"I waited 7 years to read this book. 7 years. And I am not going to finish it."
Brandon Sanderson
For those that don't know, Brandon Sanderson is a Mormon author that specializes in writing fantasy for people that believe video games are art. The Mormonism manifests itself as embarassing and clunky attempts at insults.
For example:
But don't worry. He doesn't need the crutch of Mormonism to help him write atrocities.
Sanderson started getting big in 2006 when not mentioning current-day issues in your writing wasn't considered violence. Because his early work was inoffensive, some of his fans had certain opinions and would be described as chud-adjacent today. We'll come back to them in a moment.
With success came the the desire to expand, and what better way to reach more people than making it more relatable™ and courting a "modern audience"! It started out subtle: a background character making comments about the same s*x, allegories about mental health and, eventually, an out-of-place political desire to install a modern democracy in a medieval fantasy world. It got progressively more obvious with each new book, but it clearly worked, because you can't go anywhere online to discuss fiction now without being bombarded with Sanderson recommendations.
And now a large chunk of his fan base looks like this
Wind and Truth
The most recent addition to the Sanderson Literary Universe was the 5th book in the Stormlight Archive series, Wind and Truth.
We're going to look at some 1-star reviews, which are mostly chuds dumb enough to have kept reading up until now.
Remember the excerpts from earlier? ALL his writing is like that. All 4 previous books in the series. These geniuses endured 4,546 pages of slop to get to this point
Goodreads Link. Sort by 1-star reviews. 2-stars are also funny, but it's mostly just people begging him to get another editor.
I will be honest, I cried
I didn't realize I was reading garbage until there was a gay character!
^ This is an actual quote 
This guy wrote a whole novel in protest
Can't read it? You're welcome!
It turns into an impassioned plea for Sanderson to renounce Mormonism in favour of mainstream Christianity, which is funny, but not actually worth reading.
I couldn't drug myself to sleep, so I used boring audiobooks
The best part of these 1-star reviewers pouring out their hearts (and some of them posting from accounts with face pics and real names) is that none of it meant anything. The book was well-received overall and will fund the next 5 books in the series! 
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The funniest
shit was mormons and christians attacking him for saying maybe 
gays can be loved after all as is he was the great 
satan.
His pros are slock and his editor needs
to beat him more. There 
are some scenes that hit, and there 
are scenes that are fricking 
cringe, like kaladin being a thearpist and shit
I read the sunlit man because one of the characters from the book was the lead in it, and it was alright.
The good parts of sanderson is a willingness try. And he does try. And fricking
fail sometimes.
I read the first
stormlight book when i was in middleschool, and it seemed deep then, but as an adult 
...
Hes writing
like 1000 paged books 
that are supposed to be epic fantasy, so sometime it sucks. Ive read worse, and ive read better 
but if i wanted great 
pros i dont dont id be reading 
fantast slop.
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I don't get how you can get past his shitty characters and formulaic writing to care about the prose.
First of all he will have a very powerful super special girl. She won't be like the other girls. Then you have mental illness. Everyone has it and the super special girl gets the coolest mental illness. Trauma. Everywhere.
13 different allegories for racism.
Oh and the worst part? Every plot is: kaladin you have to do the powerup that we heavily alluded to constantly for the last book. Oh no you're too sad to do it? Oh cool you did it at the last moment. Followed by "uh oh that powerup actually isn't strong anymore because of reason. Now we need the next power up or mcguffin"
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Dalinar was cooler when he was roshars equivalent of Hitler.
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that's an aspect of the books that do get pretty tiresome. I think he finds it an easy out for character development. Character A and character B overcome their mental illness! Ta da! character growth!
it's perfectly fine for some characters to work like that and have it happen once or twice but every character and every book? Maybe.... not?
I haven't finished the 5th book yet but I am wondering if he's going to world build some explanation for why everyone is fricked in the head all the time.
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It's not an easy out for character development. It's because he writes for tumblr/livejjournal users and they all are obsessed with mental illness. His writing is made explicitly for fanfic readers.
The main character wants to become a therapist for fricks sake.
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