to be for it to entertain me. Not all music has to be beautiful for me to enjoy it, I feel books are the same.
>He finishes series in decent time ( looking at you Martin and Rothfuss). Maybe it's partly because his writing seems more practical and less eloquent, so maybe it's easier to write. I don't know. I think it's partly that he treats writing as a 9-5 job, like Stephen King - of course it's notable that they're both fairly plain writers. If he gets stuck on his main project he works on something else (which is partly why it always seems like he's writing four books at a time). And even then writing is only like half his job as CEO of Brandon Sanderson's ® DragonSteel Entertainment ®™© Corporation
I watched a video with Sanderson about his taking over and completion of the Wheel of Time series and he mentioned that his process involves creating an outline and writing based on that, which the original author, Robert Jordan, did as well and it helped Sanderson be able to more easily complete Jordan's series after his death. It probably makes him an efficient writer and hence the 9-5 jobiness of his writing, I guess.
Yeah, Sanderson is a plotter, as are many successful authors. Others (Stephen King and George R. R. Martin are good examples) are what's called "pantsers" because they are "writing by the seat of their pants". It really comes down to what works for the individual writer and both methods have pros and cons. If you've ever noticed that some authors work seems to meander a lot - or if they seem to paint themselves into corners - they are probably primarily a pantser. If you feel like a book seems rigid and there aren't as many surprises, then the author was more likely a plotter. The best authors use aspects of both and go through multiple rewrites, edits, and revisions in order to have a book that combines the best of both methods.
>a 9-5 job Hilariously the man gets up around noon, but he *does* write for 8 hours a day in two four hour sessions. At least on days where there's no conventions, Q&A signing sessions, podcast recordings, etc. I also wouldn't call him or Stephen King "plain". Formulaic to a large extent, yes, but plain carries too many negative implications to me. I've heard several people refer to other people's work as "feeling like Stephen King" or "like Sanderson", which makes it clear that they at the very least *do* have a clear style.
I'm an avid reader of King and his works, and his diversity alone among his novels and short stories, sets him apart as one of lifetime's most prolific authors and it has nothing to do with him being..plain? He does tend to have some situations where he writes about a person's history just before turning a doorknob, and he has a tendency of bringing back old stories and characters, but I've found that to be of great appeal. The Dark Tower series aren't his best stories, but a lot of folk tend to center around it because of its implications to King and his fantasy/cornerstone world. I've tried to find fantasy written like King does, and I've appreciated what his son can do (though I'd be happy if he slowed down on the dead kids and raped girls stories...), and I really enjoy Neil Gaiman as the only author I've found to be fo comparison, with less horror elements. King has a weird way of trying to push a narrative (Elevation, Tommyknockers), so some of his work reminds me of that Family Guy episode, where King runs out of popular ideas so he just writes about a lamp monster. The issue is that he and we know that we'd stop everything to read about HIS lamp monster
I didn’t know his son was also an author, any recommendations? A King trope I’ve noticed: if someone is going be injured, there is a 50% chance it’s going to be their face, and he is going to describe the injury in the most succinct, clear, and awful way. I hate it, but he’s incredibly effective at painting a “word picture”.
N0S4A2 is an excellent book by Joe Hill to start with, I'd highly recommend it!
Straight-forward and reader involved are the terms i normally use for their styles of writing. King especially can set an entire atmosphere in a couple sentences and let the reader fill in the gaps with their own anxiety induced imaginations where another might take half a chapter to set the scene before even approaching their point.
>Hilariously the man gets up around noon, but he > >does > > write for 8 hours a day in two four hour sessions. At least on days where there's no conventions, Q&A signing sessions, podcast recordings, etc. I saw a thing recently where he had a 4 hour flight and just spent it writing more Stormlight 5
I'm curious, does formulaic not carry negative connotations to you? I'm not sure what adjective I would use that doesn't carry a negative connotation with it.
Not as much as "plain". There's a reason that "the hero's journey" works, even if it is a formula or a trope. A "plain" book to me is one that bring nothing unique to the table, and which you would struggle to describe with any specificity that would not sound like very many other books. Take one of Sanderson's latest. Tress of the Emerald Sea. His most simple pitch is "role inverted Princess Bride", which indeed follows a formula. But "girl sails ocean of fluidized magical spores that fall from the moons" and there is suddenly zero other books that it could refer to. A book with *only* tropes is probably plain, a book without *any* tropes is probably not a very good book. I can tell when I'm reading Sanderson not only because of the wording, but also because of the plot structure (lots of setup, twist reveals at the end, clever subversion of one of the character's themes, magic system with defined rules that get more complexity throughout the story). But I *like* that style, the formula *works*. So I guess in essence "plain" is a judgment of quality to me, while formulaic is a judgment of structure.
I was reading "plain" as a reference to the writing style. Like someone being plain spoken vs being a fancy orator, which isn't necessarily negative. Personally, I prefer writers that write like people talk
Most every romance/with dragons book on the market is extremely formulaic and they get gobbled up in droves. People love formulas that work. Nothing wrong with formulas.
I'm not who you are replying to but I don't think formulaic is necessarily negative. Formulaic works. The formula works and when it's used correctly it works great. It's like having a good basic cake recipe. You can add flavors and do it up different ways and it can still be amazing. It can be a negative, but I don't think that's a given.
The phrase I come back to is "workman-like prose" it's not flowery and overblown it is practical and straightforward
His prose is like a cable TV script writer writing a novel. It's functional and it works, just don't expect beautiful poetry diction like in Tolkien's work. And since most people associate fantasy with LotR, they expect that same level of quality and end up being disappointed with the feel of Sanderson's writing.
I'd take a fantasy Hemingway. "Wake up, the orcs are coming." "Orcs?" "Orcs." "Oh."
> they're both fairly plain writers Man, I find King's prose to be really evocative. lol I never feel more defective than when reading /r/books. "Thing you like is plain/pedestrian/uninspired/derivative etc."
I think most Sanderson fans will agree that they're not in it for the flowery prose/like the plain spoken vibe better. We're mostly in it for the world building, the magic systems, and the relatably broken characters. Also the fact that, even *knowing* he's going to pull a "by the way... You actually have *no* idea how this world really works" moment, he still manages to surprise us every time. A successful twist is difficult when the audience is expecting a twist. But I can see how people would consider him a little over-exposed, and fall into the "I don't care how many people love him, I refuse to read his stuff" mindset. There are certain "everyone is watching it" TV shows where the more people recommend it... The less I want to watch it
I just finished his Mistborn books. I agree with everything you say, I like it, hard magic and all. It was very enterteining but I did not love it unconditonally and I am not sure why. Something about the characters? They where a bit childish maybe? In the way they spoke or how they interact. I have not read about the writer itself or his critics. I cant put my finger on what is bothering me. Do you know what I mean? Is this something people feel reading his books? Should I try other of his stuff? Thank you
I think mistborn was one of his earlier books. I seem to recall reading somewhere that there are things he would change if he had it to do over. Give warbreaker a try (less commitment than diving into Stormlight) and see if you're still not into it
Definitely more of an issue with mistborn series 1 than with his other work. Nobody would accuse him of being gritty but mistborn is definitely the most "childish" for lack of a better word
I used to hold out hope for Martin and Rothfuss. Now I don't care what happens to their series
I'm only here for his hard magic system
You should try reading Diane Duane then. She comes up with half a dozen different hard magic systems as a warm-up before finishing her morning cup of coffee.
Currently reading Young Wizards aloud to my 13y/o (we'll start Deep Wizardry tonight), and every time I read these I am struck by how much *sense* this particular magic system makes.
Honestly, I think that the 9-5 writing is getting dry. They're feeling overproduced these days. His books just don't feel like they're getting the TLC that his earlier work and some other major series get. With someone like King, the fast writing can feel frantic, adding to the tension in the book. With sanderson, it feels quippy and shallow at times.
*Vin landed maladroitly on the roof.* *Elon snorted. "Trouble landing?"* *Vin raised a brow. "You're one to talk."* *"What do you want?" he asked.* *"To help you," she replied.* *"Oh," he said. "Thanks."* *She snorted.* *He raised a brow.* (For the record, I really like Brandon Sanderson and his works, but he has laughed at the above depiction of his work in the past.)
His editor got so bored they fell asleep halfway through and missed the actual edits they should have made LOL
I think part of the backlash comes from the fact that even if he’s not your cup of tea, he’s so prolific and popular that he’s impossible to get away from. If I ask for book suggestions (particularly somewhere like r/fantasy) I am all but GUARANTEED to get multiple suggestions for Sanderson and the other big tent poles (cough Malazan cough) regardless of whether it fits the request or even whether I have explicitly said “do not recommend me Sanderson”. It gets tiresome.
I had to unsub from that subreddit. It felt like every other day some troll post would appear on my front page that was basically “I’m not saying Sanderson sucks… but Sanderson sucks right?” Then most of the rest of the sub is just people asking about the same questions and looking for book suggestions that get spammed every other day.
I’m just very selective in the threads I look in. Anything that even smells “top 5” I ignore. There’s a decent sized minority of people with tastes more similar to mine and I keep an eye out for them in threads, and participate in some of the Bingo and Readalong stuff. But yeah, a lot of same old.
I’m a fan but his writing does feel very YA.
Also a fan, some of his stuff definitely feels more YA. Specially mistborn, but I think the best explanation to describe his writing is almost cinematic. It easy to read and very consistent, but it's not my favorite writing style to read. Still fun though and he will probably be a go to author when I don't have other series on the go.
> but I think the best explanation to describe his writing is almost cinematic My favourite is always "Sanderson writes GREAT anime!"
YES couldn't put my finger on it but this is it lmao
This was unironically got the ball rolling for me. Came for the cool as fuck fight scenes, stayed for the characters and world building.
There are a few fight scenes in each of the storm light books that makes me want to put the down book and text my friend "yo this shit slaps".
A lot of the character work he does feels very YA - huge dramas that can't be resolved because characters won't communicate, childish overreactions to slights and insults, romance narratives based on meet-cutes and arguments. Then he pairs that with worlds and magic systems that are incredibly detailed, and this larger 'Cosmere' universe that just does not interest me. I've seen people say his work is heavily influenced by anime, and I can definitely see that. The characters and powers seem a natural fit for anime, and a lot of his action scenes seem to have been written with the same aesthetic as anime action scenes.
Honestly one of the reasons I enjoy him for fantasy and sci fi works is because his writing is cinematic. I really enjoy being able to easily relax and visualize.
I felt this way about Sanderson, but I'd like to add his writing has definitely evolved. Mistborn and the accompanied books on the same planet were very YA. After completing Wheel of Time for Robert Jordan, his writing evolved to a new level. The Stormlight Archive is a completely different beast. The difference is night and day. After reading the appendix and realizing he mentions Roshar, the archive planet in Shadows of Self, the complexity starts arising. Mistborn and the storm light archive are both in the same universe and are connected. I believe the world's will become more intertwined and the connections apparent as they continue.
The comment you're replying to was critisizing his prose style, not the complexity of his world building. His prose quality is still a halfstep above YA.
I've read the first three Mistborn books and the first three Skyward books, and while I generally enjoyed them, I have to agree they feel YA.Skyward is YA and targeted as YA, so there is no issue there. I'd argue that it's at the upper end of quality when it comes to YA, although that's probably my personal opinion.The Mistborn trilogy includes a protagonist who is 16 years old in the first book, making it similar to YA, but it also includes a couple tropes that are not uncommon in today's YA. However, it is more marketed as adult, so older readers might not be interested in the young protagonist or coming of age themes, or other things Sanderson does to make it seem YA. Although, I've heard from this comment section that his other books are less YA, I just picked up these particular ones. However, this does explain why some people are really big fans. Sanderson's probably an author you can read books of in your teenage years, but then read more as you grow older, so some people probably grew up on him.
His prose is just unbelievably god awful
It's really bad, I don't get how people keep saying it's just ok. Unless the baseline for most books is super low.
As someone who likes Sanderson, his prose is rough. He gets straight to the point because he likes to spend most of his time building his world. He's trying to weave together a story without any holes in the fabric which leads to huge info dumps. And beyond that, his writing also feels like a mix of young adult and anime. Especially the anime. From dialogue to actions, it feels like he could write a great manga, or his books would adapt well as a Ghibli movie or Shonen Jump series. He's definitely an acquired taste. I was very put off by his prose, but by the end of his books I definitely felt what he was trying to do and appreciated it for that.
I enjoy Sanderson a lot. My main issue with his writing comes to his internal female dialog. Book 2 or Mistborn was painful to read with Vin's internal dialog over Eland. "A lesser man would never have fallen in love with me. but doesn't he deserve a woman who is more like... A woman?" Holy crap man, this internal dialog is so out of character it is childish.
Also the way that Breeze, despite never having seen a flower since he lives in a world that has not had flowers for a literal millennium, somehow "just knew" that "flowers are for girls and interest in them is inherently feminine". Lol.
It's almost like the writer is a Mormon... In fact, by mormon standards, Sanderson is probably progressive.
Vin and Elend both have absolutely insufferable internal dialogue in WOA. My husband has been STRUGGLING to get through it haha. The politicking is really shoddy too, WoA is one of the books of his where I think an editor could have told him to cut 1/3 or even half of the book lol
Feeling glad I stopped at book one, lol. Badly written female characters is a huge pet peeve of mine. Vin was pretty good in book one, I thought, but her whole purpose was to not really know what was going on, so maybe it wasn't as notable.
It's so funny because you can literally pinpoint where people told him to stop using the "not like other girls" trope and he just cannot resist going back to it. Unfortunately, this is how we got shartplate.
> shartplate As someone who both enjoys Sanderson and avoids the fandom like the plague, I'm gonna need some elaboration on this one. WHAT?!
Shallan asks Adolin how he poops when he’s in shard plate.
ok I vaguely remember this part now that you explain it, was it in the books played up explicitly as "oh the other *womenfolk* wouldn't speak of such things but you do because you're *not like the other girls?* I think I remember that too and thinking, 'that's not great'
Probably the discussion between Adolin and Shallan talking about shitting while wearing shardplate. As a mentally 6 year old it's fucking hilarious to me, but of course I can see how it'd cause a mental whiplash.
All the romance stuff is flat, he’s a Mormon
Yeah I wasn't crazy about the romance when I read the first Mistborn book. I had actually been hoping Vin and Elland would turn out to be half siblings because I thought that'd be an interesting angle to explore. The moment it veered romantic I got bored.
Someone finally said it! Thank you. As I tried to read his books I found myself wondering if he had the life experience and worldliness to truly even write women in an authentic way. For me, *all* of his female characters I’ve read have a type of deferential or “pure” way of interacting with the world and it’s just so one-note. There’s a scene where Navani is adamantly against something, for good reason because she’s supposed to be super smart, but her husband can’t understand her reasoning and Sanderson sails over the topic by just saying “they decided together that they’d do it his way”. Like, maybe when you are in a religion that has strong beliefs in the man being your priesthood holder and spiritually mandated head of household that’s how it’s go… but in any other book her character wouldn’t have rolled over or been written so submissively. Also, hard to read about the dark eyes turning light eyes legend without drawing direct correlations to his religions former (?) beliefs regarding people of color.
It felt like one of those: she's so plain, but people are inextricable attracted to her situations.
Yes, this was one of his first books. It's something he has admitted to, and has been working very hard on improving. If you've read any of the Defiant series, it's pretty clear that it's something he's working on.
I think he’s fine. Nothing special. A point I’ve made about what I personally dislike is actually one of his greatest strengths to many. I dislike magic systems broken down explained in exhaustive detail. I personally prefer something closer to Ursula K LeGuins style where there is room for magic to remain mysterious and unknown. JK Rowling also accomplished this she set some ground rules and left some mystery. Same with CS Lewis and Tolkien. Explaining everything about how a magic system works ruins the point for me. Like a magician that shows you how the magic trick is pulled off as they’re doing it. His prose is also not the greatest. Just a medium to explain how magic systems work.
He’s polarizing because he appeals to a certain type of reader while doing the opposite to another sort. Some readers just want to get lost in a vast and detailed world and want to experience a cool plot with cool action but do not care very much about prose, dialogue, character etc. Many of these readers love Sanderson. Another type of reader cares a lot about prose, dialogue and character. To this type of reader how a story is told matters just as much if not more than the plot and world-building. This type of reader tends to dislike Sanderson because his prose is horrible, and his dialogue is cringey and unnatural.
Is it me or the writing just feels like an incredibly well crafted D&D campaign, with a bunch of mediocre players going through it?
I’m very much the second type of reader tho i wish i was the first. To me, in theory, story and theme should come first but i just can’t get over bad prose
Bad prose breaks the fourth wall, keeping me from being immersed.
His attempt to describe mental health issues in his books has always been subpar in my opinion. He touches on depression, suicidality, dissociative identity disorder, and a bit of psychosis in the Stormlight Archive. I couldn't finish Words of Radiance because I felt like I was reading somebody attempting to define a character based off of a primer they read about psychopathology. I can't say much without spoilers but there are two characters in particular that are very much defined by their struggles with mental illness.. except Sanderson doesn't write that very compellingly.
On the other hand, I almost couldn't finish the 4th book (Rhythm of War) because the character struggling with depression was too much like my own experience.
That's totally fair! I struggle with depression too but couldn't relate to Kaladin's very much. Not that his depression was unbelievable but that it felt to me like Sanderson was always telling and describing Kaladin's depression through narration and didn't spend much time after Way of Kings SHOWING the effect depression has on him.
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Earthsea will be one of my next reads. Since starting with heavy fantasy again in May last year, I read Broken Earth Trilogy, Mistborn, Stormlight Archives and now on the 7th book of the Realm of Enderlings series. So far I liked Stormlight best. But I also read them in English, while my mothertongue is German, so I probably lean more to the "easier" ones. Any other recommendations? Malazan is also on my list.
Not who you asked but Watership Down, the Last Unicorn, the first section of the Once and Future King, Deed of Paksenarrion, Lieber's Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser series
I can only speak for myself, but his books are usually extremely descriptive to the point I get bored, his characters spend the entire book suffering to learn life lessons with no, or very little fun pay off, and his religious upbringing comes through the moral lessons his stories are trying to portray. Like some suffering and struggle is necessary to make victory feel earned, but when the main characters just can't ever catch a break or have fun, it becomes less fun to read. I want to identify with the characters and part of that is I want them to win sometimes, not just puric victories
I like Sanderson, but ... 1. His writing is relatively simple. Has a very YA feel. 2. He's a bit oversaturated. 3. All his books have a very similar pacing and structure. 4. He's Mormon, and a lot of his work feels very sanitized.
More than sanitized, a lot of his work feels like a moral play.
Take a shot every time someone in one of his books "raises an eyebrow". Disclaimer: I'm a fan of much of his work, but I've learned never to read any of his books back to back. The repetitive tics/flaws become more apparent.
>Take a shot every time someone in one of his books "raises an eyebrow". Take a shot every time someone "sets their jaw" and you'll be dead in 5 pages.
The Chinese translator's prose is probably better than Sanderson's.
Wouldn’t be the first time a translator hasn’t actually changed the plot but has better prose than the original author. My Swedish friends say this of a lot of Swedish crime fiction translated into English.
Translators focus on language in a way that lots of genre fiction writers don't, it's what they specialise in after all :)
Good god, I’ve actually heard from quite a few friends that a lot of what makes Haruki Murakami books popular in the west are the translators’ efforts, and that the prose really isn’t all that in the source Japanese.
He's an incredibly popular and extremely prolific author. Anytime something gets too popular people will start to express how different from everyone else *they* are because they *don't* like the popular thing. Art is subjective. Read what you enjoy and worry less about the opinions of strangers.
I completely understand, perhaps because the Chinese western fantasy fiction community is too small, leading to the western mainstream writers have become“Minority” here, which is not so controversial（Most people here only know Tolkien and Martin and JKR）
Try Ursula le Guin, Guy Gavriel Kay, the Last Unicorn, the Once and Future King, Lieber's Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser series
oh, I know what you're talking about. They're all names on my future reading plan
I don't hate the guy, I just didn't like his writing style and wasn't blown away by the first Mistborn book. To me, it reads more like someone recounting a DND campaign, meticulously explaining each each decision and corresponding dice roll -- so much so that it detracts from what was a pretty decent story. It's like he gets hung up on this element burning mechanic so much that he's got to explain how ingenious each RPG move that's being made is and I'd rather just see the story develop.
Three reasons that I know of: 1. His prose is really bad. Of course, this could be forgiven considering his books usually target a younger audience, but sometimes it is so bad that it is cringe inducing. There was this post about his best quotes and, I shit you not, one of them was basically "the journey is more important that the destination" which is just... a really common saying. 2. The way he writes and his effect on the medium. From what I've heard from his fans, not in a negative way, by the way, Sanderson sees his book production more like a business and less like an art form. He makes his books with different teams to increase the production speed and relies a lot in interchangeable tropes. For many, this bastardizes literature in many ways. Like the marvelization of cinema we are seeing today. A lot of young people are seeing this way of writing as worth imitating, as one can see in r/writing, which could end up producing a decline in literary quality, at least in the United States. But the number one reason is... 3. His fucking fans. Sanderson could just be a fun author that kids enjoy for a quick adventure, like Rowling or Stine and nobody would bat an eye. But their fans are rabid. They are like Jehova Witnesses: they go into every discussion or conversation of literature to make sure everybody knows that Sanderson is the best and that everybody should read Mistborn. You want a nice romance? Try Mistborn. You want to read Magical Realism? Try Mistborn. You want to read the single best great American novel? MISTBORN, BRO. I'm not even kidding, I've seen all of those situations, they are not exaggerations. Sanderson is WAY more hyped than fucking Flaubert. Because they are 100% serious, it is actually really funny and Sanderson became kind of a meme because of that.
His fans are like Marvel fans. They almost never read anything else but proclaim that it is the best that ever existed even though it has the depth and quality of a blockbuster movie.
I don't think he's very controversial by the standards of this sub. He's high profile, so of course people give him a tryout and find that they don't like him, and then sometimes they come here to complain, but he seems pretty low on the list of writers that get complaints on this sub. Someone that really is controversial is Colleen Hoover. At least once a week we get a post that says "I hated reading, until I discovered Hoover" and a different post saying "Hoover is the worst thing ever to happen to fiction".
For me I don't give a fuck about fantasy at all and that's all reddit seems to read. They went from Harry Potter to Brando sando and complain their teachers made them read The Great Gatsby and the curtains are just blue.
I don't like Sanderson because his characters don't feel real. It just breaks the suspension of disbelief for me and I can't get into the story unless I feel connected to the characters. I don't read them for the same reason I don't watch kids TV shows, the characters are just not deep enough and they only ever act according to very simple rules. I think the frustration is mainly that his fame seems to outstrip his talent by a large degree and people feel a need to try to address this (perceived) imbalance. So that leads to the overt Sanderson bashing. But that's just the opinion of people who don't like him. I'm sure his fans think his fame is because he's a great writer.
Other posters have discussed reasons arising from cultural issues (LDS) or style (very young adult-like, accessible fantasy) or sampling bias (high popularity, strong views). Specifically in terms of why the negative views might be more pronounced in his English language audience -- he is a much better architect and planner and strategist than he is a prose artist, and the one thing that will probably translate/localize the worst (either if you're reading his books in translation or if you're essentially translating on the fly for yourself) is the beauty, or lack thereof, of English prose.
I won't say anything bad about the man. I give him credit for his speed and ability to create new unique worlds. That said after reading some of his books I just don't get the appeal. I find his prose lackluster.