[globish rip]

I remember that while I was reading his books I was able to tell exactly what he was trying to do with each of the characters, and he uses too many scenes where the characters just move around thinking to themselves. Every time he does that, the characterization gets sloppy and obvious, like he's dragging the reader by the nose to whatever conclusion he wants them to reach.

im not sure where he u get sloppy from the characters tend to be pretty tidy if, yeah, obvious and if anything those scenes feel pat - transparency isnt necessarily a bad thing tho this isnt henry james

[mxlm]

tickhill43, on Jun 25 2009, 06:16 AM, said:

I'll add a note of caution to all the Sanderson love around here. I've read all three of his mistborn novels and find him to be an average writer. His best points are his interesting ideas and well thought out magic system. However in my view his characterisation was weak, the fictional world he built flimsy and unconvincing and his technical skill as a writer similarly unconvincing.

This. Well, not quite; I've only read Elantris and the first Mistborn. He's not a bad author by any means, but he's nowhere near my top tier.

[HoosierDaddy]

Here's the deal. If you want fantastic prose, story organization and flow at its highest level, characters that are as human as you and I... why are you reading fantasy? It provides none of those things. Even the best fantasy doesn't provide the "classical" literature experience.

I'll agree he doesn't flesh out his characters as much as others. But then again, his books are 500 pages compared to 1200, and he wrote 3 books instead of 7, 11, 12. Tolkien built fantasy. His characterization is poor, story is jumpy at best, and makes random leaps. But, rightfully, Tolkien is a Fantasy God.

Sanderson doesn't write the fantasy version of War and Peace, Les Miserables, or the Iliad. What he does is create an extremely novel magic system, which is impressive at this point. He creates an extremely enjoyable new world. He creates an extremely enjoyable plot-model of the World Won By Darkness, and then carries that plot model out into an astounding conclusion.

How do you judge writers without having read all of them? I take Tairy to the extremes, but I also read every piece of drivel he threw at me in Novel Form, and I therefore have a handle on the material. Don't qualify your statements at the end, qualify then in the beginning.

"I haven't read his entire series, but from what I've read...." as opposed to, "It is okay. The hype is overblown, and I think the characterization is poor. I haven't read 50% of what he's written, but you should trust my opinion."

I'm sorry MXIM, I don't mean to pick on you purposefully, but I'm just damned sick of this trend of people who characterize authors and series as a whole, without having read the entire damned thing.

Edit: Why? Because authors improve, story-lines evolve, and an "epic" fantasy series takes time to develop. This post was overly aggressive, and I apologize for that. I feel Sanderson is one of the brightest up and comers in the field... but that is entirely taste, as is the majority of everything else. My post isn't an attempt to make opinions read as facts, they are all very much my own opinions, which are strongly felt. If I offend, I sincerely apologize. I do not apologize for my sincere opinion, however, and never would.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 26 June 2009 - 06:52 AM

[Myshkin]

alt146, on Jun 25 2009, 02:03 AM, said:

There's also a free version of his next novel available on his website.  It's decent, but not as good as the stuff Hoosier mentioned, mainly because he's still in the process of tweaking it.  I would think it's very cool if you're an aspiring writer though since he's updated it every time he made changes to it, as well as posted notes about his thought process during the writing and editing.

The book you're talking about is Warbreaker, and it's already been published, and is in stores now. I picked up a copy from B&N a few days ago, and I'll probably start reading it later tonight.

Salt-Man Z, on Jun 25 2009, 08:43 AM, said:

I've only read Elantris, which was okay, but nothing special. He definitely creates an interesting magic system, for sure. It was very obviously his first novel, but I've heard that it was actually written some time before it was published, and that he's only improved since then.

I was severely disappointed with Elantris, and almost quit on Sanderson after reading it. Luckily I gave him another chance and picked up Mistborn, which is miles above Elantris in terms of quality. I guess what I'm saying here is don't judge Sanderson on the basis of Elantris alone.

[Terez]

Authors grow, and Sanderson has made it clear that he doesn't think by any means that he has reached a point where he can stop growing, and that's a good thing in an author who has already proved his talent in the eyes of so many.

I haven't read Elantris, and I wasn't really sold after the first two books of Mistborn, but there was I think very little to find fault with in the final volume. The ending was really fantastic, and the writing came a long way over those three books.

[mxlm]

HoosierDaddy, on Jun 25 2009, 11:42 PM, said:

If I offend

You do not.

Quote

If you want fantastic prose, story organization and flow at its highest level, characters that are as human as you and I... why are you reading fantasy? It provides none of those things

I don't think your assertion is correct. Even if it were, no one in this thread has damned Sanderson's work for not reaching that level of quality.

Quote

I'm sorry MXIM, I don't mean to pick on you purposefully, but I'm just damned sick of this trend of people who characterize authors and series as a whole, without having read the entire damned thing.

Fortunately I didn't do that. Regardless, your point that my agreement with tick could have been better qualified does have merit.

[tickhill43]

tickhill43, on Jun 25 2009, 02:16 PM, said:

I'll add a note of caution to all the Sanderson love around here. I've read all three of his mistborn novels and find him to be an average writer. His best points are his interesting ideas and well thought out magic system. However in my view his characterisation was weak, the fictional world he built flimsy and unconvincing and his technical skill as a writer similarly unconvincing.

HoosierDaddy, on Jun 26 2009, 07:42 AM, said:

Here's the deal. If you want fantastic prose, story organization and flow at its highest level, characters that are as human as you and I... why are you reading fantasy? It provides none of those things. Even the best fantasy doesn't provide the "classical" literature experience.

I'll agree he doesn't flesh out his characters as much as others. But then again, his books are 500 pages compared to 1200, and he wrote 3 books instead of 7, 11, 12. Tolkien built fantasy. His characterization is poor, story is jumpy at best, and makes random leaps. But, rightfully, Tolkien is a Fantasy God.

Sanderson doesn't write the fantasy version of War and Peace, Les Miserables, or the Iliad. What he does is create an extremely novel magic system, which is impressive at this point. He creates an extremely enjoyable new world. He creates an extremely enjoyable plot-model of the World Won By Darkness, and then carries that plot model out into an astounding conclusion.

How do you judge writers without having read all of them? I take Tairy to the extremes, but I also read every piece of drivel he threw at me in Novel Form, and I therefore have a handle on the material. Don't qualify your statements at the end, qualify then in the beginning.

"I haven't read his entire series, but from what I've read...." as opposed to, "It is okay. The hype is overblown, and I think the characterization is poor. I haven't read 50% of what he's written, but you should trust my opinion."

I'm sorry MXIM, I don't mean to pick on you purposefully, but I'm just damned sick of this trend of people who characterize authors and series as a whole, without having read the entire damned thing.

Edit: Why? Because authors improve, story-lines evolve, and an "epic" fantasy series takes time to develop. This post was overly aggressive, and I apologize for that. I feel Sanderson is one of the brightest up and comers in the field... but that is entirely taste, as is the majority of everything else. My post isn't an attempt to make opinions read as facts, they are all very much my own opinions, which are strongly felt. If I offend, I sincerely apologize. I do not apologize for my sincere opinion, however, and never would.

As I said in my original post I've read the three mistborn novels. In my view Sanderson is a promising author who is improving. Why the was I so critical of him? Because he has just signed one of the most lucrative contracts in the history of the fantasy genre.

By offering him this contract the publisher is basically saying that Sanderson is one of the best writers of fantasy in the world. This to me makes it entirely justified to judge his work comparatively with the best novels in the genre. In this company Sanderson falls short. I reiterate his characterisation is weak, the fictional world he built flimsy and unconvincing and his technical skill as a writer similarly unconvincing, when compared to the best writers in fantasy.

Edit. Also to answer your particular point about his characterisation being weak due to the shortness of his novels, and lack of novels in his series I have to disagree. It is certainly possible to write believable characters in small works. Of the top of my head Kearney's monarchies of the gods novels were tiny but had brilliant characterisation as did the year of our war by Swainston. This is without mentioning the masses of short stories in the genre that can create believable fleshed out characters in less than 100 pages.

This post has been edited by tickhill43: 26 June 2009 - 11:28 AM

[RangerSG]

HoosierDaddy, on Jun 26 2009, 01:42 AM, said:

Here's the deal. If you want fantastic prose, story organization and flow at its highest level, characters that are as human as you and I... why are you reading fantasy? It provides none of those things. Even the best fantasy doesn't provide the "classical" literature experience.

I'll agree he doesn't flesh out his characters as much as others. But then again, his books are 500 pages compared to 1200, and he wrote 3 books instead of 7, 11, 12. Tolkien built fantasy. His characterization is poor, story is jumpy at best, and makes random leaps. But, rightfully, Tolkien is a Fantasy God.

Sanderson doesn't write the fantasy version of War and Peace, Les Miserables, or the Iliad. What he does is create an extremely novel magic system, which is impressive at this point. He creates an extremely enjoyable new world. He creates an extremely enjoyable plot-model of the World Won By Darkness, and then carries that plot model out into an astounding conclusion.

How do you judge writers without having read all of them? I take Tairy to the extremes, but I also read every piece of drivel he threw at me in Novel Form, and I therefore have a handle on the material. Don't qualify your statements at the end, qualify then in the beginning.

"I haven't read his entire series, but from what I've read...." as opposed to, "It is okay. The hype is overblown, and I think the characterization is poor. I haven't read 50% of what he's written, but you should trust my opinion."

I'm sorry MXIM, I don't mean to pick on you purposefully, but I'm just damned sick of this trend of people who characterize authors and series as a whole, without having read the entire damned thing.

Edit: Why? Because authors improve, story-lines evolve, and an "epic" fantasy series takes time to develop. This post was overly aggressive, and I apologize for that. I feel Sanderson is one of the brightest up and comers in the field... but that is entirely taste, as is the majority of everything else. My post isn't an attempt to make opinions read as facts, they are all very much my own opinions, which are strongly felt. If I offend, I sincerely apologize. I do not apologize for my sincere opinion, however, and never would.

1) I'd say that fantasy has as much right to be quality literature as any other genre. After all, in a very real sense, the Iliad is fantasy. Tolkien wrote adult fairy tales. And that's how he termed them. I don't think he ever set out to be the end-all be-all by which fantasy would be judged in perpetuim. I love Tolkien. But I don't see the reason to write just as he did and still be fantasy.

2) I think the characterization of authors like Cook, Gemmell, and Erickson was and is as strong as the authors in any genre today. (Throw Neal Stephenson in too if you consider him spec-fic. I say he defies genre classification.) And Gemmell's stories in particular were always tightly woven. I'd say there's as many ways to write a fantasy novel as there is anything else. And a fantasy novel has the right to be a masterpiece as any other work.

That said, I do see Sanderson growing as an author. I'm not going to buy Warbreaker in hard cover. But I'll take a peek when it gets to be a trade paperback. I'm not going to start buying WoT though just because he took it over. I let that suck at my soul once. I think the last books will be much better because he knows how to write a story and Jordan didn't. But I don't need to read 11 books of braid-pulling to support Sanderson, no matter how much I like him as an emerging author.

[Tarcanus]

I'm just hoping that Sanderson shows improvement between the Mistborn tril and the WoT novels, and then further improvement on The Way of Kings. Elantris was very basic, and you could definitely see his growth when reading the Mistborn tril, but I didn't see any improve between any of the 3 Mistborn novels - which could be why I think they're so average.

[globish rip]

By offering him this contract the publisher is basically saying that Sanderson is one of the best writers of fantasy in the world.

just as an fyi the publishers are basically saying that they think sanderson is going to be one of the best selling writers of fantasy in the world. quantity not quality

[Aptorian]

Well, to a publisher, quantity makes you the best writer... quality is a measurement for pompous critics.

Why do you think they keep making bond films?

[kmgrey]

tickhill43, on Jun 26 2009, 12:21 PM, said:

As I said in my original post I've read the three mistborn novels. In my view Sanderson is a promising author who is improving. Why the was I so critical of him? Because he has just signed one of the most lucrative contracts in the history of the fantasy genre.

Do we know this? How does it compare to the contracts of Feist, Brooks, Goodkind, Martin, Butcher, etc? Sanderson's last two novels were New York Times Bestsellers which puts him into the upper echelons of current fantasy authors.

Quote

By offering him this contract the publisher is basically saying that Sanderson is one of the best writers of fantasy in the world.

Copies sold does not necessarilly equal quality. This is simply an acknowledgment that Sanderson is already one of the current bestselling fantasy authors and evidently Tor expects those sales to increase based on Sanderson's involvement with WoT and his first draft of "Way of Kings".

[Werthead]

kmgrey, on Jun 26 2009, 09:00 PM, said:

Copies sold does not necessarilly equal quality. This is simply an acknowledgment that Sanderson is already one of the current bestselling fantasy authors and evidently Tor expects those sales to increase based on Sanderson's involvement with WoT and his first draft of "Way of Kings".

This. Tor recently decided not to publish Daniel Abraham's new epic fantasy series because sales of The Long Price Quartet were only modest. It didn't bomb, it broke even and got a lot of fantastic reviews (much better than Sanderson's), but it simply didn't shift in the units they wanted, so they let him go and he's now with Orbit USA. Of the two I think Abraham is the vastly better writer, but Sanderson is the more bankable.

Of course, Tor may have also shot themselves in the foot because Abraham's new series is much more mainstream, 'traditional' and bankable than the heavily Asian-inspired Long Price books. Interesting to see what happens there.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 26 June 2009 - 09:37 PM

[Eddie Dean]

First of all I like Sanderson's writing, a lot. I was a little dissapointed with Warbreaker, his new book, however. Mostly because it started out really, really slow. The last half made up for it though, it ended awesome. But I'm not going to argue his writing. You either like an author or you don't. What I like most about Sanderson is the way he goes out of his way for his fans. Some examples:

1. Sanderson is actively looking for bookstores selling unsold books in bulk. He buys them, and then puts them on his website for sale as an autographed copy for a discounted price. I bought Final Empire, Elantris, and Well of Ascension cheaper from him, autographed, than I could from B&N, ebay, or Amazon.

2. He works with local bookstores when he realeases a book to get autographed numbered copies to the fans. I bought Warbreaker from said bookstore for the same amount as anywhere else.

3. He fought with his publisher to be able to put Warbreaker on his website so that fans could read online for free.

4. He is constantly giving fans tons of info on his books and progress so that they know how he is coming along.

5. He writes his butt off. He realizes that he is an author, and that it pays his living. He doesn't waste huge amount of time by going on tours (he does, but locally) or other time consuming thinks. He sets hours every day that he writes (9-5 or whatever) and then he goes home. When he works, he writes and writes and writes. I like that. You know when he says he's working on a book, he's actually working on it, unlike others......cough....martin....cough.

[RangerSG]

Eddie Dean, on Jun 26 2009, 05:28 PM, said:

First of all I like Sanderson's writing, a lot. I was a little dissapointed with Warbreaker, his new book, however. Mostly because it started out really, really slow. The last half made up for it though, it ended awesome. But I'm not going to argue his writing. You either like an author or you don't. What I like most about Sanderson is the way he goes out of his way for his fans. Some examples:

1. Sanderson is actively looking for bookstores selling unsold books in bulk. He buys them, and then puts them on his website for sale as an autographed copy for a discounted price. I bought Final Empire, Elantris, and Well of Ascension cheaper from him, autographed, than I could from B&N, ebay, or Amazon.

2. He works with local bookstores when he realeases a book to get autographed numbered copies to the fans. I bought Warbreaker from said bookstore for the same amount as anywhere else.

3. He fought with his publisher to be able to put Warbreaker on his website so that fans could read online for free.

4. He is constantly giving fans tons of info on his books and progress so that they know how he is coming along.

5. He writes his butt off. He realizes that he is an author, and that it pays his living. He doesn't waste huge amount of time by going on tours (he does, but locally) or other time consuming thinks. He sets hours every day that he writes (9-5 or whatever) and then he goes home. When he works, he writes and writes and writes. I like that. You know when he says he's working on a book, he's actually working on it, unlike others......cough....martin....cough.

I agree with you on most of that. Though on point 5, he does teach a college Creative Writing course as well. So it's not like writing is "all" he does.

[Slow Ben]

Plus, you know, Kelsier is friggin awesome.

[RangerSG]

Slow Ben, on Jun 26 2009, 07:46 PM, said:

Plus, you know, Kelsier is friggin awesome.

He was.

Spoiler

I missed him when I was gone. I think that he was such an amazing character in the first book that his absence dampened my enthusiasm for the rest of the series.

Vin never resonated with me the same way.

This post has been edited by RangerSG: 27 June 2009 - 01:54 AM

[Slow Ben]

Mistborn Spoiler-Dont Read!!!


Completely agree. Kelsier was such an interesting, badass and funny character who is one of my fav characters in any series.

Spoiler

The first book was still good after he died because the things that happened then were put in motion by him. But Vin and Elend in the next 2 books, in mho, just couldnt live up to Kelsier. I still enjoyed the next two, the writing might have gotten better, story more solid, whatever. They just didnt live up to the first because they didint have Kelsier

This post has been edited by Slow Ben: 27 June 2009 - 02:10 AM

[HoosierDaddy]

Kelsier was half-insane, so that drives some of his character. Neither Elend or Vin are half-crazy, but come on, when Vin goes bat-shit at the end of 2 you have to be pretty impressed.

[kmgrey]

I just finished the first book and while Kelsier is a great character, I don't think I was as enamored with him as many were because:

Spoiler

I never quite trusted him. I had a nagging feeling that he would ultimately betray people to some degree, the same way the Lord Ruler was perceived to have done. Of course that's what Sanderson intended so the final reveal of Kelsier's plan was quite effective, but never taking anything he said at face value created a sort of distancing effect.