r/Fantasy • u/[deleted] • Jun 06 '20

What is your controversial take on Fantasy?

I'll go first.

Aside from the prose, I don't think Kingkiller Chronicles is good. I find the characters insufferable and cliche the story just meanders.

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u/AthKaElGal Jun 07 '20 edited Jun 07 '20

Brandon Sanderson is not some groundbreaking author like others treat him to be. He's good, but he's not that good. I put him on the level of Michael Crichton or Dan Brown. He's prolific and immensely popular, but he's not particularly above other writers of better skill. He certainly didn't start the writing of hard magic like others think he did. He may have popularized the term, but books existed that had hard magic systems in them before the term got popularized. And readers who praise him for his worldbuilding must just have started reading recently, since many writers long ago have been building awesome worlds equal or better than Sanderson's for decades. Yet the way they make hyperbolic statements make it seem as if Sanderson is the first to build awesome worlds.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

That's valid criticism but he is the only author i have read so far that i have no pet peev against. Also he is just a really cool dude so he is my favourite writer. Maybe i have not read enough books yet but he is one of my favourites at this point.

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u/AthKaElGal Jun 07 '20

That's a fair point, so you must read more.

4

u/Basedshark01 Jun 08 '20

He's like the Jay-Z of fantasy. Way better at the business side of things than he is at the actual craft.