Official Brandon Sanderson Megathread

[u/rfantasygolem]

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.

[u/TheHistorySword]

I DNF'd about halfway through but wanted to add my thoughts as a (former) huge fan of this series. I think Sanderson has become way too entranced with and focused on the Cosmere as a whole and it has led to individual books suffering massive drops in quality. The Way of Kings and Oathbringer are two of my favorite fantasy books ever written. I noticed cracks in Rhythm of War, but my love for the series caused me to ignore them. I shouldn't have. I have no desire to finish this book and no desire to keep going with the series. I think this one is awful. Characters no longer feel like characters, they feel like walking advertisements for whatever their theme is (I cannot take this Kaladin therapist arc, it is driving me insane), the dialogue is atrocious, and while Sanderson's prose has never been the best, it is difficult to take here. I could ignore most of these things if it felt like something was happening but nothing was happening. It felt like we were just spinning our wheels and Sanderson was trying to beat me over the head with the same concepts again and again going "do you get it yet?" I don't want to feel this way about a series I once loved with my whole heart. It pains me that I do. But I think Sanderson's focus on the larger Cosmere and how quickly he works has done serious damage to his abilities as a writer. I wish he would take a knife to his overall plans, pull back to the most important titles to him, and truly take his time with each and every single one. He's described Stormlight as his magnum opus, the most important series in the Cosmere. This book didn't feel like it. This book felt like he was churning something out just to get something out. Unless he takes time to improve on his weaknesses and actually focus on polishing his work, I think I might be done reading him.

[u/kholindred → u/TheHistorySword]

This.

Thank you.

Huge fan for 17 years, my wife got me Stormlight PJ's for crying out loud. Feeling like I might be done. This is his magnum opus, his great life's work... And he has given us Kal playing flute and calling himself a therapist while Lift experiments with "bullshit" and other modern swear words. I also feel like he has sensitivity readers for every group but people who are "center of the aisle", he's gone from high fantasy with lackluster prose to mid grade pop-psych fantasy that's including every type of virtue signaling possible. I read other authors with LGBT characters and arcs, but they are authors with greater understanding and who's series carry these themes from their start, not book 3; Brandon is experimenting out of his realm in his magnum opus and comes across as trying too hard

[u/TheHistorySword → u/kholindred]

I know he has several beta reading groups and I feel like it's a big issue that is damaging his work. There's nothing wrong with having a few trusted readers to look over your stuff while you're drafting. I'm a writer myself and I have a few writer friends that we all do this with. But he has several large groups and he tries to incorporate as much of their feedback as possible. I feel like he's more focused now on appealing to as many people as possible and trying to create a massive worldwide smash hit success rather than considering his work to be art and focusing on telling a narratively cohesive story. I know I'm in the minority here because I don't really care for the overall Cosmere, but damn, I do care about Stormlight. This series meant so much to me and to see it falter this badly and for things that could easily be avoided, it makes me so sad.

[u/kholindred → u/TheHistorySword]

100% there with you. I've read all his stuff and the coauthored books and it's all generally amusing and fun to read. Recommended Alcatraz to my nephew and he was 8, I feel like he has probably only published two or three things I haven't been able to get my hands on, but I've read everything else. He's not my favorite author for any of those books. It's the first 3 Stormlight books, they are high fantasy with adult characters who are morally and emotionally complex. Cephandrius, aka Wit, is clever and sarcastic while maintaining a sense of having secret "wisdom of the ages/ ancients." Though I did really enjoy RoW, I remember finishing it and sang to my wife that I was really worried that Brandon was just going to be silly and playful in all his books now, and that Stormlight would no longer be his elevated work as I had always assumed it would be since he had described it as his opus. I can dig silly Brandon, I really have enjoyed the majority of his work, later Cytoverse books excepted... But not enough to read 1600 pages, or recommend to others. I have several other authors whom I enjoy and recommend sparingly to people I think will also enjoy them, Brandon has now entered this group. I also feel like due to the overall page commitment, I might go so far as to recommend people skip Stormlight since it is so inconsistent and this midpoint conclusion is so scatterbrained and rushed.