!bookworms Here's my TWOW take.
A Dance with Dragons got published in 2011 and he got some leftover chapters for TWOW.
He started writing some of the book in the 2011-14 frame but his ADHD lead him to promote the show, go on tours and write TV scripts. So advancement was slow.
2015-18 he misses his deadline, the show outpaces the books, during this time he writes Fire & Blood (2014 was A World of Ice and Fire and 2015 A knight of the Seven Kingdoms) because he loves the Targaryens and is obsessed with Lore.
2019 the show ends and he gets sadge because it was shit and probably rewrites a ton of TWOW.
2020-2022 Pandemic Years: He said he made tons of progress writing hundreds of pages. By late 2022 he gave the first major update of the book in years, it was 75% done.
Now it's likely his ADHD is striking again with House of the Dragon and the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms show that he's producing himself plus depressed with Drumpf and his old friends dying (the latter I suspect is a bigger cause).
I still believe we'll get TWOW eventually as too much of the book exists but ADOS is getting extremely unlikely as he wants to write another Dunk and Egg novella and Fire & Blood part 2 after TWOW. I hope he at least writes some outline for ADOS to get published if he kicks the bucket before lol.
Also some excerpts from his blog lmao.
There is war everywhere. Ukraine and Gaza dominate the news, but there is a war in Myanmar as well that our western media just ignores, things are heating up in Yemen and the Red Sea, North Korea has nukes and is testing missiles and rattling sabres, Venezuela is threatening to annex three quarters of neighboring Guyana.
Meanwhile the US grows more polarized every day. Hate is rising, democracy is under threat, millions of Americans have swallowed the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Newspeak has taken over political discourse, cancel culture is destroying lives and careers, and we have a disgraced, indicted, venomous ex-president winning primaries despite openly declaring that he will be a dictator on day one and will govern on a platform of "retribution," when he is not busy grabbing women by the kitty. His last attempt to overthrow the government failed on January 6, but some of his more ardent supporters are now saying that "next time" they will bring more guns. There are actually folks out there wanting civil war.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
lol
lmao
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It's gonna be some Brian Herbert dune shit after he croaks
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I think I prefer some half baked F&B style book to resume the ending than another author finishing it
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Sanderson did very very well considering the circumstances
the prose between Sanderson and Jordan difference is immense. Jordan had this old-time ancient flowery poetic prose, as if he was perpetually writing a 3000 year old greek epic, Sanderson writes as if he makes DnD action-adventurs, very high quality DnD, but you'll instantly undrestand what i mean.
Sanderson also appeared to have literally misunderstood the achtypes and motivations of many characters his inexperience, most famously being one of the 3 primary male protagonists, namely Matt, whom was this neurodivergent idiot savant strategic mega genius young general, whom many considered the funniest character in the Jordan books. Sanderson unintentionally turned him too "slapstick-ish" when he was more a dry-humour character, difficult to describe.
Many also complained of minor lack of focusses and plot resolutions, like how little there had been for the Black Tower, the Moid/Scrote magic hogwarts political organization, but these were minor and was becuase Jordan literally croaked before he could even finish his manuscripts for Sanderson to read.
In all I have a very positive view of Sanderson as a write, or at least his 3 fricking books he finished for another man, compared to his other works, he literally went to great degrees to alter his entire writing style to emulate another man. The final trilogy ties closed all the major plot elements, and are very cathargic when 11 books are finished satisfactoraly, many hack authors try bullshit out of the blue SUBVERSION of EXPECTATIONS, but Sandersons final Wheel of Time trilogy are played so straight, like a rugby player going for a try or home run, that even the mediocre plot points being resolved were great becuase they didn't frick the reader, and rewarded every subplot in theseries
In all of the actual shorcomings of Sanderson, and his differences (and in my opinion, inferiority of prose VS Jordan, the amount of reverence and respect he gives to Jordan, and the clear attempt to place the work translation above his own ego, transforms the work ffrom what would have been mediocirty, to sometthing special
I mean look at the recent 5 years Netflix media adaptations, the giggling hate and contempt for male oriented fantasy like Willow and Witcher, or Lord of Rangs. Imagine that bilefull presentism contempt, but instead imagine a Age of Empires monk conversion from contempt to reverence.
Somebody who creates a story or book or piece of music or game or media through love and excitement, always creates something superior than what they hate/are forced to do - and Sanderson's actual love for Jordan as his mentor/predecessor shines through his writing, and it shows.
i unsarcastically think Sanderson's finiished 3 trilogy of Wheel of Time is his best books ever, far outmattching his other Action-Adventure stuff, not because he can't write, but because i feel the restriction which another man's universe-rules and pre-production,
and i think some artists strike a sort of lightning in a bottle when they are at their most restricted.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Didn't read upmarseyed
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
!bookworms new Kaamrev WoT effortpost just dropped, this time in defense of Brando Sando
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
carp
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Sanderson is a fricking cute twink and a shit writer and I hate him. He butchered the first two of his WoT conclusion novels but nailed the last one flawlessly. I remember reading his blog when Harriet tapped him to finish WoT after Jordan's death and he went on about having no intention of trying to poorly imitate Jordan's masterful writing and this was admirable at the time, but then TGS dropped and Mat became an illiterate buffoon and then ToM happened and things weren't much improved, although I am slightly biased in favor of ToM because I'd been looking forward to the Tower of Ghenjei since like the late 90s.
The bizarre Androl and Pevara slop, both the cringe romance and Androl's portal exploit bullshit, remain unforgivable. Them aside it was just apparent that Sanderson was little more than a fanfic writer, and not a particularly good one, so it was probably best that he wasn't going to try to use Jordan's voice and it's whatever, at least we were getting to see what the end of the story was.
…
But then AMoL drops and everything about it is absolutely perfect. There's one chapter of the battle that's like 300 pages long and it's just fighting and death and tension nonstop. Jordan wrote that baby, it was beautiful and sounded just like he always did and it was all SO GOOD. Everyone was thrilled with it, a huge chunk of words from the man himself from beyond the grave.
Then it turned out Sanderson wrote almost that whole chapter.
Why the frick wasn't he writing like that all along? He was apparently perfectly capable of writing Jordanese. I charitably want to assume he just didn't want to try because he was worried it would feel like a pale imitation, but given what a fat gay r-slur he is I suspect he just wanted to leave his own greasy, nasty mark on the work but after 2/3 books of that pissing people off he stopped to end it properly at least.
Frick Sanderson. Glad we got the end and Jordan left hundreds of pages of notes and hours upon hours of audio notes when he couldn't write them anymore but goddarn what a mess Sanderson was.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
sucks to be you bro,
I got mine
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
WHO ADDED THIS AS A RESPONSE?? GOOD SHIT
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
How do people read Brando Sando
Even more bafflingly how do people read Kaamrev's longposts on Brando?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
So Matt went from who the render thinks they are to who they actually are.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Jordan is man who haa read bible through and through multiple times
Sanderson is man who has read fanfiction version of bible through multiple times.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Sanderson is weird imo, some chapters of e.g. Stormlight are kino and others are diarrhetic YA for millenials. That redhead bimbo with borderline disorder should never have been in the fricking story.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
sanderson writes like he has a real 9-5 job in a cubicle at wotc headquarters
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Yeah I think the brando sando version is mostly fine. It's at least AN ending, which I appreciate.
There's no winning for brando here. No matter what he wrote, it woulda been poked full of holes. After all, it's easy to compare the actual wheel of time ending to the idealized RJ version.
On top of that, I highly doubt that Jordan left him with something he could easily translate into 3 books. RJ wasted a few of his own entries on inane shit. I dont believe that THIS TIME IT WAS FOR SURE A NICE AND CLEAN 3 BOOK ADVENTURE.
I think stormlight book 1 is his best effort. If only the rest of the series was that fricking tight.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Jordans writing was garbage so Sanderson probably did a better job
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
The dragons were super-AIs?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context