Unpopular Brandon Sanderson Opinions

[KaladinWorldsinger]

19 minutes ago, Nameless said:

On the planets thing, I think Brandon is going to keep it to just a few planets, on the whole. The other planets will probably just have a few short stories or side projects about them. Like the SP's. I doubt that the characters or magic from any of the SPs are going to play any kind of major role in basically anything else in the Cosmere.

Sure but then it would be unsatisfying for the fans who like them now, if the maximum these things lead to is like a ref in a future cosmere novel. Also don't forget, Brandon kind of writes whatever he wants, whenever he wants. I would not be surprised if one of the SP's gets a sequel before elantris (which is supposed to be main cosmere) or Nightblood.

30 minutes ago, Nameless said:

pre desolation will probably be adressed in the back half of SA.

Pre desolation and Ashyn will almost def be explored, that is important to the plot. I predict that after SA 10, we know everything about pre desolation, nohadon's time period (maybe but very unlikely), last desolation (maybe)and the recreance. However we will know about the times in between or anything just before the present day. It would be funny if we don't even know what the zero year for the vorin calendar was after 10 books. 

24 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He's planning on doing this into his seventies/eighties so we're looking at around thirty more years, I think he'll be fine.

Considering he needs 3 years for just SA books and there are 6 left with 5 years real world time in between 5 and 6, i am skeptical. 

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, KaladinWorldsinger said:

Considering he needs 3 years for just SA books and there are 6 left with 5 years real world time in between 5 and 6, i am skeptical. 

It's three years between Stormlight books, not just for them. KoW is planned to release in 2023 and he just started writing a month or so ago. Conisdering that in four years 2020-2023 we have/will have  7 Cosmere books alone and two of those Stormlight novels(Rhythm of War, Dawnshard, The Lost Metal, SP 1, SP 3, SP 4, KoW) on top of his non-cosmere works and his new plan of not doing tours to maximize writing time I think we will be fine.

Keeping this trend for 29 years means that Brandon can put out 50 more Cosmere books, assuming nothing else changes.

Add to this the fact that he wants to do small Co-authored works as well we could easily see another 75 Cosmere books on top of what we will have in 2023.

[Mason Wheeler]

11 hours ago, KaladinWorldsinger said:

Also don't forget, Brandon kind of writes whatever he wants, whenever he wants. I would not be surprised if one of the SP's gets a sequel before elantris (which is supposed to be main cosmere) or Nightblood.

This.  Here's my unpopular opinion: Brandon really should not have wasted time on multiple Skyward sequels and secret projects when we have been waiting and waiting and waiting for The Lost Metal since two freaking Stormlight books ago!

[Orlion Blight]

22 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

This.  Here's my unpopular opinion: Brandon really should not have wasted time on multiple Skyward sequels and secret projects when we have been waiting and waiting and waiting for The Lost Metal since two freaking Stormlight books ago!

As someone who was "famously" upset about the delay of The Lost Metal, it's important to blame the right projects! 

Skyward, I do not blame. Apocalypse Guard? That timesink of a project ate up time and because he was under contract still had to provide a YA title (the first Skyward). The other Skyward books follow his rhythm of "write something different to not get burned out" projects, so I don't blame them either. 

He wrote the Lost Metal during our before the Secret Projects, so I don't blame them either. 

The year he failed to write the Lost Metal "when it should have been written", he said in the State of Sanderson that he could have written that or a Magic the Gathering novella. He chose to do the latter for free. 

So, the main projects he wasted time on that led to the delay of the Lost Metal are The Apocalypse Guard and Magic the Gathering.

Assuming he wasn't lying and it turned out he wanted to release the Lost Metal after certain plot developments in a certain fourth Stormlight book. Which, if that turned out to be the case, fine, I guess there isn't much you can do except lie or say, "hey, these books point to a major future plot point but please don't think too hard about it!"

[Mason Wheeler]

On 4/23/2022 at 8:22 AM, Orlion Blight said:

The other Skyward books follow his rhythm of "write something different to not get burned out" projects, so I don't blame them either. 

This almost holds up, until you remember that Mistborn Era 2 is a "something different to not get burned out project."  That's literally why Brandon created The Alloy of Law in the first place; it wasn't originally part of the plan.  And given the frankly mediocre quality of the Skyward sequels (the first was honestly really good, but the later ones... not so much) their prioritization irritates me.

[Orlion Blight]

19 minutes ago, Mason Wheeler said:

This almost holds up, until you remember that Mistborn Era 2 is a "something different to not get burned out project."  That's literally why Brandon created The Alloy of Law in the first place; it wasn't originally part of the plan.  And given the frankly mediocre quality of the Skyward sequels (the first was honestly really good, but the later ones... not so much) their prioritization irritates me.

I never forgot

I still stand by my statement. Mistborn Era 2 evolved from a silly side story to something considerably more Cosmere aware. That Cosmere awareness and all the ways it can potentially interact with Stormlight does not give it a "break from Stormlight" quality.

And ultimately, Stormlight is certainly the one project that took precedent over all others. 

As far as the quality of Skyward and its sequels, I don't care so long as it "refreshes" him and keeps him out of contractual problems. Afterall, I'm not reading them! 

[Frustration]

37 minutes ago, Mason Wheeler said:

This almost holds up, until you remember that Mistborn Era 2 is a "something different to not get burned out project."  That's literally why Brandon created The Alloy of Law in the first place; it wasn't originally part of the plan.  And given the frankly mediocre quality of the Skyward sequels (the first was honestly really good, but the later ones... not so much) their prioritization irritates me.

Any Cosmere work, no matter how unaware is much more intencive than non-cosmere works.

[Iredomi]

Especially balancing the large canon it's always going to involve consideration. But I do wish his recharge books were just short things he didn't have to deal with publishing. But contracts be contracts and people do like his ya books. 

[Nerd3.14159265358979]

Szeth is my favorite Sanderson character. Hands down. Has been since book 1. 

[Inkspren_K]

On 4/24/2022 at 8:20 PM, Mason Wheeler said:

This almost holds up, until you remember that Mistborn Era 2 is a "something different to not get burned out project."  That's literally why Brandon created The Alloy of Law in the first place; it wasn't originally part of the plan.  And given the frankly mediocre quality of the Skyward sequels (the first was honestly really good, but the later ones... not so much) their prioritization irritates me.

I'm sure this will be an extremely unpopular opinion, but I'm sick of seeing posts like this, and this thread is supposed to be for unpopular opinion so...

Skyward is by far the worst book in its series. When Cytonic came out I reread all three books in order. The entire way through Skyward, my reaction was "Why did I ever like this series?". It is 100% YA tropes, is completely predictable, and doesn't even have much as far as interesting twists - all those come later. Then I got Starsight and realized"Oh yeah, this is where all the original, interesting stuff starts". And after that, I thoroughly enjoyed Cytonic and am looking forward to book 4. However, I don't think I can make it through another reread of Skyward itself. 

[Mason Wheeler]

1 hour ago, Inkspren_K said:

I'm sure this will be an extremely unpopular opinion, but I'm sick of seeing posts like this, and this thread is supposed to be for unpopular opinion so...

Skyward is by far the worst book in its series. When Cytonic came out I reread all three books in order. The entire way through Skyward, my reaction was "Why did I ever like this series?". It is 100% YA tropes, is completely predictable, and doesn't even have much as far as interesting twists - all those come later. Then I got Starsight and realized"Oh yeah, this is where all the original, interesting stuff starts". And after that, I thoroughly enjoyed Cytonic and am looking forward to book 4. However, I don't think I can make it through another reread of Skyward itself. 

Disagree.  There's nothing particularly original in Starsight; the plot is just a retread of the original with a different cast, the "shocking twist" about Doomslug was obvious from the very start of the book even if you didn't figure it out at the end of the previous one, the characters are a bog-standard "bunch of quirky aliens" that any sci-fi fan would find familiar, and the confrontation with the Delver at the end was literally lifted directly from the end of Calamity.

Cytonic's plot made very little sense and felt cobbled together.  The reveal of the origin of the Delvers destroys the only explanation that makes Skyward and Defending Elysium fit together as a coherent whole, and it ended on the one thing I thought, up until just now, that literally no one wanted to see: "to be continued."

[Inkspren_K]

2 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Disagree.  There's nothing particularly original in Starsight; the plot is just a retread of the original with a different cast, the "shocking twist" about Doomslug was obvious from the very start of the book even if you didn't figure it out at the end of the previous one, the characters are a bog-standard "bunch of quirky aliens" that any sci-fi fan would find familiar, and the confrontation with the Delver at the end was literally lifted directly from the end of Calamity.

Cytonic's plot made very little sense and felt cobbled together.  The reveal of the origin of the Delvers destroys the only explanation that makes Skyward and Defending Elysium fit together as a coherent whole, and it ended on the one thing I thought, up until just now, that literally no one wanted to see: "to be continued."

It's fine if you disagree, it's just my unpopular opinion :). I can't enjoy Skyward, but like the others. But for a bit more to support my opinion, first of all, all good fiction draws from other sources. What makes a good book is combining elements in different ways. The inspirations that you pointed out above for Starsight are diverse enough that I think the combination is still enjoyable.

Second, what stood out to me more than the plot in Starsight is the social commentary on how we interact with those who are different than us, and overcoming assumptions about others. There are lots of other books like this, but I really appreciate when themes like this can be explored in Sci-Fi and fantasy, as I think taking themes like this out of our polarized world and exploring them in a fictional space allows readers to be objective and reflective about them. Skyward lacked deeper theme because of the lack of diversity in the characters - they are all humans from the same spaceship, living in the same underground community. Yes, there's a little bit with some coming from different classes, but they still all have all grown up so strongly in the same culture that the interpersonal elements of the plot loses any real tension - in the end of course they are all going to come together to fight and defeat the aliens and that's it. I knew from the beginning exactly how the whole book would end up. In Starsight though, there's real conflict knowing that in the end, these characters will likely need to fight against each other. There are cultural differences that might not be possible to overcome with the superiority and how should that be coped with? How do you come to see a group that truly a are your enemies as real people and still fight against them? It's the reflective elements that there are more and more of as the series progresses that I like. 

In the end, maybe the problem for everyone is just how different Skyward is from the others. Skyward has more action, but I find just action to be flat in books. But I understand that someone who likes action might prefer it. Yes, the actual action moments in Starsight and Cytonic aren't that interesting, but it's all the non-action moments in between that make the sequels land for me and not the original. 

And again, the point of this thread is unpopular opinions. I know this would be unpopular, but it is my opinion, so I'm just putting it out there. 

[Lego Mistborn]

Here is my even more unpopular opinion.

Vin sucks. She's so annoying. I just can't like her, despite loving Mistborn. I enjoy reading characters I don't like, but it confuses me why so many people have her as their favorite. I do think is is a strong female character who isn't a stereotypical strong female character nor a stereotypical non-stereotypical strong female character. To me at least she's written as a person first, not as a strong female character. 

[Anomander Rake]

7 hours ago, Ta'veren Kaladin said:

Here is my even more unpopular opinion.

Vin sucks. She's so annoying. I just can't like her, despite loving Mistborn. I enjoy reading characters I don't like, but it confuses me why so many people have her as their favorite. I do think is is a strong female character who isn't a stereotypical strong female character nor a stereotypical non-stereotypical strong female character. To me at least she's written as a person first, not as a strong female character. 

What about her sucks?  Unless i'm severely misinterpreting some connotation, aside from calling her annoying, all you've said is that she does a good job subverting the typical pitfalls characters in similar story roles have, and is written with understandable human emotions as opposed to more trope-y ones.  Why is she annoying?

She's my fave (a big reason of which is because she feels so much like a person first to me as opposed to a character), but please don't interpret the above as flaming you or calling you wrong, but rather I just like hearing why people like/dont like certain things and so on - broadens my perspective

Edited May 6, 2022 by Anomander Rake

[Lego Mistborn]

Sorry, twas unclear. I just don't like her personality. I do like her un-stereotypicallity though. I wan to be clear that it is not the reason I dislike her.

[jamesbondsmith]

On 06/05/2022 at 7:15 PM, Ta'veren Kaladin said:

Here is my even more unpopular opinion.

Vin sucks. She's so annoying. I just can't like her, despite loving Mistborn. I enjoy reading characters I don't like, but it confuses me why so many people have her as their favorite. I do think is is a strong female character who isn't a stereotypical strong female character nor a stereotypical non-stereotypical strong female character. To me at least she's written as a person first, not as a strong female character. 

I thought she kind of fell into the subset of 'tough female characters who spend a chunk of the sequel worrying about her relationship with her boyfriend', which irritated me. Same with the Percy Jackson sequel series.

[Dunkum]

piggybacking on the recent discussion: I like Vin, in general, but her relationship with Elend never made any sense. or more particularly, the beginning of it didn't. its just too sudden.

unrelated to tht: I'm not sure how many people have actually read the unpublished Aether of Night draft, but it is BAD.  granted it hasn't gone through all the editing processes and so forth, so somewhat to be expected, but I think the only way to improve it would be a total rewrite. I don't think the draft, as written, is salvageable.

[NameIess]

40 minutes ago, Dunkum said:

unrelated to tht: I'm not sure how many people have actually read the unpublished Aether of Night draft, but it is BAD.  granted it hasn't gone through all the editing processes and so forth, so somewhat to be expected, but I think the only way to improve it would be a total rewrite. I don't think the draft, as written, is salvageable.

Yeah, I agree.

(AoN spoilers)

Spoiler

I really liked the 'guy becomes king and has to salvage his identical twin's awful reputation' aspect of the book, but as Brandon said in the disclaimer, it didn't really mesh well with the 'end of the world' plot. That and there's perhaps too many convenient coincidences at the end of the book.

 

[Anomander Rake]

On 5/6/2022 at 5:10 PM, Ta'veren Kaladin said:

Sorry, twas unclear. I just don't like her personality. I do like her un-stereotypicallity though. I wan to be clear that it is not the reason I dislike her.

No apology necessary.  Fair!  I can understand that.  I'm glad you do appreciate the latter point though - Sanderson did great avoiding the "stereotypical strong girl" and "stereotypical non-stereotypical strong girl" imo and it shows

6 hours ago, jamesbondsmith said:

I thought she kind of fell into the subset of 'tough female characters who spend a chunk of the sequel worrying about her relationship with her boyfriend', which irritated me. Same with the Percy Jackson sequel series.

1 hour ago, Dunkum said:

piggybacking on the recent discussion: I like Vin, in general, but her relationship with Elend never made any sense. or more particularly, the beginning of it didn't. its just too sudden.

I didn't mind it in the context that Vin has godawful attachment issues and an empire's worth of stress on her mind, but I also could certainly be thinking through rose colored lenses lol.

on PJO

Spoiler

i HATE piper for that very reason - people who don't like Shallan should take a look at her XD.

 

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, Dunkum said:

piggybacking on the recent discussion: I like Vin, in general, but her relationship with Elend never made any sense. or more particularly, the beginning of it didn't. its just too sudden.

unrelated to tht: I'm not sure how many people have actually read the unpublished Aether of Night draft, but it is BAD.  granted it hasn't gone through all the editing processes and so forth, so somewhat to be expected, but I think the only way to improve it would be a total rewrite. I don't think the draft, as written, is salvageable.

I thought Aether of Night was pretty good.

I also think The Way of Kings PRIME is better than the published version.

29 minutes ago, Anomander Rake said:

on PJO

  Reveal hidden contents

i HATE piper for that very reason - people who don't like Shallan should take a look at her XD.

 

Spoiler

Piper is way better than Shallan.

 

[Dunkum]

1 hour ago, Nameless said:

Yeah, I agree.

(AoN spoilers)

  Hide contents

I really liked the 'guy becomes king and has to salvage his identical twin's awful reputation' aspect of the book, but as Brandon said in the disclaimer, it didn't really mesh well with the 'end of the world' plot. That and there's perhaps too many convenient coincidences at the end of the book.

 

yea, it's been a while since I read it but I hated the ending.

[Anomander Rake]

35 minutes ago, Frustration said:

 

Spoiler

objectively, you're honestly probably right lol -  was just very easy for me to dislike Piper when you looked at her next to someone like Annabeth.  It's been a long time since I touched PJO and its sequels, so when I remember Piper currently all i get is how much i disliked her compared to the others, not "her"

but from an opinionated perspective this is a hill im willing to die on LOL. storm piper

loved frank and hazel tho, great new additions

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Anomander Rake

[Mason Wheeler]

47 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I also think The Way of Kings PRIME is better than the published version.

Disagree.  It definitely had some interesting parts, and a much better Jasnah, but the overall plot was far too "90s dark" and I'm quite glad Brandon outgrew that!  Plus, there were no spren.  Spren definitely improved the story!

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Plus, there were no spren.  Spren definitely improved the story!

I was unaware that was a selling point.

[+sugjesstive]

I am sorry to be posting this months after the last response... but I didn't catch this mentioned in the thread already. I read like 10/17 pages of the thread but I burned out a little.

My unpopular opinion: Mistborn Era 2's main characters are insufferable... Marasi is ehhh. I fully can't stand Wax, Wayne, or Steris. SAZED is interesting but a total JERK. & Allomancer Jak is BY FAR my favorite Era 2 character, but I don't know if he counts.