Far off the shadows of Sauron hung; but torn by some gust of wind out of the world, or else moved by some great disquiet within, the mantling clouds swirled, and for a moment drew aside; and then he saw, rising black, blacker and darker than the vast shades amid which it stood, the cruel pinnacles and iron crown of the topmost tower of Barad-dûr. One moment only it stared out, but as from some great window immeasurably high there stabbed northward a flame of red, the flicker of a piercing Eye; and then the shadows were furled again and the terrible vision was removed. — The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter III “Mount Doom”
I get it.
Tolkien’s prose!
I hear frequent bitching about Tolkein’s complexity or over-attention to detail, then I revisit something like The Stormlight Archive and wonder how millions of people are actually out there drooling over Brandon Sanderson’s work, which (at least in that series) feels like the creative and visual equivalent of a mostly empty dust pan lying about in a vacant dirt lot somewhere on an undeveloped piece of land in the middle of Idaho, with a single tiny glass bead illuminated inside of it. It’s so fucking bland that getting through those books felt like I was waiting at the DMV with several strangers I didn’t like or care about.
Edit: To be fair, Dalinar was likable.
Hey, hi, your positive opinion of something doesn’t need to include shitting on things other people like. You can just like Tolkien and that can be the conversation.
Blandon Blanderson? Kidding.
He’s a great storyteller and a good-but-not-great writer. He excels in slow-burns with big payoffs. He hasn’t written any page-turners but the stories are very sturdy, well-considered, and rewarding.
His worlds are realistic in a sense because they aren’t full of whimsy and they’re not very inviting. But that’s what makes them feel real.
The characters aren’t 3 dimensional but they’re not flat either. I’d call them 2-dimensional in that they have flaws and a growth arc, but not a ton of complexity beyond that.
The dialogue and his ability to describe fights/battle tactics/magic physics are a place where he shines.
Personally, I probably won’t read any of his other books unless someone tells me he has written something entirely fresh and different than his other works. But I’m still very glad to have read a few of his works. They definitely set a new bar for creative magic systems. His magic systems are phenomenal.
