Have you read any Brandon Sanderson other than the last three WoT books? He’s a pretty amazing worldbuilder. And his hard magic systems are phenomenal. He’s also a master of story structure. The only area he lacks is prose, but he’s been improving on that over time.
No, those were the first ones I’ve read by him and I just finished them. I can see how finishing someone else’s series wouldn’t allow his strengths in worldbuilding and story structure to shine.
The prose was one of the issues I had. How are his characters and dialogue in his own series? I can see it going either way, where his worldbuilding and narrative arc could create strong characters, or his weakness in prose could create weak dialogue. But characters and dialogue are so inherently intertwined that I’m not sure how well one could be done without the other.
If everything else is good and just the dialogue is lacking though, I could probably suspend judgement enough to enjoy the story and the world it takes place in (including its magic system).
Robert Jordan I didn’t find particularly prosaic, but his characters were so well-done that I didn’t mind as much once I decided to look past it. His plotline and worldbuilding were okay, and some aspects of both were really well-done, but the different civilizations and their histories/cultures, and the underlying political currents among the nations and different factions were interesting enough to redeem the shortcomings. My point is that the characters are really where his work shines in my opinion.
If Sanderson does worldbuilding and story arcs really well, then those could be the things that shine for me and if so, I can look past a few weak areas as long as they’re not too painfully bad.
I don’t expect every series to have the same strengths. For instance no one could match Tolkien for prose, but politically his world only goes surface-deep. There’s good guys and bad guys, and while there is some treachery and nuance, for the most part everyone is on one side or the other. Still a masterpiece though.
I’m finding it hard to walk away from the WoT though, partly because it’s the most recent one I finished, but also particularly because the characters being the strong-point, I felt deep personal connections to some of them and was invested in their development, only for the story to end abruptly with no way to read further. It was like losing several friends. I experienced feelings similar to grief afterwards (and it wasn’t just because some of my favorite characters died).
So it might take a gear-shift, and maybe a period of morning, but if Sanderson has the strengths you describe then I could probably still get into it…
Wheel of Time was my favorite series, until Stormlight Archive.
He does characters quite well. The dialogue isn’t always there, especially if the character is supposed to have a clever wit like Mat, but he’s getting better at that, too, with practice. But in terms of depth of character and setting he’s pretty fantastic. His characters are flawed and relatable and feel real, wound very well into his mastery of story structure. In Wheel of Time Androl is an excellent example, as that character was almost entirely Sanderson’s.
I recommend starting with either The Final Empire (first book in the Mistborn series) or The Way of Kings (first in the Stormlight series). The series eventually begin to intertwine and crossover to one another in a really brilliant way.
It’s funny that you mention Mat, because his character as well as Nynaeve’s I felt suffered the most in the last three books. They both have such complex characters, though deceivingly simple on the surface. It seemed like Sanderson picked up on their surface simplicity without reproducing the underlying depth.
And yeah, I really liked Androl but he felt different in a way I couldn’t put my finger on. So it makes sense now that you say he’s mostly Sanderson’s work. I can see that, how a newly introduced character gave Sanderson the creative liberty to write him in his own way. The result was a character that didn’t quite seem to fit inside the world, yet was still a good character in his own right.
Not sure if I’m explaining that well. I liked him, but maybe something in the way that so much depth and backstory was packed into the last three books felt a bit unnatural, when all the other characters took so much time to develop in their complexity. Not in a bad way, just different.
But if he’s an indicator of Sanderson’s characters in his own series, then I think I could get into it.
His characters are flawed and relatable and feel real
That sounds promising. The characters’ flaws in WoT is what makes them so interesting to me. Mat would have been bland if he wasn’t a scoundrel, and Nynaeve would have been bland if she wasn’t a bossy-pants. But when the two interact, their flaws create such an interesting dynamic. And the way it slowly develops from a mutual antagonism into deeply appreciating and caring about each other in a really wholesome way was one of the highlights of the series for me.
It’s funny though, because now that I say that I realize I can’t think of a flaw for either Moiraine or Egwene, and those were my two favorite characters. My third favorite was probably Birgitte, but of course she has a reason for being flawless. Eh, love is blind though, maybe they have flaws and I missed it. Oh and Bela. Bela was flawless.
Have you read any Brandon Sanderson other than the last three WoT books? He’s a pretty amazing worldbuilder. And his hard magic systems are phenomenal. He’s also a master of story structure. The only area he lacks is prose, but he’s been improving on that over time.
No, those were the first ones I’ve read by him and I just finished them. I can see how finishing someone else’s series wouldn’t allow his strengths in worldbuilding and story structure to shine.
The prose was one of the issues I had. How are his characters and dialogue in his own series? I can see it going either way, where his worldbuilding and narrative arc could create strong characters, or his weakness in prose could create weak dialogue. But characters and dialogue are so inherently intertwined that I’m not sure how well one could be done without the other.
If everything else is good and just the dialogue is lacking though, I could probably suspend judgement enough to enjoy the story and the world it takes place in (including its magic system).
Robert Jordan I didn’t find particularly prosaic, but his characters were so well-done that I didn’t mind as much once I decided to look past it. His plotline and worldbuilding were okay, and some aspects of both were really well-done, but the different civilizations and their histories/cultures, and the underlying political currents among the nations and different factions were interesting enough to redeem the shortcomings. My point is that the characters are really where his work shines in my opinion.
If Sanderson does worldbuilding and story arcs really well, then those could be the things that shine for me and if so, I can look past a few weak areas as long as they’re not too painfully bad.
I don’t expect every series to have the same strengths. For instance no one could match Tolkien for prose, but politically his world only goes surface-deep. There’s good guys and bad guys, and while there is some treachery and nuance, for the most part everyone is on one side or the other. Still a masterpiece though.
I’m finding it hard to walk away from the WoT though, partly because it’s the most recent one I finished, but also particularly because the characters being the strong-point, I felt deep personal connections to some of them and was invested in their development, only for the story to end abruptly with no way to read further. It was like losing several friends. I experienced feelings similar to grief afterwards (and it wasn’t just because some of my favorite characters died).
So it might take a gear-shift, and maybe a period of morning, but if Sanderson has the strengths you describe then I could probably still get into it…
Wheel of Time was my favorite series, until Stormlight Archive.
He does characters quite well. The dialogue isn’t always there, especially if the character is supposed to have a clever wit like Mat, but he’s getting better at that, too, with practice. But in terms of depth of character and setting he’s pretty fantastic. His characters are flawed and relatable and feel real, wound very well into his mastery of story structure. In Wheel of Time Androl is an excellent example, as that character was almost entirely Sanderson’s.
I recommend starting with either The Final Empire (first book in the Mistborn series) or The Way of Kings (first in the Stormlight series). The series eventually begin to intertwine and crossover to one another in a really brilliant way.
It’s funny that you mention Mat, because his character as well as Nynaeve’s I felt suffered the most in the last three books. They both have such complex characters, though deceivingly simple on the surface. It seemed like Sanderson picked up on their surface simplicity without reproducing the underlying depth.
And yeah, I really liked Androl but he felt different in a way I couldn’t put my finger on. So it makes sense now that you say he’s mostly Sanderson’s work. I can see that, how a newly introduced character gave Sanderson the creative liberty to write him in his own way. The result was a character that didn’t quite seem to fit inside the world, yet was still a good character in his own right.
Not sure if I’m explaining that well. I liked him, but maybe something in the way that so much depth and backstory was packed into the last three books felt a bit unnatural, when all the other characters took so much time to develop in their complexity. Not in a bad way, just different.
But if he’s an indicator of Sanderson’s characters in his own series, then I think I could get into it.
That sounds promising. The characters’ flaws in WoT is what makes them so interesting to me. Mat would have been bland if he wasn’t a scoundrel, and Nynaeve would have been bland if she wasn’t a bossy-pants. But when the two interact, their flaws create such an interesting dynamic. And the way it slowly develops from a mutual antagonism into deeply appreciating and caring about each other in a really wholesome way was one of the highlights of the series for me.
It’s funny though, because now that I say that I realize I can’t think of a flaw for either Moiraine or Egwene, and those were my two favorite characters. My third favorite was probably Birgitte, but of course she has a reason for being flawless. Eh, love is blind though, maybe they have flaws and I missed it. Oh and Bela. Bela was flawless.
Bela was absolutely flawless.
I think Sanderson would be the first person to admit he didn’t do Mat justice. He’s spoken before about how difficult it was to write Mat.
Definitely give him a shot as an author. I think he’s brilliant, and he has SO. MANY. BOOKS. 😁