Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Way of Storytellers
Epic fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson has achieved a dream none thought possible—his Kickstarter fund for four secretly written novels, announced seven days ago, is the #1 Kickstarter of all time, crossing $25 million. His $1 million goal was achieved within hours.
This news is rocking the publishing world.
How can this be?
Is it because Sanderson’s fans are young crazy geeks who have no lives and must live out their dreams in fantasy worlds?
No, that is not the reason.
His fans run the age gamut, from teens to older folks praying to live long enough to read the next novel. They are intellectual, able to follow complex magic systems and deep interconnections between novels.
Is it because Sanderson writes compelling character-driven novels?
No, that is not the reason.
George R. R. Martin writes such novels with his Game of Thrones. (Unfortunately, the TV showrunners failed to understand this and ended the show with plot-driven stories that undermined the characters.) But George has no hope of creating a successful Kickstarter.
Is it because Sanderson’s prose is poetic and transcendent?
No, that is not the reason. He’s a work-a-day writer at best. Nobody quotes his prose for poetic reason the way they may quote Patrick Rothfuss.
So what drives this incredible success?
I propose that it is simply that Sanderson is a profound moral writer, like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis before him, who loves his fans and constantly serves them.
Like his fellow sci-fi and fantasy writer Orson Scott Card (author of Ender’s Game), he is a Mormon. And although his writings do not reflect a proselytizing mission, his morals infuse his work.
He writes deep, rich, complex characters who must deal with an array of moral issues. What is the right thing to do and be? How does one face their past, their fears, their guilts, their mental imbalances?
Sanderson articulates moral values in subtle ways, but he can be explicit, articulating “Ideals” that certain heroes called Radiants professed. Here is a passage from The Way of Kings which has a powerful effect on Sanderson fans, who repeat these and know them by heart:
Teft said. “But the Immortal Words—these Ideals—guided everything they did. The four later Ideals were said to be different for every order of Radiants. But the First Ideal was the same for each of the ten: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.” He hesitated. “Or so I was told.”
“Yes, well, that seems a little obvious to me,” Kaladin said. “Life comes before death. Just like day comes before night, or one comes before two. Obvious.”
[…]
“Life before death,” Teft said, wagging a finger at Kaladin. “The Radiant seeks to defend life, always. He never kills unnecessarily, and never risks his own life for frivolous reasons. Living is harder than dying. The Radiant’s duty is to live.
“Strength before weakness. All men are weak at some time in their lives. The Radiant protects those who are weak, and uses his strength for others. Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.
[…]
“Journey before destination. There are always several ways to achieve a goal. Failure is preferable to winning through unjust means. Protecting ten innocents is not worth killing one. In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished.”
In a decadent, corrupt age where so many myths and heroes have been undermined and destroyed, told God is dead and there are no moral constants, Sanderson delivers, like Tolkien and Lewis, new heroes, like Kaladan, to fans who crave moral foundations that reflect Spiritual Laws.
It’s not uncommon for Sanderson fans to approach him and say things like, “Thank you for Kaladan” and tell him stories of how his novels have changed their lives for the better.
Such is The Way of Storytellers.
Published in Entertainment
Supposedly the man wrote these just in his spare time and I believe it, he’s quite the workhorse yet he does not produce trite pulp. Even his average novels are above average for the genre and the best approach greatness.
As an aside he teaches a class on creative writing at BYU and has all his lectures online for free on youtube. Very interesting even if one has only a passing interest in writing fiction.
I have no idea who he is. I got an email from kickstarter and didn’t really do more than skim it since I get too many emails. I saw some people talking about it on twitter and one account I like was dunking on John Scalzi (don’t know who he is but I’ve seen his books referenced before) for complaining that Sanderson was living on easy mode because he was a straight white male. I decided to take the risk and back the ebook version of Sanderson’s books. I’ll probably read them sometime when I get room on my reading list. I’m glad to know some people like him. Sometimes success builds success and it is hard to know when these kickstarters explode like that.
He has a fine Cosmere novel called “Warbreaker” that can be read for free on how website:
https://www.brandonsanderson.com/warbreaker-introduction/
That’s pretty cool. Thanks!
I thought Warbreaker a bit of a let-down after the MistBorn trilogies and Elantris. FWIW.
(Not quite halfway through The Way of Kings…. getting better and better as it goes.)
I am glad to hear good things about Sanderson’s writing. I haven’t read him yet but I will soon.
Years ago I started the Wheel of Time series. I kinda got hooked but the books were also a slog. The writing is bloated to say the least. Good editing could reduce the volume of words by 70%.
And the huge books took up so much shelf space that I finally gave them away, and got a Kindle. After a gap of 15 years, I started the series over again and have just begun book 9.
The original author, Richard Jordan, died before the series was complete. I recently have been looking for information about Sanderson, who completed the last few books. I have been pleased to see he is generally well thought of. That makes me more motivated to stick it out until the end of the Wheel of Time. And then I will never look at it again.
Books 9 and 10 can be slogs as well, scan where you feel it. Books 11-14 are great.
Scalzi is woke silliness.
Glad to hear it!
Ah. That’s the guy. I never read Wheel of Time because at the time I had enough “very long fantasy book” series that I was committed to. He was handed the reigns of a very hot property and people seemed to like it well enough.
I think you’re correct that a large part of the reason for Sanderson’s popularity is the strong moral themes in his writing. Another part of it is the creativity of his writing. He is a master at building original worlds and fun rule-based magic systems, and taking well-worn fantasy tropes and turning them on their head.
And while he doesn’t write the most beautiful prose, he does write with great clarity. Before reading his books I always thought that, while books have an advantage over movies in many storytelling aspects, I thought books couldn’t match movies when it came to visualizing action scenes. But in the case of Sanderson his magic systems and the way people apply them in battle is so well thought-out and described that it honestly blew me away. His action scenes were easily the best I’d ever read.
Finally, a big part of the reason he has so much success and trust from his fans is his incredible work ethic. Sanderson wrote 5 “secret novels” over the last 2 years ON TOP of finishing and releasing 3 other novels during that time frame. Readers know they can trust him to deliver.
I love Patrick Rothfuss’s “Name of the Wind,” and also enjoyed “Wise Man’s Fear.” Some of the best prose I’ve ever read as a fantasy reader. But “Wise Man’s Fear” came out ELEVEN years ago and we’re still waiting for his conclusion to the series. And how many people are there who still believe Martin’s ever going to finish A Song of Ice and Fire? They may be superior craftsmen in certain aspects of their storytelling, but on balance I’ll rate Sanderson over them for delivering so much quantity at a pretty high quality.
Well said. I would only point out that as great as his world-building is, G. R. R. Martin’s world building is also great, but no one would think he could attract $1,000 in Kickstarter funding. Same with The Kingkiller Chronicles by Rothfuss.
And think the closest living author to Sanderson would be J.K. Rowling, whose Harry Potter books also have a moral core. Unfortunately, the movies failed to deliver on that as they should.
The idea that the love of his mother protected Harry from Voldemort came full circle in the final novel when Harry’s love for the students of Hogwarts protected them in the same way. (How could that NOT be part of the final film?)
Whether fans know it or not, that moral core speaks to fundamental truths and is powerfully attractive through storytelling that does not preach.
I can’t compare Sanderson, whom I haven’t read, to GRR Martin. But I was a Martin fan until I read The Game of Thrones, after the TV series began.
The book was even darker than the TV series. It was so bleak and nihilistic, it seemed to me anyway, that I finished it and never wanted to continue the book series.
I did enjoy the miniseries Nightflyers based on Martin’s book.
The Mistborn trilogy is the best to start with. It is fascinating how the novels explore revolution, forming a government, and running a government.
The Rothfuss book series isn’t finished yet? That’s a yikes from me. Yes, he does write in very beautiful prose. I think I felt that in writing that book someone told him that and he made it longer than it needed to be. Also, IIRC the main character was a gary stu. But, it was on every fantasy fan’s “you have to read this” list. Still not done…
Gives new meaning to the phrase:
Let’s Go Brandon!
(someone had to say it)
Sadly so on finishing it. If I recall correctly after A Dance with Dragons came out he admitted in some article or interview that he was rather stuck and wasn’t certain how to complete the saga in either a satisfying or realistic way. Wrote himself “into a corner” is the phrase.
My understanding is that basically he knew the beginning of the story, the end of the story, some of the middle parts of the story but was having difficulty connecting them all in a way that worked. That so far what he had come up with was either having some time jump where 10-20 years pass for the characters off screen so they could arrive at the conclusion or that he would have to write 10-20 years worth of stories to explain how everyone ended up where they need to be for the conclusion. The first obviously not very satisfying and the second not very realistic.
Guess he never did figure out some third option in a brilliant flash of inspiration.
No, that pretty well covers it for me. Backed the kickstarter already.
Now if you had backed the wrong guy Rhody I might have something to say, but you backed Sanderson. Now you have me in a box, I can’t give you BS.
Damn you.
He did a very good job.
I have both read the series and listened to it via Audible. Sanderson wrote the last three books. While listening to the narration, I could not tell the difference between Jordan’s and Sanderson’s books.
I am re-reading the series again, I am up to book 10, Crossroads of Twilight.
Redshirts was awesome.
Agreed. There’s a bit of a slog, but it’s well worth it at the end.
I read his Reckoner’s series following the end of Wheel of Time. I have both Mistborn and Stormlight series, but have started neither.
The man, not his workd.
Mistborn first. Stormlight is the masterpiece. Here’s one possible Cosmere reading order, with short stories and novellas mixed in.
Best Cosmere reading order (those with the dots are shorter works found in the collection Arcanum Unbounded.)
That seems to be a difficult thing to do.
Wokeness is a disease.
You can have works before catching the disease.
This is a tremendous blow to the publishing world (and good for it.)
His basic level of kickstarter (with a reward) is $40 with the reward being a quarterly ebook.
I guess he rationalized that if Amazon could get away with charging $10 or more for an electronic version of a book, he could too. Good for him.
The traditional publishing model needs to be slimmed down a bit and this is a good way to circumvent it.
I read an article recently about a literary agent who was let go for being insufficiently woke, but I forget her name. Hopefully she is learning this model.
My sons both backed this because each want the books and the swag. I will borrow their copies.