Completely agree - Edit 1
Before modification by Shannow at 31/01/2013 06:21:41 PM
Seriously, read TSR or TFoH. Those are action-packed, and the pacing is great.
The reason everyone is proclaiming Sanderson's pacing as so much better is because he was WRITING THE BOOKS ABOUT THE LAST BATTLE. RJ had already gone through the laborious stage-setting. What was left was bringing everything together. It doesn't matter who wrote the finale, it's going to be action-packed, fast-paced, and full of revealings.
There is absolutely no question in my mind that RJ would have had superior pacing. Sanderson's pacing was really not all that great. "Pacing" doesn't mean everything moves quickly, because if you're on the wrong path, it doesn't matter how fast you move. In my opinion, the 300-or-so pages of "The Last Battle" chapter were fast-moving nonsense that really didn't deserve much place in the book. RJ would have created a far more extensive, complex, and interesting Battle. Sanderson's battles are a joke compared to RJ's.
On top of that, Sanderson completely removes all subtlety from the text and is the linguistic equivalent of a high schooler. I've said before that I think James Patterson would have written a comparable series finale, and I stick with it.
The reason everyone is proclaiming Sanderson's pacing as so much better is because he was WRITING THE BOOKS ABOUT THE LAST BATTLE. RJ had already gone through the laborious stage-setting. What was left was bringing everything together. It doesn't matter who wrote the finale, it's going to be action-packed, fast-paced, and full of revealings.
There is absolutely no question in my mind that RJ would have had superior pacing. Sanderson's pacing was really not all that great. "Pacing" doesn't mean everything moves quickly, because if you're on the wrong path, it doesn't matter how fast you move. In my opinion, the 300-or-so pages of "The Last Battle" chapter were fast-moving nonsense that really didn't deserve much place in the book. RJ would have created a far more extensive, complex, and interesting Battle. Sanderson's battles are a joke compared to RJ's.
On top of that, Sanderson completely removes all subtlety from the text and is the linguistic equivalent of a high schooler. I've said before that I think James Patterson would have written a comparable series finale, and I stick with it.
I completely agree. In fact, I think Sanderson gives hope to many aspiring writers, because frankly, if you can be that bad and still sell lots of books, then many more people can presumably be successful published authors than is generally believed to be the case. His similes are clumsy and out of place to me, his dialogue lacks flow or realism, his use of words are anachronistic and stylishly "wrong", the list goes on.
I just am very unimpressed by his mastery of the craft in general.