Some technical manuals are more exciting. OK, I exaggerate...unless I'm thinking of Perec writing one of them



The characters here pretty much are standard-issue action heroes, with the depth of a drying puddle to them (that is, when their behaviors aren't antithetical to prior novels).




If by "fantasy" you mean "epic fantasy," I'd agree more with you. Some working in the "weird" strain of fantasy I think have some interesting life experiences to touch upon (see below for my reference to Brian Evenson, who I think is one of the best short fiction writers of the past 20 years, but he, like Thomas Ligotti, is not for the faint of heart). I'll have to think a bit more on Campbell's comments before weighing in, although there's something about it that makes me want to argue against some of his conclusions.



You mean like the Southern aunt character, Cadsuane? Or the more formalized approach toward status/class? RJ is no Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor, but he certainly borrowed a lot from Southern lit.



Quite probable, as the "feel" was wrong in several scenes involving Tuon.



Yeah, I like "puzzle" novels on occasion, but more of the "postmodern" type. You would have loved the expression on my face when I read somewhere online about Sanderson being discussed as a "postmodern" fantasy writer. It was one of the more egregious misapplications of a term that I've ever experienced, to say the least. I get that he likes to play with his magic toys and work in a plot twist or two that sometimes takes some deciphering to figure out later the foreshadowings, but that's far from writing a story that has any real "depth" to it. The authors you name, flaws and all, have much more depth than any of Sanderson's works ever have had.




Same here, minus whatever I receive as review copies (speaking of which, a few are now offering me e-ARCs that I can read on my iPad, which is much more convenient for me, as I can read them when using the exercise bike in the gym 2-3x/week).



Outside of the series that he himself labels as "YA," I don't even think of that term when I read his works. I think of them as being too simplistic in their execution, not in the narrative tone or plot.





Agreed. Then at worst, the series would have gone two more instead of three and a lot of narrative momentum would not have been lost on the minor details (leaving the major ones to be sacrificed to avoid having a fourth novel).



And when the character is designed ultimately to be a cautionary example of "cannon fodder," it exacerbates the situation we've been discussing.



Yeah, that was annoying in the last two novels in particular, when it became apparent that the narrative was very out of whack (although traces of it were in TGS as well, if I recall).



I didn't like the style, particularly as I saw it repeated with some variations in over a dozen characters, but at least it was a style that was designed to work with the story. While it may be a bit much to ask another writer to try and emulate that style when his own is so different, it could have been done better, mostly if the second writer had more experience writing in a variety of styles/formats. Jordan had that; Sanderson hasn't written much of anything beyond epic fantasies or epic-style stories with vague steampunkish elements.




With the result being akin to taking a freshly-dyed cloth and pressing it in water, bleeding it to a dull finish. AMoL was so muddled, for the reasons you name and perhaps also because the "connecting dots" scenes were so perfunctory that it just felt pointless at times.



Sometimes, it's better just to leave the horrorific elements to be left to the readers' imaginations. I'm no fan of the "grimdark" sort of tales where such acts are often described in near-pornographic detail, so I certainly can empathize with RJ's point.



In fairness, Bernard Cornwall is a well-known military fantasy writer (I haven't read him, but he has a fairly large fanbase, judging by comments on places like Westeros), but it's hard to weigh in when you're proofing a passage for details outside of closely working with the overall story. I think Sanderson's inability to integrate the suggestions within the framework of the story made even the "action" elements rather dull, because it just repeated things that I either knew and disliked reading or knew about and just tried to skim over whenever possible.






I want to say that the 4th and 7th are my favorites for there being some development of prior events without completely being generic in his approach toward the hero's journey and the aftermath of a narrow escape.





Sort of like the way I can tell the differences between various Malazan soldiers and mages? Casts of hundreds do make it hard at times to notice the differences, I agree.



Agreed.




Interesting point. I did notice that his character felt too much like a forced regression, but I hadn't considered where the character arc appeared to be heading, likely due to not reading KoD until early October 2009, just before I read the TGS review copy I received. What you say makes sense, though.



He wrote the shadow of a character, one that felt too hollow much of the time.



I get the impression that RJ wrote more of the Rand arc than the others before he died, in part because the character doesn't feel as different as the others. The others were hit-or-miss, mostly miss.



Indeed, although I do think that much of TGS Rand was already written.



Which considering the numerous faults that we've noted, is saying something. It wasn't a disaster, but it was a bloody draw.