Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
… Brandon Sanderson was an inspired choice to finish the series following Robert Jordan’s death. The reason for that is one of Sanderson’s strengths, perhaps even the major one, is his ease and speed of pace… Jordan’s series bogged down with plotting somewhere after the first 4-5 books and we started to get a lot of repetitive or superfluous scenes. That holds true somewhat here as well, one assumes because Sanderson is still working off of Jordan’s outlines, but I give credit to both authors for the improvement on this front. Jordan seems to have streamlined the general plotting as we head toward the conclusion, while Sanderson has streamlined the prose and transitions so we speed through all that plot more quickly than before. What we’re left with is an event-filled book… Towers of Midnight is a very quick, effortless read, no small achievement for a nearly-900-page book (though it probably would have been better at 700-750)… Towers of Midnight really moves the big story forward and by the end there’s a sense of bated breath as events and characters start to narrow to a point. Those who have stayed fans throughout will, I think, find that Sanderson is doing a credible and respectable job bringing it home. Those who, like myself, have become somewhat ambivalent lately and are reading more to finish and “just find out how it ends” will be happy for how smoothly and speedily Sanderson gets us closer to that point. Read the rest.
Thanks, Bill. I’m glad to hear there’s been improvement!
Sanderson really was an excellent choice IMHO–and I say this as someone who gave up after Winter’s Heart. He’s an absolute workhorse, and I say that in the best possible way. I’ve seen very few authors who can flog themselves on to be that prolific and that disciplined about it. And he knows how to actually end things; heck, he even knows how to write a standalone! ;)
Hate to break it to you, Kelly, but I read somewhere recently that Warbreaker (and I think possibly Elantris) is eventually getting a sequel.
I like Sanderson’s ideas but I really wish someone would take a red pen to his work. Vigorously. Perhaps a red marker, even. A Sharpie. Something. His work is kinda like dough, you know, if you stretch it out too far…fine on either end, but it risks getting saggy and thin in the middle.
I agree with both of you, but Sanderson makes a nice transition from Jordan. Jordan’s writing style had become so bloated and inexplicably self-important that I had given up. Sanderson is not a shock to the WOT fans (it still definitely feels like WOT), but he’s subtly and methodically trimming it down so that those of us who’d bailed are willing to come back and see how it ends.
Yeah, he doesn’t have a style that really calls attention to itself, which is good for a project like this. If he jumped in there and started writing like, say, Catherynne Valente, I think the WOT fans would be going *blinkblink*
You mean, all poetic-like? (sorry, couldn’t resist) :D
Exactly. :D Valente’s style is really striking and so it wouldn’t blend as well with another writer’s style as does Sanderson’s, whose style is more neutral.
You know, taking a good look at the cover art, I’m wondering why we didn’t do what we did last year.