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PaperclipPerfector  16d ago (text post)   30773 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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I think the critique is pretty spot on. To me his issue is that he’s so busy commenting he’s forgetting to tell a story. And I do think part of it is actually that most of his stuff seems to be a reskinned version of something that already exists. In short his world-building sucks. Theres just nothing unique and interesting about the story. It’s basically the trope of feudal society with lords fighting for power, set in I can’t believe it’s not England, and filled with the fashion for grey morality even when it hurts the story.

Honestly, that’s why I like Sanderson a bit better. He’s not the best at plotting, but when he creates a world, he doesn’t just plunk a bit of magic into a setting. The entire world is alien and works off of completely alien physics and biology. His world likewise seems to flow from those assumptions. The shards can bend matter, and thus people use them to make buildings.

Sanderson? Sanderson is the most banal, extruded fantasy product workmanlike writer to come out of the RPG/fanfiction sphere, and his main virtue is base-level competence and being extremely prolific. Problem is his extreme prolificness doesn't even produce interesting books (like Stephen King did in his coke fiend days), just more and more and more of the same. Fictionalized RPG worlds complete with entire extra continents and secret prestige classes and bonus spell lists and artifacts and new monster manuals, but the stories are all basically Protagonist Figures Out Cheat Codes.

I have no problem with people who think Sanderson is more enjoyable than Martin (I have read more Sanderson than Martin), but whatever you think of Martin and his morality, his writing is far better than Sanderson's.

Like any famous author, Sanderson has leaned a bit too far into the aspect of his work he’s famous for - all the magic systems stuff - and he tries slightly too hard to be topical. But his early work is fantastic, especially the first Mistborn series, and his later work is often good too.

Beyond all that, though, he was special to me as a modern fantasy author who didn’t seem corrupted by the nihilism of our age. He wrote about princes genuinely trying to be good leaders, priests in a corrupt priesthood losing and regaining their faith, how to trust in your friends when you have no guarantee that they won’t let you down.

I don't care what others think, I like Kaladin and I will fight you to the death in defence of his wholesome bridgemen.

But I will agree in part that Sanderson does not know how to write a convincing heterosexual relationship. I suppose it would be too much to ask a Mormon to write erotica. But then again, Meyers of Twilight fame can do it, why can't he?

I liked Kaladin in the first book, but Words of Radiance was so boring I decided there was no way I was reading eight more books of this (I think the Stormlight Archives is meant to be 10 books, which knowing Sanderson means it will actually be three 10-book series). That is pretty much my experience with Sanderson; first book or two in a series is good, after that it becomes crap. (Mistborn is an exception, though the third book was very flawed, and the second trilogy did not hold my interest at all.)

I liked Kaladin in the first book

I thought, initially, that I was reading about a depressed man. It turns out that Kaladin is actually a man "suffering from depression", which is quite a different thing.

I'm not sure if I'll read book five. It's just too tiring for me.

Agreed, and that makes sense if his main talent is creating an interesting world/magic system. Once that's been outlined and a few adventures have occurred, there's not a lot of meat left.

I did like his early novel(la?) about the protagonist with multiple personalities.

I don't agree that Martin's writing is far better than Sanderson's. They are on the same level imo. I honestly have no idea how you can say he doesn't produce interesting books, when almost all of his books (except Elantris, which was a snooze) absolutely gripped me. The fact that he's prolific is just icing on the cake. Extremely well written books which also come out once a year? Yes, please!

They are interesting in the way a comic book is interesting. Martin's prose is far better, and Sanderson just has no depth. But I realize that some people don't care about that at all (hence the enormous popularity of fanfiction and litrpgs), and I admit I am pretty judgmental about writing quality. That's why I made the distinction between good and enjoyable; I have read a lot of his books, after all (and enjoyed most of them).

I find this such an alien viewpoint; once writing has reached a (fairly low) bar, I find it to not really matter towards my enjoyment of a book.

The part of the book I have always felt matters is what it says, not how it says it. Caring about the quality of the writing seems like receiving a gift, and discarding it because the wrapping paper was poorly chosen.

I found ASOIAF to be utterly predictable, save for the character deaths (which I suppose is a twist, in its own right). Someone like Feist, Sanderson, or Cook may have flaws in how they write, but the stories themselves are way more interesting to me.

Some people care about wordsmithing and sentence crafting, some people only care about story. There are definitely people who don't understand why anyone would care about the other thing, just as there are people who don't understand why anyone would read fiction.

My theory is that it depends on reading speed. Slower readers (me in foreign languages) care more about sentence crafting because they spend more time with each sentence, whereas in English I am naturally a very fast reader and ‘reading’ a page is a bit like looking through a transparent pane glass.

@Amadan, how much time would you spend on one of Martin’s books, if you don’t mind my asking?

I am a somewhat slower reader usually, but I'm not sure that's the reason. Though I suppose speed reading would make it harder to appreciate individual sentences.

I’m not talking about his plotting. His stories are honestly fairly predictable from my point of view. But he does create worlds that don’t feel like they’re transposed versions of medieval Europe. Martin doesn’t do that part well at all. The Religion of the Seven is a reskin of Christianity more or less. The plot is pretty much War of the Roses. It’s just like if you’re creating a fantasy world, I think you should put a little effort into making the world something other than our world.

China Miéville is alien. Sanderson...

Dalinar finally turned and stalked back down the corridor to his rooms. Where was that package Navani had given him? He found it on an end table, and from inside it removed a leather bracer somewhat like what an archer would wear. It had two clock faces set into the top. One showed the time with three hands—even seconds, as if that mattered. The other was a stormclock, which could be set to wind down to the next projected highstorm.

How did they get it all so small? he wondered, shaking the device. Set into the leather, it also had a painrial—a gemstone fabrial that would take pain from him if he pressed his hand on it. Navani had been working on various forms of pain-related fabrials for use by surgeons, and had mentioned using him as a test subject.

He strapped the device to his forearm, right above the wrist. It felt conspicuous there, wrapping around the outside of his uniform sleeve, but it had been a gift.

Then there's the time he filed off the serial numbers of six sigma slop:

“Tradition? Kadash, did I ever tell you about my first sword trainer?

Back when I was young, our branch of the Kholin family didn't have grand monasteries and beautiful practice grounds. My father found a teacher for me from two towns over. His name was Harth. Young fellow, not a true swordmaster -- but good enough.

He was very focused on proper procedure, and wouldn't let me train until I'd learned how to put on a takama the right way. He wouldn't have stood for me fighting like this. You put on the skirt, then the overshirt, then you wrap your cloth belt around yourself three times and tie it.

I always found that annoying. The belt was too tight, wrapped three times -- you had to pull it hard to get enough slack to tie the knot. The first time I went to duels at a neighboring town, I felt like an idiot. Everyone else had long drooping belt ends at the front of their takamas.

I asked Harth why we did it differently. He said it was the right way, the true way. So, when my travels took me to Harth's hometown, I searched out his master, a man who had trained with the ardents in Kholinar. He insisted that this was the right way to tie a takama, as he'd learned from his master.

I found my master's master's master in Kholinar after we captured it. The ancient, wizened ardent was eating curry and flatbread, completely uncaring of who ruled the city. I asked him. Why tie your belt three times, when everyone else thinks you should do it twice?

The old man laughed and stood up. I was shocked to see that he was terribly short. 'If I only tie it twice,' he exclaimed, 'the ends hang down so low, I trip!'

I love tradition, I've fought for tradition. I make my men follow the codes. I uphold Vorin virtues. But merely being tradition does not make something worthy, Kadash. We can't just assume that because something is old it is right.”

I tried desperately to read Sanderson on the recommendation of a very good friend of mine so we could talk about it, but once I encountered a thinly veiled "Parshendi Lives Matter" rant, I just couldn't do it anymore.

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