That's my real complaint - he's not as good with it. He's trying to describe things the way RJ does, but I don't think his vocabulary is up to it. There's cases of settling for what my teachers in grade school used to call overworked words, or falling back on the word we might use in contemporary speech, but not one that Rand would use when describing something.


Well, those of us stupid enough to trust Jason did.


Here's hoping.


Agreed. Cadsuane was the biggest problem for me. Sanderson's abuse of the pronoun "one" was grating (I kept thinking of Liza Doolittle at the racetrack), and I found her addressing Nynaeve as "child" to be gratuitous and out of character. Cadsuane would simply call her "girl." Calling someone "child" is a trick of the typical Aes Sedai, whose attitude of superiority derives entirely from her status as such. Cadsuane's attitude of superiority is subtly different, but profound - it is grounded entirely on her own qualities. She has no false modesty and knows her own worth and capabilities, and measures people by her own standards. She almost never falls back on her office as a means of garnering respect. Cadsuane is not better than you because she's Aes Sedai (or a "real" Aes Sedai), she's better than you 'cause she's Cadsuane! It might be nit-picking, but that is the difference implied in the choice of words to me. And Cadsuane doesn't stride. The use of the word stride implies physical expression of emotion completely at odds with her normal deportment. She is seldom even described as moving - stillness and calmness and unextraordinary physical activity are the hallmarks of Cadsuane's appearances. Nynaeve, Egwene, Siuan, Birgitte, Elaida, Elayne, Faile, even Moiraine can stride. Cadsuane should not, or at least not unless it is intended to convey something off or unsettling or strongly affecting her. Simply entering Rand's room is not the appropriate place for such a word.

And I realize that such things are nit-picky or perhaps too subtle to make a fuss over for most people, but these are the only sorts of things that should pass muster for the editors and publishers of WoT. If anything more serious had gone through, I would be calling for heads on platters. As it is, there are a lot of subtle problems, which add up to a dissonance in the style, but I have hopes that it will go down easier over time.


More or less. I don't have specifics, but I got the impression he whined more, and articulated thoughts that belonged in the background descriptions.


Let's not go that far. I've come across some fairly horrible examples of such on the internet. I'm not exactly thrilled with what we've got so far, and Jason's blather didn't help, but I'd rather have what we're getting now, than something a few degrees closer next year. Sanderson was not going to hit his stride vocabulary-wise for years if ever, so the real problems I have would not be solved with more time to familiarize himself with the characters, even if I do think his expressed understanding of them to date has been distressingly shallow and superficial, resulting in the "off" portrayal of Cadsuane such as I described above. Even if he totally got all of that, I think his own writing style suggests I would still have problems with that sort of thing. I can't even be sure whether the Cadsuane issue is a problem of characterization or simply that he expresses the same concept in a different manner than I would understand it.

It could be worse. To wit:
1. Kevin J Anderson
2. Joe Torre (just because he craps up everything)
3. Sara DouglAss
4. No more WoT at all
5. George RR Martin (we wouldn't see aMoL OR DwD for about five more years at best)