Let me just start by saying that when I heard about Mr. Jordan dying, I was crestfallen two-fold, once for poor Jim who was such a fantastic storyteller, and twice for the Wheel of Time that deserved an ending. I was just anxious to find out how it ended even if they only released Mr. Jordan's notes. I hoped someone would pick it up, and my hopes came true. I expected the stories to still be okay, but not great, and that was a sacrifice I was prepared to make. Brandon absolutely blew me away, and I am not disappointed in the slightest. He blew all my expectations out of the water. But, anyway...

I actually started writing down the Sanderson-isms that were "the worst" in my opinion, and then about halfway through the book it just gripped me so tightly that I forgot to pay attention.

There are 2 instances involving Mat where the words "Gentlemanly" and "Gentlemen" are used that really bothered me, a spot where Perrin says out loud that he "chewed someone out" for something (the banners again, I think), and there were several spots where Sanderson used the word "really" where I believe Mr. Jordan would have used the word "very". Often used in the sense of "Wow, that fireball was really big!" Using "really" that way is a modern colloquialism, which was absent in every one of Jordan's books. (I haven't looked it up or anything, but can you remember RJ ever saying "That's really big!" 'cause I can't.)

Of course, those were just the ones that bugged me enough that they actually pushed me out of the story for a minute. I'm riding along with Perrin in a forest, and then all of a sudden I'm back in my apartment holding a book going, "Oh, yeah, this is Brandon."

To be fair though, he's done a lot of positive things with the characters' personalities, and he got the major ones right, like Rand and Mat, etc. He also does a great job of letting me read 100 or so pages at a swath without remembering that this isn't still my RJ.

Have you considered the fact that Mr. Jordan's battle scenes were so well-written because he was in Nam, but Brandon can pull off similar scenes with powerful imagery and breathless intensity without having seen a combat situation himself? That is what I thought would be hardest for him, and he did it great.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I know exactly what you mean, and it's noticeable, but in many ways I consider it an improvement, and I can forgive him the others, because at least I get to find out how this story ends, and it's as close to RJ writing it himself as humanly possible.

I am truly astounded that Brandon has done as well as he had. He is a true fan of Mr. Jordan, as he would have to be to be able to write this complicated tapestry of an epic, and he is a fantastic author. Nobody but Mr. Jordan himself would have done better, and in some cases, I think Brandon even won!