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.
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. 😁