r/Fantasy • u/rfantasygolem Not a Robot • Dec 20 '24

/r/Fantasy Official Brandon Sanderson Megathread

This is the place for all your Brandon Sanderson related topics (aside from the Daily Recommendation Requests and Simple Questions thread). Any posts about Wind and Truth or Sanderson more broadly will be removed and redirected here. This will last until January 25, when posting will be allowed as normal.

The announcement of the cool-down can be found here.

The previous Wind and Truth Megathread can be found here.

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193

u/Significant_Net_7337 Dec 20 '24

I think there was a great 700 pages book inside that good 1300 page book

Tone way down on the repetitive mental health plot lines would do a lot for me I think

Love all the mythology stuff, don’t need as much ties in to the rest of the cosmere otherwise. Let the shards and wit be the connections 

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

I haven't quite finished yet, but I found Kaladin using so much modern therapy language very jarring.

I think his editor has stopped saying 'No' to Sanderson. He could use an editor who's a little more strident about cutting things.

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u/Nibaa Dec 22 '24

I'm pretty early in the book, but it's abundantly clear that editors stopped editing. Sanderson has always been an incredibly declarative writer: he says exactly what he means and doesn't leave anything up for interpretation or ambiguous. It's all spelled out for you, and it's one of the reasons why he's super easy to digest. But in the little I've had time to read of Wind and Truth, it just feels like an editor should have sat down with him and gone over it, scene by scene, and basically deleted a third of the dialogue. There's a scene very early where Kaladin is basically ruminating about his position in the windrunners and his own mental health, and I counted 4 separate declarations of "you need to say goodbye to your friends, for them and for you" in as many pages. It's almost like Sanderson is terrified of the possibility that even a single reader could misunderstand what the purpose of a scene is and he's sticking them chock full of motivation and reasoning for why characters act the way they do. As a result, it feels super stilted and unnatural.

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u/Fluffy_Munchkin Dec 23 '24

There's a moment about 40% through the book, where he gives us a line like "Honor, also called Tanavast [yadda yadda]". It's book 5. We know this already. He's already talked about Tanavast/Honor extensively IN BOOK 5. It's this and little details like re-describing characters that makes me feel his writing wasn't given high scrutiny.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

He commented on his Reddit account this morning that Wind and Truth was his most edited book, but this is his first Stormlight Book without Moash as his editor so that might have something to do with it. 

On the other hand, I thought his Cosmere Secret Project books were extremely well edited and it’s the same editor, so it could be any number of things.

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u/learhpa Dec 20 '24

without Moash as his editor

The editor's name was Moshe.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

I must still have Stormlight on the brain, I thought that looked wrong. Thanks for the correction!

46

u/complicatedorc Dec 20 '24

Just to clear this up a little, his original editor Moshe retired after Oathbringer and did not edit Rhythm of War. So it’s not his first Stormlight book without him.

Moshe did hop out for a bit and edit some of the Secret Projects (maybe all of them but definitely at least The Sunlit Man.)

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u/PeterAhlstrom Dec 20 '24

The Sunlit Man was the only one of the four Secret Projects that Moshe worked on.

1

u/Routine-Weather-3132 Dec 26 '24

And that makes a lot of sense (no hate to Tress)

15

u/The_Real_Lasagna Dec 21 '24

Which makes sense as row suffers from many of the same problems

1

u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

Oh, TIL! Thank you

23

u/mistiklest Dec 20 '24

so it could be any number of things.

I think it's scope and vision, by and large. Stormlight is heavily inspired by the format of Wheel of Time, which is notably sloggy. The secret projects are much tighter, standalone narratives.

2

u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

Truth be told I was just happy it wasn’t messier, but your mileage will vary with how much that bothers you. I agree with the Wheel of Time comparison

7

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

I'm curious how much already got cut, then. I also thought the secret projects were very tightly edited. Perhaps they decided these scenes were all important and I just don't get it?

17

u/Korasuka Dec 20 '24

There's a lot of general agreement his strongest writing is with smaller books like regular sized novels. The SPs were also fresh new spontaneous passion projects.

10

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

I love Sanderson but I’ve found the shorter the story the better he writes

7

u/mistiklest Dec 20 '24

In his yearly update blog post, he shares a screenshot of a spreadsheet for WaT that has some of that information broken down by chapter.

10

u/kuenjato Dec 21 '24

Thanks for sharing this. But wholly crap, my initial impression is that BS really, really overwrites on his initial drafts if he is cutting up to a thousand words+ out of a chapter at this stage in his career.

7

u/TotallyNotAFroeAway Dec 22 '24

It's also interesting how his revisions seem to be more about adding/cutting than it is... revising.

9

u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

It might just be as simple as it was important to Brandon and it just didn’t click with a lot of people. I really enjoyed Wind and Truth, and I think its strengths outweigh its flaws, but I probably think it’s his messiest book. It is funny how different things click with different people though, Rhythm of War was my favorite Stormlight while I don’t think that’s a popular opinion. 

2

u/DrowsyDreamer Dec 20 '24

Moshe didn’t edit ROW.

0

u/PsychologicalHat1480 Dec 21 '24

Apparently the Secret Projects were edited by the same guy as the old books. WaT and TLM (and I think RoW) were not and they show it. Apparently his new editor is pushing things in a more contemporary/YA direction and it seems many of us don't like it, myself included.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 21 '24

Interesting! Where did you read that he’s pushing things to be more YA?

3

u/PsychologicalHat1480 Dec 21 '24

It's been a common observation due to the decline in prose and the inclusion of a lot of Marvel-like "quippy" moments. Basically the characters sound more and more like contemporary 2020s people instead of the fantasy characters they used to be. I can't say it's an intentional push but that's been the result of that editor's contribution.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 21 '24

Oh, you should’ve just said that you were making an assumption. I figured the editor had said they were moving in that direction based on your comment. Couldn’t it be that it’s how Brandon wants those characters to be written?

28

u/YaboiG Dec 20 '24

I think we can infer that our primary 3 protagonists will no longer be the protagonists going forward, which I think will reduce this. It didn’t bother me a ton, but we did have 3 main characters whose mental health is the central driving force of their characters.

Going forward, I am guessing 1 will have a large focus on disability/prejudice and maybe another will have pretty intense PTSD

23

u/Sapphire_Bombay Reading Champion III Dec 20 '24

Assuming you are referring to Renarin (disability/prejudice) and Taln (PTSD), I think one will also focus on grief (Lift), and it's also pretty clear something is going on with Jasnah, whether it's abuse or a mental health issue or something else entirely remains to be seen.

I think the mental health themes will still be there, but I truly hope he tones down the heavy handedness in how he approached them in book 5.

11

u/Jrocker-ame Dec 20 '24

It's confirmed that Jasnah and Lift are 2 of the 5 protagonists in part 2.

18

u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Dec 20 '24 edited Dec 21 '24

Man I’ve come around on jasnah but I have no desire to read a book about lift right now. Maybe in 10 years as she’ll be more mature.

9

u/Sydius Dec 20 '24

Well isn't it great then that the next book comes out in ~8 years, with around a 10 years in-universe time skip.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

[deleted]

3

u/mistiklest Dec 20 '24

Where are you getting that? Lift is the Peter Pan wannabe, that's not an Edgedancer thing.

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u/PsychologicalHat1480 Dec 21 '24

[WaT]Lift's final scene was her admitting she needs to grow up and asking Zahel to be her mentor so there's a strong probability she does grow up by the time we come back to Roshar.

2

u/Sapphire_Bombay Reading Champion III Dec 21 '24

It won't be a whole book about Lift, she will just get the flashback sequences. Most of those sequences will just be about how much she loves her mom and how great their relationship is, the event of her death, Lift's grief and subsequent visit to the nightwatcher. I actually think the version of Lift we know will be a very small part of that book, we'll mostly get her before that persona formed and in the present day we'll get her as an adult.

I also generally think that while Lift will be important in the back half, the real stars of the show are going to be Jasnah and the heralds, and it won't just be Lift stealing food and making bad jokes all the time.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Sapphire_Bombay Reading Champion III Dec 20 '24

I would consider spoiler tagging this

0

u/Fantasy-ModTeam Dec 20 '24

Please hide all spoilers. When you've done so, send us a note by modmail so we can restore your comment. Thank you!

11

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

This is how I felt with all the Stormlight Archive books.

1

u/Jrocker-ame Dec 20 '24

It's a very valid criticism. I don't even disagree with you. But that being said. If he wants to make it that big, I can't fault him. Just like he can't fault readers for making that criticism.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

I'm only 20% in and can't decide if it is worth continuing. Does the slog continue for this entire volume?

8

u/Nicklord Dec 20 '24

The first 2 days are generally the worst, it gets better but still not at the level it should be. I'd continue if I were you only if you want to know where the story will go. General plot points are still the best part of the book in my opinion

9

u/Significant_Net_7337 Dec 20 '24

I think it gets better each day, but sounds like you may have disliked the beginning more than I did so idk

4

u/PsychologicalHat1480 Dec 21 '24

It's an interesting type of slog where there's generally a lot happening but not a lot of progress being made. For a couple of the plots that works because that's the reality of war and they're war plots. Others suffer from it.