(There are positives to this writing style, but more on that below.) This might contribute to the feeling of “unrealness” of his world. Sanderson presents humanity in a cleaner, idealistic, romantic way.
He presents his world in a gritty, cynical, hyper-realistic way. Realistic vs romantic: Тhe writing style of Martin helps. Yet, the Seven Kingdoms feel much more like a living, breathing world to a lot of readers. Not a lot of unique concepts there, comparatively. If you are cynical, you could argue that the world of a Song of Ice and Fire (and Game of Thrones) is simply medieval Britain with a pinch of dragons, zombies, and the occasional foreign culture. Building understanding is one thing, but nurturing a feeling of a living, breathing world takes a lot of time. It requires a lot of words to weave all of these concepts into the story. The drawback is that the level of unfamiliarity means it takes a lot of effort to fully immerse the reader into the world. The benefit of Sanderson’s approach to worldbuilding is that he can create a world unusually rich in unique and interesting concepts. This approach to worldbuilding makes his world very understandable and digestible on a rational, cause-consequence level.
Few authors can make this grown-ass reader cry while simultaneously putting a huge grin on his face. When the conflict peaks, it hits you hard.įor me, the impact of the payoff more than justifies the lengthy buildup.
When the plot twists, unexpected things are revealed. You become more and more invested and slowly you start to care a great deal. The benefit is that this way of writing increases your understanding - of the world and the conflicts in it, as well as the characters and their motivation. Stormlight books can certainly take up a lot of your time, which means the bar they need to cross to be worth your while is a lot higher. We’ve all heard variations of the thought “life is too short to waste time on books you don’t enjoy”. Even I, as a big fan of the series, have found myself wanting to skip ahead to find out what “actually” happens with the characters that “actually” matter.īecause of this, some readers might find Stormlight inferior to some of Sanderson’s tighter, less world-building-indulgent pieces of fiction (Warbreaker, Emperor’s Soul, etc.). The drawback of all these non-essential elements is that some of the things you read about feel unconnected to the main story and as a result - pointless. The books take their time to introduce plenty of character background information (whole chapters), as well as plenty of world-building (sometimes introduced through a lot of secondary characters with their mini-storylines). Needless to say, the story doesn’t move at a break-neck pace. And the Way of Kings isn’t even the thickest Stormlight book. This is more than some whole book series.
The first installment, The Way of Kings, is 400k words. I haven’t read other authors who manage to pull it off so consistently.Ī great payoff requires you to be very engaged in the story, and a high-level of engagement doesn’t come for free, however. One of Brandon’s greatest strengths by far is intentionally building up the story to an amazing peak and resolution.
#STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE SERIES#
Yet, I’m sure there are moments in the series that would drop your jaw. I don’t expect everyone to be hit by the payoff of that exact book so profoundly. On the contrary - because something beautiful happened. And not because something tragic happened. Yet, close to the conclusion of The Way of Kings, I shed a few manly tears. I was raised by my father to never show weakness, to take life one punch at a time, to keep my chin up (to bottle-up my emotions, to be inadequate at expressing them… the whole shebang.). Stormlight’s Plot: slow buildups, great payoffs