Re: Pretty good. - Edit 4
Before modification by DomA at 05/09/2009 09:25:05 PM
It doesn't sound like RJ, but it doesn't sound like Sanderson either. Much more importantly, it doesn't sound like Kevin J. Anderson either, which is the yardstick for any post-author's-death collaborations in the SFF field.
Amen to all that.
The only tendency he shares with Anderson is to repeat himself in different words along the way (how many times can he say the plants have not grown, really?), and to explain a little too much.
Minor quibbles. I'm with you that he's most defintely no Anderson in the way you meant it. (*shudders
. Anderson doesn't write novels, he writes bloated outlines. Bad ones, with a lazy approach at plot progression. He can barely advance more than a single element in any given scenes and ends up with ten times too many two pages scenes which he goes and calls 'chapters". This guy should write screenplays, not books. An irony is that because of Brandon's own style, his descriptive paragraphs are actually longer than Jordan. The long opening survey of Tar Valon, for instance. Jordan would have been far more succinct. The grammar and prose are different, in the chapter at least Brandon got the spirit of Jordan's descriptions. Big fans of the prose (as I am, so is Cannoli) have undeniably lost something (and not because Brandon isn't good, but because for it's not Jordan) but it's not something we had expected to get with AMOL. Reading pseudo-Robert Jordan would have been terrible, anyway.
So, Brandon creating a new hybrid style by adapting his own to something suitable for WOT without falling into the trap of mimicking RJ? Challenge met, as far as I'm concerned. In the circumstances that there won't be (much) more of Jordan's prose I like because he's dead, and that I want to read the story and that it's well written enough to be enjoyable, and faithful enough of RJ's intents for the novel, we are off to a good start. Brandon delivers, so far.
The writing style is more relaxed and layered than Sanderson's as employed in MISTBORN, but I didn't really detect any moments of character or dialogue that were egregiously out-of-place compared to Jordan.
Out of "voice" here and there, but not out of character. Nothing major. Rand pays too much attention suddenly to things he hasn't in some time, that sort of things. The only line that came off really weird to me is Cadsuane using a metaphor about painting when speaking of torture. The association felt odd in her mouth. Too Questioner-like.
People expecting this to be EXACTLY the same as Robert Jordan's writing have missed the point entirely. It was never about that totally unachievable goal, it was about Sanderson not completely screwing up the story and characters. So far we are off to a flying start.
Exactly. My only remaining little worry,really, is how the parts written by Jordan and chapters like this will flow together.
And those calling this 'fan-fiction' have clearly never read fan-fiction.
Totally Adam. The irony is that quite a few of those who have made those accusations don't even know their Jordan well enough to know what they're talking about (eg: saying it reads like FF because Cadsuane speaks of paintings and painters and it's barely in the series at all. Jeez. A simple keyword search show there are dozens and more references to art, painting, the new style in favour (oil on canvas)- there is a fledging 'renaissance' ongoing in fine arts in the series - RJ just mostly kept it to background descriptions or minor plot point (like Elaida commissioning a painting) etc. But it's there. Fan fiction, indeed.