Have you read any Brandon Sanderson other than the last three WoT books? He’s a pretty amazing worldbuilder. And his hard magic systems are phenomenal. He’s also a master of story structure. The only area he lacks is prose, but he’s been improving on that over time.
No, those were the first ones I’ve read by him and I just finished them. I can see how finishing someone else’s series wouldn’t allow his strengths in worldbuilding and story structure to shine.
The prose was one of the issues I had. How are his characters and dialogue in his own series? I can see it going either way, where his worldbuilding and narrative arc could create strong characters, or his weakness in prose could create weak dialogue. But characters and dialogue are so inherently intertwined that I’m not sure how well one could be done without the other.
If everything else is good and just the dialogue is lacking though, I could probably suspend judgement enough to enjoy the story and the world it takes place in (including its magic system).
Robert Jordan I didn’t find particularly prosaic, but his characters were so well-done that I didn’t mind as much once I decided to look past it. His plotline and worldbuilding were okay, although some aspects of both were really well-done, and the different civilizations and their histories/cultures, the underlying political currents among the nations and different factions were interesting enough to redeem the shortcomings. My point is that the characters are really where his work shines in my opinion.
If Sanderson does worldbuilding and story arcs really well, then those could be the things that shine for me and if so, I can look past a few weak areas as long as they’re not too painfully bad.
I don’t expect every series to have the same strengths. For instance no one could match Tolkien for prose, but politically his world only goes surface-deep. There’s good guys and bad guys, and while there is some treachery and nuance, for the most part everyone is on one side or the other. Still a masterpiece though.
I’m finding it hard to walk away from the WoT though, partly because it’s the most recent one I finished, but also particularly because the characters being the strong-point, I felt deep personal connections to some of them and was invested in their development, only for the story to end abruptly with no way to read further. It was like losing several friends at once. I experienced feelings similar to grief afterwards (and it wasn’t just because some of my favorite characters died).
So it might take a gear-shift, and maybe a period of mourning, but if Sanderson has the strengths you describe then I could probably still get into it…
Wheel of Time was my favorite series, until Stormlight Archive.
He does characters quite well. The dialogue isn’t always there, especially if the character is supposed to have a clever wit like Mat, but he’s getting better at that, too, with practice. But in terms of depth of character and setting he’s pretty fantastic. His characters are flawed and relatable and feel real, wound very well into his mastery of story structure. In Wheel of Time Androl is an excellent example, as that character was almost entirely Sanderson’s.
I recommend starting with either The Final Empire (first book in the Mistborn series) or The Way of Kings (first in the Stormlight series). The series eventually begin to intertwine and crossover to one another in a really brilliant way.
Have you read any Brandon Sanderson other than the last three WoT books? He’s a pretty amazing worldbuilder. And his hard magic systems are phenomenal. He’s also a master of story structure. The only area he lacks is prose, but he’s been improving on that over time.
No, those were the first ones I’ve read by him and I just finished them. I can see how finishing someone else’s series wouldn’t allow his strengths in worldbuilding and story structure to shine.
The prose was one of the issues I had. How are his characters and dialogue in his own series? I can see it going either way, where his worldbuilding and narrative arc could create strong characters, or his weakness in prose could create weak dialogue. But characters and dialogue are so inherently intertwined that I’m not sure how well one could be done without the other.
If everything else is good and just the dialogue is lacking though, I could probably suspend judgement enough to enjoy the story and the world it takes place in (including its magic system).
Robert Jordan I didn’t find particularly prosaic, but his characters were so well-done that I didn’t mind as much once I decided to look past it. His plotline and worldbuilding were okay, although some aspects of both were really well-done, and the different civilizations and their histories/cultures, the underlying political currents among the nations and different factions were interesting enough to redeem the shortcomings. My point is that the characters are really where his work shines in my opinion.
If Sanderson does worldbuilding and story arcs really well, then those could be the things that shine for me and if so, I can look past a few weak areas as long as they’re not too painfully bad.
I don’t expect every series to have the same strengths. For instance no one could match Tolkien for prose, but politically his world only goes surface-deep. There’s good guys and bad guys, and while there is some treachery and nuance, for the most part everyone is on one side or the other. Still a masterpiece though.
I’m finding it hard to walk away from the WoT though, partly because it’s the most recent one I finished, but also particularly because the characters being the strong-point, I felt deep personal connections to some of them and was invested in their development, only for the story to end abruptly with no way to read further. It was like losing several friends at once. I experienced feelings similar to grief afterwards (and it wasn’t just because some of my favorite characters died).
So it might take a gear-shift, and maybe a period of mourning, but if Sanderson has the strengths you describe then I could probably still get into it…
Wheel of Time was my favorite series, until Stormlight Archive.
He does characters quite well. The dialogue isn’t always there, especially if the character is supposed to have a clever wit like Mat, but he’s getting better at that, too, with practice. But in terms of depth of character and setting he’s pretty fantastic. His characters are flawed and relatable and feel real, wound very well into his mastery of story structure. In Wheel of Time Androl is an excellent example, as that character was almost entirely Sanderson’s.
I recommend starting with either The Final Empire (first book in the Mistborn series) or The Way of Kings (first in the Stormlight series). The series eventually begin to intertwine and crossover to one another in a really brilliant way.