Brandon Sanderson: There's always another secret project.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Brandon Sanderson: There's always another secret project.

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Hi I enjoy Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie! To a lesser extent, I like Rothfuss and GRRM. I don't really much care for Robert Jordan.

Now that you know all about me, do you think I would enjoy The Way of Kings? Someone lent me the book and I want to know what I'm getting into.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2012 20:21

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 17:34

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Yeah see that little blurb about the ancient oaths on the back struck me as really, really stupid and unimaginative. Like on the level of self parody.

But you know what gently caress it I'm going to read this book anyway. :cheers:

# ¿ Mar 23, 2012 22:36

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

No Sanderson. Stop. Making up a million fake words does not make you a better author. Making up a few weird quirks and then basing a culture around them doesn't count as detailed world-building.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2012 19:01

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Victorkm posted:

Yeah cause envisioning a world where horrible magic charged hurricane force storms ravage across the entirety of the world, and extrapolating the evolutionary path of the world isn't awesome as hell.

Agreed. My other criticism so far is that his witty characters aren't clever at all and the made up conversations they have with other people to own them and demonstrate their caustic wit really suck and make me cringe.

But I want to see that gravity lashing man beat up some more people so I'm going to keep reading.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2012 21:19

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Help I cannot differentiate specific criticism from unilateral dislike because I am retarded!

# ¿ Apr 2, 2012 21:24

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Kreeblah posted:

Probably on a flight, but the guy's basically a machine. Put him in a box (or plane) and dump in food and Magic cards and out come books.

Magic cards?

# ¿ Apr 4, 2012 17:56

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

quote:

Rothfuss & Sanderson

Sanderson is equally bad with the bland, one dimensional Dragonball Z characters but I find his worldbuilding to be more imaginative, almost Vancian. I do feel Rothfuss executes his core concepts much more skillfully. Rothfuss' writing can be pretty clever, while Sanderson's attempts at wit fall flat almost every time. Both authors are horrible at distinguishing characters, they all sound really similar. Sanderson is especially bad with that thing where sometimes he'll suspend a character's personality to have them explain a plot point. Rothfuss is more subtle in letting the reader connect pieces of the story.

However there's no creepy Nice Guy attitudes in TWoK and none of the characters seem like self insertion. Parts of TWoK struck me as juvenille in their appeal, but Rothfuss has me scoffing out loud every few seconds and literally rolling my eyes clockwise non stop when I read. Sanderson doesn't come off as a massive neckbeard douchebag, also.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2012 21:03

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Dickeye posted:

Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

The characters suck which is not unusual to the genre but these characters are on the low side of average for fantasy even.

Dickeye posted:

You're trolling, here, right?

I don't know what you're having a problem with. I agreed with what one poster said he liked, while still having my other criticism. You can like a thing but not like everything about it, something to think about maybe.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2012 03:41

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

BananaNutkins posted:

I wouldnt say the characters suck, but they are very simple in terms of motivation and personality.

You can't have a good character that is also a simple character. You can have a good character that depicts a simple person, some examples are the guy from Mice and Men or the main character in Sling Blade, but even boring people have interconnected motivations and distinguishable personalities. The narrative may call for some simple characters and that doesn't make a book bad, but even all the mains are pretty straightforward with Sanderson so far.

Above Our Own fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Apr 20, 2012

# ¿ Apr 20, 2012 05:18

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

BananaNutkins posted:

Its a light, fast paced read. Not everything has to be highbrow literature.

This is a dumb thing that people sometimes say when you compare something they like to something widely believed to be high quality. In your mind, you have these categories of "good" things and "just for fun" things and for some odd reason you invent a separate scale for each.

Really they're both just books and it's meaningful to weigh them on their own merits without mindlessly confining them to categories that are largely based on the opinions of others. It's like a defense mechanism to keep what you like from being critiqued. No, not every book is Shakespeare. Thank you for pointing that out.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2012 19:22

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

soru posted:

It's sort of like the way I put all your posts in this thread into the category of pointlessly condescending douchebag.

You're just mad about getting owned earlier. Stories about magic knights in power armor slicing up guys with medieval lightsabers are cool as hell, but, there are also some things about the writing I don't like.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2012 19:57

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

No he was just dismissive of my earlier posts because I didn't love every aspect of the books, which is unfair IMO. I enjoyed the book quite a bit but I can still honestly appraise it's faults.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2012 01:43

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

BananaNutkins posted:

I don't think you understood properly.

We were arguing that Mistorn has simple characters. You are the one who equated "simple" with "bad" and placed Mistborn into some kind of "bad" category. On the other hand, I claimed that simple characters were appropriate for what Mistborn was trying to achieve, and that I believe the story would not be much improved by more realistic, deeper characterization.

I actually think it would be worse, because it would shift the focus away from constant action and magic system tomfoolery, and because Sanderson didn't have the writing chops at that point in time to pull off much more than he did. He was intelligent enough to realize his limitations and he played to his strengths.

I was talking about Way of Kings and I do not think any of his works belong in the bad category. I think those kinds of labels are both meaningless and detrimental to discussion, every work should be judged on it's own merit without getting a free pass because it's just for fun or whatever.

I think Sanderson's works are imaginative and a lot of fun. I intend to read the next Stormlight Archives books. I also think his characterization is very bad, even for fantasy. His plot lines are also unoriginal. You can like a thing but also be aware of its faults unless you're one of those weirdos who feels personally attacked when something they like is criticized. Not directed at you, but in general.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2012 06:35

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Charlz Guybon posted:

I've read lots of literature in college that was objectively good and intellectually stimulating but which I did not enjoy whatsoever. I can definitely understand people wanting to put good books and fun books on different scales.

"Objectively good" is a literal oxymoron. Just think about the idea of judging books differently solely based on others' opinions of them. I think you'll agree that it's ridiculous, and maybe detrimental to both casual discussion and pro lit crit.

# ¿ May 10, 2012 00:00

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Skellen posted:

Don't ever read Cormac McCarthy then.

I don't think that's going to be a huge issue in the Brandon Sanderson thread. There about as far apart on the literary spectrum as you can go.

# ¿ May 28, 2012 20:32

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

subpage posted:

I'm finding it really hard to finish Alloy of Law. The puns are just so bad, and there are so many of them. Somebody tell me it's worth it.

Brandon Sanderson has an awful sense of humor, and what's worse is that he doesn't seem to think so.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2012 06:18

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Sanderson is imaginative but kind of stupid. He's like a dumb Jack Vance.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2012 17:02

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Silver2195 posted:

His prose isn't exceptional, but it's consistently tolerable.

Yeah I think his prose is perfectly readable. It's dialogue specifically where he gets bogged down I think, but his descriptions are alright and his action scenes are flowing.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2012 21:18

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

bowmore posted:

I think that is exactly what he was going for.

I think it's more that Dad jokes are his maximum joke level.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2012 04:17

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

HeroOfTheRevolution posted:

only a few of them receive anything more than a cursory amount of depth, while the rest speak with the same voice.

This is my exact complaint about all of Sanderson's characters as well.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2012 20:04

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

api call girl posted:

In that book Wit is specifically there to make the people of the court uncomfortable, though.

He's supposed to be witty. He isn't.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2012 18:26

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

I think that's just you defending the author by saying he made Wit intentionally unfunny instead of trying to make him clever and failing completely. I don't buy that he meant to do it because all the other "clever" characters are the exact same way.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2012 18:59

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

GRRM is horrible at humor. I think he'd be worse than Sanderson except for the fact that he doesn't really try to write very much humor into his books.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2012 04:58

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 17:34

Above Our Own: Jun 24, 2009; by Shine

Tunicate posted:

So, I was browsing the official forums and found an interesting tidbit.

Apparently Taravangian used the Old Magic, and his intelligence is randomized each day. Sometimes he's an idiot, sometimes he's a total mastermind. He apparently uses math puzzles to test his own intelligence each morning, and has his guards keep him away from any important decisions if it's one of his bad days.

Weeeeeeeeird.

Haha that owns. Sanderson has cool ideas.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 02:54

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Brandon Sanderson: There's always another secret project.