Hobb v. Sanderson

So I just finished The Well of Ascension, and it cemented my opinion of Brandon Sanderson. (To be clear, I’ve read Mistborn, The Way of Kings, and Warbreaker, so I feel like I’ve done my due diligence.) The last 100 pages (of ~750) or so of Well is compelling: action-packed and memorable, with a bunch of evocative images and scenes that really work, and rank alongside other good bits of genre-era fantasy. But the first 650 pages? Woof. They’re often ponderous and excruciatingly paced, even when Vin is zipping around and we’re meeting rad new monsters like the koloss. How many scenes do we really need with Vin drawn to Zane but unsure about that attraction, or acting like some caricature of a flighty schoolgirl who can’t make up her mind about Elend? How often does Sanderson need to reexplain ferruchemy to the reader when Sazed does something? It’s a shame that Sanderson’s books are often such a slog, because when they get good they’re pretty good! I still think about some of the fight scenes at the end of Mistborn, and The Way of Kings has a few vivid images as well.

Why don’t Sanderson’s books work? In the last year or two, I’ve also been reading a lot of Robin Hobb, and Hobb’s books are superficially similar: they build very, very slowly, and also conclude with high drama. But Hobb’s books work for me, even as they’re also repetitive in parts, and even as some of the relationships grate. (How many scenes do we really need where Fitz unwisely bonds with Nighteyes, or where Fitz and Molly have some juvenile misunderstanding?) The difference, I think, is that Robin Hobb is a much more consistent and confident writer: her books often artfully elaborate and develop their characters, and are liberally sprinkled with vivid, memorable scenes throughout: Kettricken riding out to the hunt of the Forged in Royal Assassin, or Fitz’ encounter with the Old Blood in Assassin’s Quest.

What’s more, Hobb is singular in her ability to craft a conclusion that casts much of what has come before in a stark new light: for much of the Liveship Traders trilogy, I was vaguely annoyed each time Maulkin’s tangle took the stage; by the end of the books, however, you appreciate how these frankly interminable scenes fit into the broader arc of the books– and even, somewhat grandiosely, the sociology of the Bingtown traders. With Sanderson, the middle parts of his books consist of bowl after bowl of lumpy porridge, with gratuitous chunks of lore and vestigial, sometimes grating scenes, etc. Almost all of his books would be significantly better if they were half or even a third of their current size, because it would allow Sanderson to skip all of the things he’s not particularly good at and jump to the fun stuff.¹ By contrast, Hobb’s books might bear some editing, but they’re hardly in need of radical surgery.

To be honest, Sanderson and Hobb are more similar than all this may suggest. But there’s a reason that I’ll probably stop with Sanderson after Hero of Ages but am looking forward to more Hobb at some point.