Wheel of Time Conclusion: By Brandon Sanderson in Memory of Light

I initially came across Wheel of Time because I was looking for shounen, or youth, fiction/fantasy to busy my time with. The first 1-5 books seemed like a very good action packed adventure that told the epic heroic story of a protagonist battling greater and greater foes in pursuit of some long term goal. Then book 6-9 felt like the most interesting parts were about the protagonist and yet the protagonist was only suffering, not going anywhere. I felt increasingly the need to skip all other sections of the book that had no relationship to the protagonist, and that was more than 50% of the book in itself. It got a little bit too melodramatic and turned into a soap opera, which was an entirely different genre from shounen action. The American market doesn’t have genre names for such conventions which is probably why labeling Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series was so hard for fans who started becoming disillusioned. It was fantasy, but that label had no meaning when it came to the shift that happened in the series. Because what readers were promised at the start isn’t what they got from the last half of the series… until Brandon Sanderson was selected by Jordan’s widow (and editor) to be Jordan’s estate inheritor: Sanderson inherited the authority to conclude the story that Jordan died before finishing.

Sanderson brought his own unique talents and vitality to the series, making it much more enjoyable. Of course I enjoy Brandon Sanderson’s books by themselves because I believe he is a very original thinker and creator of magical universes. But even still, I was so soured by the negative outcome of the WoT series so that, that I hesitated for several years before flipping through audiobook (public source) chapters and realized that Brandon Sanderson made things more interesting. All the annoying things were still annoying but because they didn’t take up 50% of the book, it was easy to skip them or not think about them. And all the interesting things that I wanted to happen, started happening. People often say that Robert Jordan had it all planned out in his mind, that every little detail would lead up to a final conclusion, and that was true. For a trilogy or 6 book series. But this wasn’t a six book series. People got greedy and extended the contract for more books. Ridiculous, really. That’s not how it should be in done. In Japan, they don’t “extend” the series by making the authors write “filler” in between books or chapters of an original story. They hire “other people” to write in “filler fan fictions” and let the author stay true to his created vision. If there is something the fans want more, they can buy it as an additional “fan disc” or “side story”. This American book publishing concept of extending a popular fantasy series from 3 books to 12 books or 6 books to 15 books, is pretty stupid. There’s a reason why editors told authors in the past to “cut down on the number of words in each book”. Because too many words interrupted the flow and got things tangled up. That applies to a single book. What happens when you tell a writer to “embelish” and write 6 more books than he planned, all the time the ending kept getting delayed until the 12, then 15th book came out? It would be a hell of “are we there yet” comments as fans had to wait years for the ending they were promised, but were never delivered. It’s like you’re loaning the book publishers money without them having to pay you a cent in interest for TEN YEARS.

I have rarely seen a writer of his caliber that also appealed to my aesthetic tastes and values. Truly a genius at the creative arts.

Excuses for writing and reading

http://www.writingexcuses.com/

That was originally something I found from reading Brandon Sanderson’s comments on the net. I went and visited and in the process of reviewing their archives, I found the author of Monster International, published by Baen. I had seen this title when browsing Baen’s ebooks, but the blurb didn’t seem all that interesting. My analysis changed when I heard that the author, Larry Correia, was a self-published or at least very close to one before he signed up with Baen. Because I’m always interested in rare items that the established status quo, monopolies, and corporations are not willing to consider, this perked my interest enough for me to read it. I liked it.

The writing style was different and provided a good change of pace, and the plot development was interesting enough for me. Most books are boring for one reason or another, after encountering Japanese style literature, writing, and plot development. Monster International is unique enough in terms of its thriller component and action component that that for an American demographic, it was rather new and strange. The sequel also provided a develop and expansion, rather than simply a repetition of old material recycled. So that’s my excuse for not reading it before and reading it after.

You can hear the 15 minute audio podcast here if it really interests you.

I will say this though. Hearing the authors talk about their own books and the details they viewed as important, is a lot more beneficial to me, a potential reader, than reading some blurb that spoils the plot on Amazon or the cover. Then again, the status quo businesses were never really out to cater to consumer preference. That’s the problem. And therein lies the solution.

How an Author Progresses

Using one of my favorite authors, David Weber, I’ve recently compared his earlier works to his current writing. As time went on, Weber started writing much more about politics and the political climate of the setting in his world. While that played a vital importance in Honor Harrington, due to the impact politics tends to have on the results of the war for both sides, it’s getting to the point where the political sections are becoming info dumbs that take away from the verisimilitude of the story and characters themselves. Many authors, such as Eric Flint, will eventually fall into a pattern and write the same kind of sentence or paragraph multiple times, across multiple books, even across multiple publishing timelines. If you know how to analyze texts to determine the individual style of its writer, it’s relatively easy to tell, especially since authors write so much volume that it is easy to analyze their flaws and detect repetitions. This kind of habit isn’t necessary bad. It is just easily detected. But what often makes it bad is that it breaks the 4th wall. It allows me, the reader, to see that this story, no matter how unique or different from Weber’s other stories, is still written by Weber and his inclination to structure the plot and the info dump story telling in his own personal fashion. That might not be so strange if it wasn’t all too predictable. The way the villains are written is exactly how Weber wrote the villains for Corisande, in his Safehold series. Surely even authors run out of fresh ideas, but recycling characters in this nature isn’t a really good idea in the long term.

As I read back on Oath of Swords and War God’s Own and compare it to Maid’s Choice, I am much more satisfied with Oath of Swords and “War God’s Own“‘s pacing and character perspectives. I would have recommended that Vaijon had his own arc in War Maid’s Choice, instead of the narrator telling us what he felt or thought with a short narrative exposition at the end. Instead, this should have been rendered quite clear just by seeing his thoughts or behavior over the entire course of the novel, but I didn’t see it utilized in that specific book.

As time goes by, I continue to raise my expectations for Brandon Sanderson’s work, because his ability to pace the plot, world build magical systems based upon logic not wishing, and connect separate people’s narratives into a single unified whole, is quite refreshing. And I don’t get the sense that it is a pattern that I can predict by reading his earlier works. Everyone, even every book in a series, is new, unique, and often surprising in terms of plot and ending. If Weber wished to do a political arc and make that attain great importance, then he should have had a character like Sanderson’s Prince in Way of Kings. Have a person that is solely invested in the political setup and tell the story from his point of view, don’t confuse the reader by dumping a lot of info without tying it into some context. Then when you switch characters to the main character, the scenery actually change, rather than it feeling like the same view, just from a different direction. However, do not use the main villain as the info dumper, because there’s no surprise or suspense then. Villains are supposed to only talk about their plans at the end, right before they get killed, not at the beginning of the book. Creating that kind of suspense is very un-fun.

Strangely enough, Weber’s early novels such as Apocalypse Troll and Mutineer’s Moon, are my favorites. I reread them many many times over. And the first 3 Honor Harrington novels were fresh and new and exciting, even after I had started from the 6th book onwards and then went back to the first ones later. Because Weber back then had new and fresh ideas and he wasn’t really writing about politics, per say, except to juxtapose them as problems getting in the way of the main characters. Like Oath of Swords, political problems were just things to be avoided by the characters, because the characters were traveling the Hero’s Epic Journey of Adventure, and leaving evil doers dead in the process from town to town, nation to nation. I don’t mind overly complicated political setups, but often times this devolves into a situation where the main characters do nothing but wait passively, and the only active things we hear about is the villain’s viewpoint. I’m not interested in the villain’s viewpoint or what he thinks of his own plans or flaws in his allies. Telling me the villain’s viewpoint gives me, the reader, special knowledge that the main characters do not have. How is this supposed to make me feel sympathetic to the ignorance of the main characters, and how is this supposed to make the main characters plight more interesting if I know exactly what is going on but cannot do anything to change things? It’s just entirely unnecessary. Sanderson does politics and mysteries, but he just doesn’t come out and put you in the villain’s mental mind scape so that you hear everything important that they are planning. It’s not as convenient as that. And it spoils the mystery and the suspicions that go on in a good mystery novel, if you are told the ending, before the characters even get to the ending.

You can read Oath of Swords here. And make a judgment yourself.

An Audiobook Adventure: Secret World Chronicles

These aren’t visual novels, but they are rendered such that the voice quality would be fit enough for such a medium.

The story begins with an interesting premise. As for how it ends *shrugs*

It will take a long time and a lot of work before the Western hemisphere can graduate to the levels of a Muv Luv or Fate/Stay Night. This is a good step on the road. The female and male narrations are quite nice. Only when they can budget for more than one narration voice, both male and female actors included, can they transcend the limitations of “audio books” as perceived by the status quo American market. Graphic Audio has also done great work on this subject, especially with Elantris.

World Creation and Laws on Magic Systems

Brandon Sanderson wrote up something interesting on this subject.

It reminds me of the various ways the powers work in Hunter X Hunter or Naruto. With my favorites being those systems with a natural cause and effect, with logical consequences. With my least favorites being powers that don’t seem to cost anything nor do they have a rational component to them (Bleach flying around). It’s sort of like saying, if you use chi you can do amazing things. But the answer to “why” that is, is never dealt with.

Tarrin Kael: Repost

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/conclusion-of-tarrin-kaels-story-firestaff-and-pyrosian-chronicles/

A repost and reminder for those that haven’t read the link yet. Found the broken link as well, so go here instead if you want to read the excellent story.

http://weavespinner.net/Worlds_of_Fel.htm

The Guy Flick: Part 1

[Plot description of a story. Contains spoilers the more you read ahead. If you want a hint as to where this comes from, Air on the G String should be enough of a clue.)

Money. He is obsessed with money. Everything is about money with him. If it has profit in store, he’s interested. If it doesn’t, he ignores it. If a woman can get him more money, he’ll butter her up. If a woman has no money, he isn’t interested. He’ll even hurt his loyal friends because the Boss says the “business” needs that family’s land. So he’ll make them sell the land that’s been in the family since ages past, that they lived on, grew up on, and continue to grow apple trees on. When the son is kidnapped by someone and a ransom demand made, our protagonist even sees and tries to use that in order to make the family go into debt so that their land, used as collateral, could be seized and sold by the bank to the developers.

Who is this person you might wonder? Well, he’s the protagonist of our story. The hero. Hero?! You’re probably thinking, “that’s not a hero, that’s a damn villain”, aren’tcha? But know this well, he is the hero of our story, as amazing as that might seem. And I mean a real hero, not the PC term sometimes used to justify weak pathetic trash.

How do you think that came about in the story? Well, it’s a total spoiler if I told you, nor would you truly understand. So I’ll tell it indirectly.

Our protagonist here grew up under interesting circumstances. His father lost the family fortune through debt. His mother forced to take care of him alone, while they were hounded by the mafia’s debt collectors throughout the country. Mistreated, poor, destitute, and hounded by problems they had not the power to solve, this was the childhood of our nameless protagonist. Perhaps you might think that this is why he considers and values money as the end all, be all to all things. To the point where he insists that he settle accounts for a cup of coffee, when invited to a cafe by a friend. Does he hate the idea of debt and being poor because debt destroyed his family and made his mother poor? That’s an interesting question, is it not.

However, do you think that excuses the harm he does to people who love him? Do you think it’s okay for him to try to run a girl’s family off their farm just because the mafia boss that adopted him, commanded that it would be profitable to re-develop that land? Do you think it’s okay for him to use his (foster) sister’s ice figure skating fame to make more money, while ignoring her otherwise?

Our protagonist here has a debt to pay. His father’s debts. His father is imprisoned for murder. Murdering the guy who put him into debt, that is. That’s why our protagonist has a different foster fother and isn’t with his mother. His mother is at a clinic for the insane. His current foster father is the mafia boss his biological father owed the enormous cash to. About 500,000 US dollars. With an enormous interest rate which doubles it every year or so.

So far, our protagonist has made a million or so dollars. He’s a millionaire, and he goes to high school. Not nearly enough to pay off the debt, however. This is the “main character” of our story, as you can see. A person that seeks money, is controlled by money, lives in fear of debt and his foster father’s mafia status, and cares about nothing else but money. High school is just a cover. To prevent other people from realizing that he’s the right hand of a front company for the mafia.

End of Part 1

Western Fantasy genre in Japan

Two particular titles of quality come to mind. Densetsu no Yūsha no Densetsu (Legend of the Legendary Heroes) and Seiken no Blacksmith (The Sacred Blacksmith).

In a sense they exist as both novels and tv shows in Japan. Both have that bitter-sweet quality in Japanese stories, this time set in a Western medieval setting. The common Japanese themes such as easily recognizable characters (powers), secret and mysterious character histories, and comedic variations are present. The Japanese light novel format is the original source for both titles. Meaning they were both produced as light novels. Light novels are longer than short stories and shorter than novels, yet are structured in the same way trilogies and massive 10 volume fantasy series are. From this source the show is then made and broadcast on tv in Japan. This then comes to the US as imported anime by such companies as Funimation. Thus they exist as brand names in both light novel format and anime format.

I have yet to read the light novels but judging from the anime shows themselves, the story is rich, mature, well developed, and very dramatic. The common occurrence is that much detail and material is cut out to fit a novel into a tv show. Take the problem of trying to include all the mental narration comments in Dune the novel into Dune the movie. It’s not quite the same impact without the mental thoughts. Unlike Western fantasy, the philosophy for Japanese fantasy is very strange and unusual. Take Utawarerumono for example. It is billed as a fantasy but you have elements of techno-magic as well. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, do you remember that quote. Whereas in Western fantasy, Tolkien dominates the world setting or Judeo-Christian depictions of magic are greatly used, such as Harry Potter. There are also pure magic worlds such as The Wheel of Time or Brandon Sanderson’s world building. I prefer the latter over the former, but both are strictly Western fantasy in that the world consists of an internal “magic” system that has no relationship to “Technology” as we know it. That is not the case for Japanese fantasy. The fine line dividing fantasy from dark fantasy from techno-magic science fiction, is greatly blurred in Japanese fantasy genres. And I find that I particularly love that type of blend.

I also have to note this story:The Grand Central Arena. My impression after reading it was that it had a lot of elements that I also see in Japanese fiction, whether of the tv sort or the written sort. It is written from a purely Western perspective yet it has particularly exotic influences in my eyes. It is not a fantasy but a science fiction story, a sf and space opera type story. Space operas usually have wars crossing solar systems or galaxies, such as you see in Heroic Age or Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Babylon 5, and there are strong elements of that in GCA. The story, however, is not told from a battleship or from an admiral’s perspective, but from the perspective of an elite experimental pilot that somehow ends up in a different part of the universe than where they expected to reach. There they meet aliens of various different civilizations and must survive in a universe that had more strange rules than they had ever envisioned. This kind of story/plot premise interests me much more than the usual fantasy saga of some boy from a farm town going to become a legendary hero and savior of the world. That kind of plot has been used up in Western fantasy genres. There’s only so many times you can repeat a heroic saga or Star Wars IV: A New Hope before things start becoming cliched and clones of each other. I praised Brandon Sanderson’s works over Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time because Brandon Sanderson creates world with better logical consistency and character faithfulness. The WoT would have worked well if it was an anime, but as a fantasy series there were issues as time went on. That’s usually the case for such a long series. It’s hard to keep up quality and faithfulness to the material for years and years. Even a genius’ creative output will decrease the more of the same stuff they devote their time and energy to. The broader genre mixing of Japanese light novel series and manga serializations seem to offset this. The Japanese authors are beasts. A popular mangaka outputs one manga chapter every week. Take Naruto for example. It started in 1999 and has produced 516 plus chapters since then. Every week or so, with only intermittent breaks. The mangaka writes the dialogue, creates the world, draws the characters, and everything together. It is a synthesis. Perhaps that helps them from becoming burned out, for I see much of that with long novel series in America. They just got so much material they need to output that creativity naturally drops. Perhaps that is why I always preferred trilogies such as Tolkien’s work and the Uplift War.

Fallen Angels: Global Environmentalism Gone to Hell

Now why does this sound familiar in this day and age.

Romance Novels

This is a funny post about the subject.

Courtesy of Grim.