It isn't as if I expected this to be good, but I wasn't prepared for how mediocre and supremely trite a drudgery it proved to be. Reading it and noting the incredible level of praise heaped upon Sanderson has only confirmed what I already suspected, that the average fantasy fan is a mindless drone incapable of appreciating literature. This further confirms the notion that successive generations of creatives have become less inclined to give due reverence to the enduring touchstones of artistic achievement, being raised on video games, comic books, major Hollywood productions and the like. Even still, I'm confident that someone reared in this cultural climate would be capable of producing a finer work than this throwaway rag. "Well, the prose is not the appeal, it's the worldbuilding and depth of the magic system," a magic system which is explained in painstaking detail, is that magical? She cast an allomantic spell of Luck +7 and depleted her energy reserves by 5 points, now her ability is on cooldown for 10 seconds. The worldbuilding follows the pattern of just about every generic post-Tolkien fantasy universe, insert x setting with some vaguely distinguishing features, a tiresome transposition of real world cultures of this or that time, just change the names and call it a fantasy world. Anyone who enjoys this should play one of the great CRPGs and see just superior even they are when compared with this book. The kind of doorstop material that a hecking wholesome chungus would hold up to the camera with a self-congratulatory quirk of the brow to indicate what an avid book consumer they are, before depositing it into their gaping maw to prove the point. Don't mind me, book reader here! I'm not like the other citizens, I am a book reader and I will peruse this tome on my lunch break to signal my supreme intellect to the cattle that pass me by. I hate Sanderson, it's coarse, irritating, it gets everywhere. There is some truth in that, is there not? When he travels the US and probably abroad delivering lectures on the principles of creative writing, magic systems and worldbuilding, inspiring generations of virulent vermin to scurry about, their anemic claws penning pointless prose about their brand new DnD campaign where the mage and the thief have to team up and assemble a JRPG party to crush the great tyrant Lord Dumbledore in the mystical land of Shitupon Mysoul.
I'm just surprised he went woke.He was known as the apolitical Mormon guy and he even got some backlash from journalists because he just wanted to write fantasy books for his fans rather than infusing contemporary liberal politics.
>>24830825>She cast an allomantic spell of Luck +7 and depleted her energy reserves by 5 points, now her ability is on cooldown for 10 seconds. Ackchyoually she doesn't have luck powers, that was just her ignorant misunderstanding of the world's magic system, as was explained to her shortly after the opening chapters.I thought book 1 was enjoyable because I like slaves escaping from slavery, but now that that part's over I have no desire to read books 2 or 3 or anything else in that universe.
Every time I read an excerpt from one of his books I am astounded that this man is one of the most popular and beloved working authors. Even basic aspects of prose writing that a reasonably good amateur has gotten the hang of like intuitive syntax and readily coherent sentence construction are completely beyond him. And that's not even getting started with his dialogue and "humor", which might be among the worst I've ever read in any published books.I strongly believe he is representative of the decay in popular literature, the same way Taylor Swift is representative of the decay in popular music and the MCU is representative of the decay in popular film.
