Ken Follett Says Readers Still Like Epic Books
wsj.com
wsj.com
Stuff like A Song of Ice and Fire avoids that because it isn't afraid to move the plot to other characters, though of course, we'll probably see the heat death of the universe and the gold master release of Star Citizen before the Winds of Winter releases.
Ken Follett is probably one of the best in the genre because he does different things. Pillars of the Earth is an amazing book, and he didn't turn it into a 6-book series or something that just drags on and on and on. So kudos to him for resisting the temptation there! (EDIT: Ah, turns out that I completely missed that he did. That's what I get for not checking.)
Just in case you or anyone else is unaware, he did write two others in the same 'universe' and their construction is very similar. That is not a complaint however, I thoroughly enjoyed all of them!
(For what it’s worth, I’ve genuinely enjoyed the books and look forward to reading it.)
His Century trilogy is a good read, too. Follows 5 families from before World War I, to the 1980s [1].
[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/AO8/the-century-tr...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Without_End_(Follett_nov...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Column_of_Fire
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evening_and_the_Morning
He does move characters on, because time moves on. Things get bigger, but themes remain very similar in at least the first 3 books. Similar to your description of The Wheel of Times books, I found the Pillars of the Earth very good, but the sequels were less exciting (I still read books 2 and 3 and bought the 4th one).
Have you read the Expanse series? That seemed to have noticeably distinct themes through the second and third books, but I think based on style the authors split exposition and conclusion up.
I can't remember the specific phrasing, but I remember an interview or something with Ken Follett where he basically said "Your readers come to you for a specific reason, the key to success is the find a way to write the same story over and over again without it feeling stale."
In TEotW: Rand goes from claiming to be a farmer to doubting his place in the world, he struggles and overcomes obstacles. He goes from “Tam is my father!” to “Tam is my father?”
In TGH: Rand knows what he is but is unwilling to accept it. Over the course of the book he adapts to being treated more like nobility and a leader and becoming accustomed to it this is particularly clear in his interactions with Huiron. He even forgets and tries to command the Shienarins when their commander, Ingtar is right there.
I thought the parallel between Rands journey and the heron marked blade was also well done! Rand desperately tries to hold on to the heron blade as it’s his tie to Tam. As Rand goes through his journey he learns to use the blade and as he accepts who he is at the end of TGH, the blade, his last vestige of Tam as his father, is metaphorically and literally broken.
However, the series starts to shift in a few ways not long after where the bulk of the books is about his allies on their quests scattered throughout the continent and they are far more interesting than Rand’s brooding. It also occurred to me in the last book or two that Rand’s slow growth may not be the most enjoyable to read but it is realistic — the story only spans two years or so and Rand has little time to actually process what is happening to him. He kind of acknowledges this in the last book, when Moraine remarks that the three boys she took out of the Two Rivers have grown up, and Rand says something to the effect: “no, only Perrin has, and when it comes to Matt and myself, I just hide it better.”
There is also all the growth that you mention as well as his somewhat immature attempt to harden himself in preparation for The Last Battle and his final realization that strength does not come from suppressing all his emotions.
For context for the unfamiliar readers perusing this thread: heron marks indicate a blade master — a titled earned by defeating one in single combat or by undergoing a rigorous training process over years. Rand is a farm boy given such a blade by his dad when he sets out on his journey, and he is surprised when he learns his father was a blade master because he was just a simple farmer that served in a war 20 years beforehand to satisfy his own desire for adventure.
Rand feels he does not deserve to carry the sword but does it to honor his father. Even though he trains quite a bit, it is more a crash course than a proper pedagogy. He kills a blade master at one point but there are no witnesses so by tradition he feels he can’t claim the title. He carries this imposter syndrome across many of the books and obsesses over training with the sword. This continues until he is maimed in a way that hinders his ability to fight with the blade and, at roughly the same time a character points out that it doesn’t matter if anyone saw him defeat the blade master, he earned the title and should feel confident about it.
In a lot of ways, this arc is a microcosm for his internal conflict about being the Dragon Reborn (the chosen hero of prophecy). He goes from not believing he could possibly be the Dragon, to obsessively trying to prepare himself mentally for his final confrontation with evil (he repeatedly says he must make himself as hard as steel), to eventually realizing that his own perception of what makes a Dragon / blade master is immature — both are just a men, with their own strengths and weaknesses even though they have dedicated their life to a purpose.
The guy raised $40m in a kickstarter and pumped out 4 novellas this year, it's impressive how much of a literary machine he is.
IIRC Sanderson has stated that he's trying to set up a Star Trek type setting. He's developing all these different cultures with different values, and eventually they're going to become space-faring and come into conflict with each other over their different priorities.
I liked the first Mistborn trilogy, but couldn’t get into the later ones.
For recent large scale fiction that’s also not going to work for everyone, I really liked the Terra Ignota series. (But, if the warnings and the first chapter put you off, you’re not going to like it)
Probably fair to note that Sanderson wrote a bunch of those books to finish up the series after the author died and at his estates request?
TWoK reminds me of the (Mirror-Moon TL of the) original F/SN VN in that the author/TL being bad at realistic characterization actually enhances the experience. F/SN Shirou and TWoK Kaladin are both weird broken robots with warped perspectives, and exposing the reader to an exhaustive amount of the (creative and surprisingly involved) setting, both mundane and horrific, through those perspectives is actually pretty interesting in a literary way and ascends above what could otherwise have been just plain bad writing.
Other posts in this thread have referenced the development of Kaladin's character through the arc of the plot, and I think that's what lost me. "Fixed" Kaladin is an uncanny-valley imitation of a fleshed-out character; "broken" Kaladin is, intentionally or unintentionally, a lot more fun. I found myself actively disliking many of Sanderson's attempts at expanding his characterization, especially in RoW.
You know he's an amazing author because whenever he is mentioned, people will come out of the woodworks to proclaim how they don't like his work, and the problems they have with it, as if that means anything.
This isn't to say that you have to like his work. Rather, he's so good, that instead of people promoting the epics they do like, they instead can't help but still talk about Sanderson. And that's incredibly powerful.
In the same vein, most fantasy fans will also have some opinion on Harry Potter. Or pop music fans will have something to say about Taylor Swift these days.
The Wheel of Time for all of its warts sets a precedent in terms of how a world can be described all the way down to differences in clothing styles. Granted it did get a bit wearing reading about what people were wearing. So it was a bit extreme, but I find myself missing that in other books I read.
Amazingly, I've read that he actually wasn't that good a sailor, in real life.
Nor is it a refutation that we have shorter attention spans. It /could/ be, but there could be a lot of things there. It is a hard question that will take some nuanced investigation to really get a good answer.
To this particular claim, though, it is always been the case that a large number of people buying literature are doing so for the signalling use case. Authors shouldn't confuse purchases with reads.
Books 1-7 are set in the past, Cryptonomicon in our time, and Fall in the future. It's a whole alternative universe that closely parallels our own.
Totally a must-read... if you're the kind of person who bothers reading comments on Hacker News.
> These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again.
> We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.
Books were the length that they were, in the 20th century in particular, because of the needs of the physical printing industry. Cost went up more than linearly with length, beyond a certain point.
(In the 19th century books were often serialized in magazines first.)