Hammunition t1_j1xx0w6 wrote on December 28, 2022 at 5:16 AM

Reply to comment by Dostojevskij1205 in Is Brian Sandersons writing style just not for me? Struggling to get through book 3 of Stormlight Archives (mild spoilers) by Dostojevskij1205

I'd recommend The Shadow of What was Lost, then (Licanius Trilogy). It's similar to Sanderson in the worldbuilding area, but not so overexplained. And plenty of reflection/philosophy along the way. I have some issues with it, but one thing it does better than almost any other series I've read is showing the motivations of the characters and grounding them and making them logical to the characters as opposed to the plot. Also something I enjoyed was a lot of the history was woven into the dialogue. Well, I should say I enjoyed how well it was done. Because judging by the average book or tv show, that approach is almost always completely hamfisted and awful. But the author here does it very fittingly.

Dostojevskij1205 OP t1_j1yfukk wrote on December 28, 2022 at 9:06 AM

I did start that book a couple of days ago actually! But several people have described the trilogy as "Sanderson Lite", with the same issues in the writing style. Is that accurate at all?

Hammunition t1_j1ze5n8 wrote on December 28, 2022 at 3:18 PM

It's been a while since I read them, but no I didn't get that impression. I read the first few Mistborn books a couple years ago and had some of the same issues as you. Some people really enjoy how every little detail of how the magic works is explained in different ways more than once. And in that way Licanius is Sanderson-lite I guess. It's not overexplained at all. And not everything is explained in detail because the focus is on other aspects of the story and characters.

Personally, I prefer books that go even further away from the hard magic. Like Earthsea and Lord of the Rings. But Licanius is a good middle ground that I still enjoyed. Same for Name of the Wind and The Fifth Season, both of those have a detailed magic system that is understandable, but the pages of the book don't revolve around it.