leftyjace
Well-Known Member
Wow. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.I wouldn't go that far. Sanderson is a talented writer, and gets books published like a madman while still teaching at an insane rate, but the majority of his writing is a bit predictable (at least for me). I liked what he did to finish WOT, but I felt like RJ's writing was going downhill after book 4, and becoming a bit formalistic and somewhat unreadable. Also didn't love the ending, but not pinning that on Sanderson. It would be hard as hell to take someone else's vision and style to an extent and put it on paper.
It did get me to look at Sanderson's other work, and some of it is great, while others are just menial. The Way of Kings was great. The prologue sucks you in to the world, and was written really well, but slowly seeing the quality diminish as the series goes on. When you are publishing as much as he is, it is still impressive he can turn out decent stories.
The Shannara books were the same thing. They used to be long, well-written epics. Eventually either the publisher or Brooks let the series drop tremendously. Partially because each story turned into 3 short books, and partially because the story quality diminished. The tv series was abysmal, and thankfully I only wasted enough time to watch half an episode.
So while I complain about GRRM and Rothfuss, I love the quality of the writing.
As far as the ending, Sanderson got the last battle pretty much in final form. Given that, he did great.
I think the Stormlight Archive has only improved tremendously as it’s gone along, so we are in strong disagreement there.
Agreed on Shannara. Sword and Wishsong were solid - the rest were not. TV series was YA trash.