It feels a bit mean to say this, considering. And it’s really unexpected, too, given that I’ve bounced off every other book of his I’ve previously tried to read.
But you know what?
I’m glad Sanderson is writing the end of the Wheel of Time.
As in, glad it’s him and not Jordan.
More later. After I’ve finished the book. Now if you’ll pardon me, I’m dying to see what happens next.
And by “what happens next,” you mean “now that something is finally happening.”
That’s part of it, definitely. Another part is that most of what I’ve been going through on this project is stuff I’ve already read before, so there isn’t really the same kind of suspense. But stuff happened in Knife of Dreams, and that was my first read-through of it, so neither of those factors entirely explains it.
I think the main differences here are twofold: first, several things have happened that I did not expect (in contrast with KoD events, like Elayne gaining the throne, that I’d spent several books waiting for), and second, Sanderson is making me feel actual tension with the characters. Which is odd, because I’d never warmed to the characters in his own work — but I feel like he’s getting them under my skin more than Jordan ever did.
Do you think the improvement was planned by Jordan and merely executed by Sanderson, or do you think it’s all Sanderson? Or, to put it differently, do you think the improvement was in the notes, or do you think it is appearing mainly in areas where Sanderson was free to take some license with the material?
A little from Column A, a little from Column B? Certainly the events that are surprising me are likely to have come from Jordan’s notes, and the credit for that is due to him. But there is also visibly less of the sentence- and paragraph-level inefficiency Jordan had fallen prey to; even though I think there are ways to make this book shorter, there’s been little in it that I felt was just sheer dead weight. And for the most part, I think Sanderson is digging further into the emotional substance than Jordan was generally capable of, which adds a lot of force to the narrative punches.
But I don’t want to get ahead of myself too much, discussing it here; my full thoughts will come when I give the book a proper post. 😉
The difference really is remarkable. I’ve loved it so far.
I’m surprisingly happy with it. Though I will agree with David that I don’t think he gets Mat right — the tone there is just a bit off, in a direction I don’t find to be an improvement.
I’ve heard a fair bit about Echo Bazaar, but haven’t had time to check it out. You’re right that it’s kind of up my alley, though. 🙂
