16
votes
Brandon Sanderson is your god
Link information
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- Authors
- Jason Kehe, Yi-Ling Liu, Matt Jancer, Matt Kamen, Adrienne So, Gregory Barber, Jason Parham, Chris Colin, Maria Streshinsky, Megan Greenwell, Rowan Moore Gerety
- Published
- Mar 23 2023
- Word count
- 4160 words
I remember reading this when it came out and found the tone of it just utterly bizarre. There is legitimate critique to be had about how Sanderson's religion informs his writing and his authorial decisions but this - ain't it. The author of the article seems instead to be digging entirely too hard for ways to characterize Sanderson as strange or eccentric, to tie those eccentricities to his religion and generally to craft rage-bait.
Sanderson responded to this article in his typically mega-nice way: https://www.reddit.com/r/brandonsanderson/comments/1200dzk/on_the_wired_article/
The response is worth reading.
His more introspective response was really important to read, too. I'm definitely biased as a massive Cosmere fan (I run a Cosmere podcast), but the Wired piece honestly crossed the line to what I'd almost call "hit piece"
His introspective response there pretty much says it all. There's more than enough terrible, questionable stuff within that piece that I don't think any "hit pieces" are necessary.
From my perspective, if you want to criticize Sanderson on the basis of his faith it's very easy. The LDS church is a machine that has done a lot of horrible, horrible things in the world and victimized many people in the name of Christian evangelism. Sanderson not only doesn't speak against the church (in a way that some other Mormons have - I'll use Ken Jennings, Sanderson's former roommate, as an example of someone who is Mormon and has vocally and publicly criticized the church at the risk of being alienated from it) but contributes to it monetarily and funds its activities.
This is a very easy position to take when you've lived a privileged life as a white man in the Mormon church, an organization that transparently ascribes you more value than any other group and treats women like incubators. It's disgusting for Sanderson (and the church) to say "those who experience hardship experience it because they chose it as a gummy soul being before being born because it was better than not living as a human." I doubt he'd have the same perspective if he was one of those starving children his church tries to evangelize, or someone who has had to hide their sexuality because the church considers it immoral, or someone who has lived a life with disabilities.
I think it’s worth citing the post that your quote comes from.
I was confused at first, as I initially thought that your quoted section comes from his response article, which was an incorrect assumption on my part.
I do think the sentences above your quote add some useful context, so the section is posted below:
The comment I was responding to originally linked to that post, which is why I quoted it. Something happened with the link but it doesn't go there anymore.
Ah! That makes sense! I guess a mis-link in the original comment.
I think it’s worth reading the actual response, then - it’s certainly a better one than a general statement about the LDS.
Where is the "A starving child in Africa..." quote coming from? I don't see it in the article and Googling that excerpt doesn't return anything.
It comes from here - I don't know what happened, the person above me originally linked this specific FAQ but it doesn't link there now.
The only reason I wouldn't call it a hit piece, is because I don't think the author succeeded at hitting anything. They were definitely trying, either on their own or at the insistence of their editor, but they scrambled to find a narrative and failed. As @TMarkos said, there's some legitimate criticism to be had, but this article is more like someone spilled the notes from their trip to Utah into ChatGPT (this is before GPT was available though) and then published the result.
A "hit-and-miss" piece, then.
I subscribe to the tin foil hat theory that bigger, established book publishers are scared of Sanderson's "$19m in two days" success in, and subsequent help given to people for self publishing
They paid this guy some paltry pennies to try to find dirt on him or his community, and failed.
John Scalzi has a pretty good response to the Kickstarter that outlines some reasons why (point #4) publishers definitely do not need to be worried: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/03/01/very-quick-thoughts-on-brandon-sandersons-mega-kickstarter/
His own publisher (one of the largest publishers) not only helped facilitate the self-pub but also still has a great relationship with Sanderson. I also think the media narrative success was bigger than the actual success (the realities of publishing 5 books yourself are quite difficult and as I understand it this was more of a “curious if I can” thing from Sanderson).
So like maybe another publishing house wanted a hit piece? But his own is happy to revel in the Sanderson sun.
Sorry, I know this comment doesn't really contribute anything, but that sentence got a good laugh out of me.
What’s your podcast? I love the Cosmere and can always enjoy more Cosmere content
There's Always Another Podcast - two Cosmere veterans and our two friends that we're dragging along for the ride. We finished Mistborn Era 1 a few weeks ago, and just put up our first Elantris episode yesterday.
Oh sweet! I subscribed to your podcast several weeks ago after hearing about it on Reddit.
How does stuff like this even get published? Do editors not exist at WIRED? I'm not a Sanderson shill and I am definitely not a fan of organized religion, but this was nothing more than a rambling, semi-coherent hit piece.
I will say, though, that I loved the irony of the author going into detail of Graphomania, when his own article exhibited the exact traits he accused Sanderson of.
Periodicals are in a tough spot at the moment. I don't have enough information or brains to say why, but across all publications, including such stalwarts as The Week and Washington Post, it seems there are few adults left. The only thing that seems to still be sober and particular is the Economist.
Yeah, my question was more rhetorical, I suppose. I know why digital publications generate so much low-quality rage bait: to drive traffic.
Although I don't read the Economist any more, I do agree with you that it is one of the best ones still out there. I'm particularly fond of the New Yorker as well.
I'm having a hard time getting through this article. Probably because I went into it wanting information not a narrative and it sure as shit is trying to be one.
That said, this jumped out at me:
This is unfair to the point of silly. While i'm 100% sure Sanderson's personal beliefs tie into him not bothering to write sex scenes (which i'm appreciative of given how rarely they fit into a story), it's just not true. Plenty of characters are implied to be sexually active, with one explicitly getting laid during a fight?
The whole thing feels like snobbery or deliberately missing the point. Is Sanderson the kind of writer like McCarthy? God no. Is he still a great writer? Absolutely, he just focuses on different areas with different skills. It's like arguing that you can't be a "real" musician unless you play a classical instrument.
The implied disdain/mocking is also pretty shitty. Of all the things that have blown up into large conventions with shit tons of merch, I think Sanderson's done a pretty good job of at least keeping it sane and consistently delivering.
Dear god I'd love for him to bother to elaborate on that snipe, but it's absurd. Yes LOTR predates our heavy commercialization of successful products, but this is the kind of thing that makes me think they'd hate that too if it had the same treatment.
Overall the entire article is just bizarre. I don't get this narrative style interview piece, and it's hardly unusual but feels like a waste of time. Tell me what he said, tell me what you talked about, tell me what you observed, spare me the passive aggressive philosophy. As usual there's the "here's a very personal thing they confirmed which I must publish because...." which seems like more of an oddity than anything else. The whole thing feels shallow and tactless. All i know is this guy doesn't enjoy sanderson, and I don't even know why.
To me, this article read more as an exploratory piece than a hit piece. At least the way I interpreted it, it seems the writer went in without and understanding of why people love Sanderson's writing and at the start was looking to be mean (telling Sanderson his writing is shit) and by the end, he understood.
He went in with an expectation on who Sanderson is and was surprised and not surprised in a few ways, such as how normal-ish Sanderson seems to be as a people person, but with some weird eccentricities underneath, like his daily schedule, the not feeling pain thing, etc.
The article was certainly not glowing about Sanderson, but I think the way it read to me is that it conveyed that there's more than meets the eye and that Sanderson's writing doesn't need to have good prose, because that's not why people love his work, they're there for the characters and the world, which the author points out that Sanderson does wonderfully.
I definitely see why some feel this leans towards hit piece, but to me it just seemed and exploration of why Sanderson is so popular, despite not having superstar energy.
I felt similarly about it. It wasn't overly-kind, but he seemed to come around to a kind of respect for what Sanderson accomplishes. It all feels a little unnecessary to me, but I guess if you spend two days with someone for the purposes of writing a story, you have to say something.
The author also seemed to be going for some sort of meta-commentary about just writing, and not going back and editing or polishing, which is why this piece is a bit jumbled and rambly. But I suspect that may just be an excuse for not wanting to do those things.
You’re doing it wrong, you’re supposed to lose your mind and pee your pants because someone said that Sanderson isn’t that good of a writer and mentioned that he is Mormon just like all those other nerds did. Sanderson literally had to post on his own subreddit to tell his fans to calm down and not harass the author when this article was published.
Tangentially related, I did some googling after reading the article, and I found this thread (also sort of about the article): link
And uh, wow, those are certainly some reactions. Having not read much Sanderson, this seems like just snobbery - I especially like the person who asserted that Sanderson "does not deserve his success", whatever that's supposed to mean. Is this an accusation of brainwashing? Big Sanderson cornering the market?
Those strong reactions are a backlash to Sanderson being the reddit author. Whenever someone asks for recommendations on books they get recommended Sanderson, specifically Mistborn. I get the idea that it's snobbery. But I imagine it'd be like asking for movie recommendations and getting Tyler Perry movies recommended to you. He makes them quick and he makes a lot (like Sanderson) and his movies are quite popular with a certain type of person. But clearly, perhaps, his work is not artistically at a certain level.
Nothing wrong with reading/watching fluff that's maybe not well made. But, there's a frustration that that's all people are reading instead of reading more challenging material, or even just material that has a certain standard of prose.
What's good and what's not is fundamentally subjective - it's not something that can have an objective scale, and attempts to force one on works is both pointless and is merely an attempt at elitism.
People recommend what they like; if you want different things to be recommended, what you should do is join the other voices and recommend other things. There is no point decrying others for liking pieces of fiction that you don't.
Why should anyone care if it's "all people are reading"? Everyone reads for different reasons, and no reason is more important than the other. It would be like if someone likes leisurely hikes and goes on easy difficulty trails per alltrails, and someone else tells them "Hey, you're young and fit, why are you on these easy hikes? You should go do a medium or hard difficulty hike. You're not challenging yourself". They would rightfully be told to pound sand.
I feel like this is a common sentiment among people who aren't super into any type of art-form. The idea that no standards can exist at all because people have subjective opinions, while I get why people would think that, makes very little sense.
Are we not allowed to make distinctions between something that takes more technical precision, something that was made with more care and attention, than something that was hastily made, sloppy, with no understanding of basic technical concepts? We can't at all say the former is better than the latter because people really like the latter and saying so might offend them?
Because, there are people that care about art and intellectualism dying as a culture, even in certain corners that are supposed to promote those things. Think of Harold Bloom and how he hated the modern idea that "no book is intrinsically better than another book".
Just saying it's snobbery or elitism isn't gonna matter to these defenses. Because, they want to be elitist and snobbery. They believe gate-keeping is good. So complaining about that isn't going to change their minds. Saying "well a lot of people like it and find meaning in it" is also not going to change their minds.
And I think it's worth trying to understand that point of view, and I think you can come out the other side agreeing with a lot of it.
You can have a personal rating or standards system for writing, but yes, I strongly believe that there is no one standard.
For one, this is evident by the fact that the "canonical" academic preferences for literature has changed greatly over time, and is very different across different cultures. I can also read Chinese, and I sometimes read Chinese literature, and it's clear that "high" literature in Chinese is very different than English. I don't see any reason for the standards of a particular 2023 English audience to have any more legitimacy than any others.
This is a common thing in food. Michelin has often been accused of being biased towards a particular type of food experience - that is, European fine dining, which causes it to discount food experiences of different cultures that do not adhere to it.
This is not the case with something actually objective. Everyone in the world can derive the same laws of physics. Scientist in Thailand discover the same truths about the world as scientists in the US, and we all get closer to the actual mechanics of the world.
In the end, you can say whatever you want, and it is fine, but don't try to declare it "objective" in any way or you're just being intellectually dishonest.
The snobbery is ineffectual even at a practical level - no one reads this and thinks "wow, I should stop reading Sanderson immediately". Rather, they think "wow, what a bunch of annoying, crabby people - I'm definitely not going to read their probably annoying, crabby work", however true the latter claim is.
All it does is create an insulated community where the members within can feel good about themselves, but ultimately cause whatever ideas they espouse to become ever more isolated and unpopular due to their gatekeeping.
Surely then we can agree on several spectra for different cultures?
Anyone will tell you that "Sword-man hit monster dead. Sword-man, hero!" is terrible writing. As subjective as it might be the distribution of critiques will almost exclusively swing towards "0/5, what the hell?".
I think the difference is that the above example is clearly way below the average adult's reading level and they are thus equipped to critique it. The better the writing gets, the more the pool of people with the reading experience to critique it shrinks. Thus the distinction between McCarthy and Sanderson may be immaterial for some people. They enjoy both, they can see the writing is different, they don't care, neither bothers them.
Think of something you love, and think of something you have absolutely zero interest in. Think of a friend who is the exact opposite. One will see art and talent and skill and amazing detail where the other just sees "something or another".
Human experience IS subjective in the grand scheme of things, but there are things that human experiences agree or converge on, even if that agreement is localized to a specific place, language, culture or tradition. And that's how we make sense of everything as good or bad on any level.
I think you're allowed to vocally like and dislike whatever you want. People will disagree, ergo subjectivity.
Honestly at this point I feel like he's more the reddit-anti-author. The internet sure does love its swinging pendulum, and in the last year or two I feel like I saw more "Stop recommending Sanderson" or "I don't get all the hype for Sanderson" than actual earnest recommendations - to say nothing of the vendetta bookscirclejerk seems to have against him (I know it's a circlejerk sub, but you can't write that much "jokingly" without attracting people who aren't joking)
Gosh, Wired thinks liking fantasy and playing magic the gathering is enough to make you a weirdo? In 2023?!
I haven't read any Sanderson beyond WoT, but I remember he showed up one day in a LSV vintage cube draft stream and proceeded to answer questions for several hours. I thought that was pretty neat.
Edit: Found the video, for anyone curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8a4JLvuTI4
I read this a while ago, I thought it was really captivating. I was reminded of it cause of the two posts about Sanderson's books.
It's an interesting profile on Reddit's favorite author.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/hX6VJ