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Comment by SunlightEdge | Hacker News Reader

At the risk of being downvoted I don't find Brandon Sanderson a very good fantasy writer. For me, The way of kings started well (even if the characters were all pretty 2-D) in book one. Interesting plot with it mixing ww1/dune computer game themes in a fantasy setting. But by book 3 it was an incredible chore to get through and I stopped after about 10% in. I even got bored reading the plot summary of the third book. I guess it wasnt dark enough for me. But I know other like it.

The king killer chronicles however. e.g. The name of the wind. I really like this book series.

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Too bad you will never see the end of The King Killer Chronicles. It has been something like 10 years since the last book. Rothfuss is in the exact same situation as Martin for me. I won't buy any books of his until the series is complete.

You may not like Sanderson's writing, but the man publishes books. He will get my money for anything he writes because I know I'm going to enjoy it (personally, I really enjoy his books) and I know he's going to complete what he starts.

I absolutely inhaled the first two books by Rothfuss, couldn't put 'em down, this was last year. Then I read up on when the last book would come out, and saw it had been over 10 years between the 2nd book coming out and present day.

Then I started reading about Patrick Rothfuss. I don't think I'll ever read the 3rd book if he ever does actually write it. Yes write, all indications are he hasn't written a page. I have lost whatever respect I have had for the guy. If he has a legitimate reason as to why he has kept his "fans" waiting for over a decade, he should say it. This reasoning is bullshit. [1] I would 100% understand if he said something like "I'm under a lot of pressure and I have anxiety and writers block" or something to that effect. Nope, he just completely checked out.

Maybe I'll read the Wikipedia summary if it ever exists.

[1] https://winteriscoming.net/2020/12/04/patrick-rothfuss-expla...

The books are absolutely jam-packed with detail, foreshadowing, reference and masterful writing (have you noticed Felurian speaks in Iambic pentameter?). I think he has just written himself into a combinatorial explosion of a corner.

Kingkiller is like the Lost of epic fantasy: at first you're drawn in by all the detail and mystique, but later you realize that he's just making it up as he goes. It's super easy to open compelling and interesting threads (e.g. what is the smoke monster and who are the Chandrian) but its much, much harder to close them.

Maybe he has the exact issues you mentioned but doesnt want to release that information into the world. Despite you saying you would understand many wouldnt.

Does the man owe you anything?

Yes, I believe he does in fact owe his readership something. Me? No. I'm not longer part of that group.

What? What does someone who created something you enjoyed and then stopped creating more of that thing owe anyone? An explanation?

Fans have invested in a story. They started a book, got a second book, got a couple short stories and promises of a 3rd book. No 3rd book has arrived to complete the story.

If he had said "sorry, no book 3, it's just done now" years ago, or even now, then that changes expectations. But if he's just going to avoid it all then ya, that's kind of a bad thing to do to your fans.

He has been stringing his fans along for over a decade. It is rude and cruel. It would be like teasing a puppy with a treat but never giving it to them. For 10 years. That is what he has done. His editor disagrees with me [1] but makes an equally strong point.

[1] https://i.redd.it/4g1jexk7i9e51.jpg

I guess if grown adults are akin to puppies for you in this situation and the writer is cruel and rude for not writing another book then we see things too differently to agree in any meaningful way.

https://winteriscoming.net/2021/05/12/kingkiller-author-patr...

I rest my case. He's a jackass.

I’ve just been assuming that Sanderson will step up to finish those series when the original authors pass.

It's a good joke. Unfortunately Sanderson's writing style is really incompatible with Rothfuss and Martin's. Also, he has his own epic series that will occupy him for another 20 years.

Unfortunately, I agree with you. The stone door I've almost given up on. And I was reading GOT way before it became famous on TV. Again stopped expecting a new book. He's passed away now. But I did quite like the British fantasy writer David Gemell. He knocked out books too. His books are violent and personally I like dark and gritty.

Check out Mark Lawrence if you like dark and gritty. He's pretty good at knocking out books as well.

Also, you've probably heard of it already but The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie

"Personally I like dark and gritty." On the offchance you haven't given Joe Abercrombie a try, you really ought to.

I read "He's passed away now" and associated it with Martin. Your full-stop almost made me lose my shit.

I like Sanderson, I really do, but I wish he would aim for a bit more brevity. He has a really interesting story to tell, and built an incredibly creative world, but it's like he gets distracted by all the other stories he would like to tell. Just like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, Way of Kings seems to get slower with each book as more subplots are developed and explored.

But I think my biggest complaint about Way of Kings is that the characters often make such frustrating decisions. The fate of the world is at stake and people are petty, self-absorbed, secretive, and sullen. Maybe that's reality, but it's so frustrating to read sub-plots that drag out for hundreds of pages simply because people won't communicate.

I miss, to some degree, books like King's Gunslinger and Moorcock's Elric, that could tell a story in ~200 pages. Or even the TSR pulp fantasy books of the 80's which all seemed to be 300-400 pages. Now everything is super-sized, but I don't feel like I'm getting more "story", I'm getting in-depth descriptions of clothing and internal monologues on what to cook for dinner.

Despite that critique, I still recommend Way of Kings (and Wheel of Time!). Just flip through the filler.

> Just like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, Way of Kings seems to get slower with each book as more subplots are developed and explored.

Heh, now that's ironic, knowing what happened to the WoT: Jordan[1] died before he could finish it, and years later another author stepped in and finished it based on Jordan's notes. That other author was... Brandon Sanderson. So one would think he'd know the dangers of creating too big a sprawl.

(Also: Take heed, GRRM!)

___

[1]: Actually Oliver Rigney, IIRC.

> my biggest complaint about Way of Kings is that the characters often make such frustrating decisions

I find the decisions are often not predictable, which I think for some can be a turnoff because things don't go the way you expect/want them to. I find this a strength.

Moorcook's Eldrich... Wait! I read Hawkmoon years ago by him and liked it. A light breezy read. I'll get this. Cheers

Totally agree. I love his lectures on writing which you can find on YouTube. He's a great teacher with excellent content. But great teachers aren't always the best writers.

I decided to try the Mistborn trilogy. The first book was great - a nice tight and satisfying story. But the second and third books got progressively messier and I found myself totally disconnected and eventually just slogging through to the end. I wish I would have stopped after the first book.

Sanderson admits loving to write write write and hating to rewrite and edit, which I think really showed in the latter books of the trilogy.

I had the same reaction to the Mistborn books, and my interpretation is that Sanderson really struggles when the plot and characters get "wide". The first book was tight and focused; when the characters graduated to a larger stage everything - from the characters to the world to the plot - ended up "flat" and unrealistic. It's like he has a set budget for any given work, and the wider the focus the less of that budget any individual piece gets.

Which is a shame, because some of his work really is excellent.

I was gifted a copy of Mistborn by Sanderson and I've been having trouble reading. The first handful of chapters dragged for me, so I put it down in favor or something else. I think you point about flat characters is what did it for me; I believe good characters can carry a mediocre story, but a story has to be really exceptional to carry a narrative with uninteresting characters.

I am hoping to give it another shot this summer, but I can't exactly say I am looking forward to it.

I don't know if it's that Sanderson is a bad writer; I think it's more that he's a bad editor. He is so prolific that he doesn't take the time to cut his books down to the length they should be, which is probably about half the length.

Every single novel I've read by him (All of mistborn, 1st 3 Way of Kings, Elantris) has egregious pacing problems. Way too much repetitive exposition that doesn't move the story along.

Arcanum Unbounded is actually pretty good, probably because it's all short stories and doesn't have time to get lost)

Sanderson got too big too fast to develop a relationship with an editor who could say "no" to him. He's built fascinating worlds and interesting characters, but his later writing is full of the kinds of tropes and flaws that an empowered editor would be pushing him hard to streamline:

- Dialogue from adults that has the emotional intelligence of a 12-year old

- Lots of telling, almost no showing. So much "X, the kind of person who takes no bullshit from anyone, says, 'hi'".

- Huge, dragging, Return-of-the-Jedi-style setpiece battles and fights that have no bearing on the plot outcome

- Plots that just repeat on a larger scale with every book in a series.

Dude needs someone who has the ability to say no to him. With the amount he writes though, I have to imagine it's basically a DDOS for anyone tasked with editing his work.

Well, he did a decent job ending Wheel of Time which had that problem but much worse, since it was edited by the guy's wife. Unlike RJ, Sanderson actually knows where he's going and tries to get there on schedule.

It was only decent though. I thought he made some very artificial uses of the magic system that didn't seem to fit in the world but just let him keep the series on track. Also, RJ wasn't the best at writing women but Sanderson is a total square and so the romantic/personal relationships were not really there.

Interestingly, the part of his books I liked the most was entirely original (Aviendha's future vision), and the one I thought was the worst written (Tower of Ghenjei) was an attempt to keep an RJ alpha plot that RJ probably would've abandoned.

At least Robert Jordan could write dialogue and inter-personal relationships that don't stink of middle school.

RJ thought of himself as a "Southern gentleman" and so he had critical levels of boomer gender politics in all his dialogue, essentially 1000 pages of "I hate my wife" jokes and braid tugging. Also, not sure how many people noticed but more than a few plot points and things like Compulsion weaves in his books are clearly just his sexual fetishes.

But yes, there was a lot of depth and the women were always strong characters and seemed to be having fun, whereas Sanderson writes like he hasn't gone through puberty yet.

I should note I'm not defending Robert Jordan's pseudo-neckbeard views on women, just his ability to write humans.

As a lifelong video game player, I get a strong video game vibe from his works. I think he tells engaging/energetic stories, he makes some nice complex systems and worlds, but the writing isn't particularly well structured, can drag on, and has some characters who definitely seem designed to appeal to teenage boys. Which all in all I don't mind, when I'm tired sometimes I just want a nice story where I never have to read a page twice.

Skyward is a great light read by him, but note that it’s sci-fi, not fantasy.

Brandon Sanderson is a terrific author when he completes another author's series. He is more lyrical when he is forced to adopt another author's style. Otherwise its paint-by-numbers fantasy.

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