"You, my friends, are not boring or lame."
March 24, 2023 10:55 AM Subscribe
Brandon Sanderson (Reddit, 03/23/2023), "On the Wired Article": "Honestly, I'm a guy who enjoys his job, loves his family, and is a little obsessive about his stories ... I can see how it is difficult to write an article about me." Additional context by Janet Manley (LitHub, 03/24/2023), "Read the meanest literary profile of the year (so far) ... and the subject's response": "Does Kehe insult Sanderson’s writing, or Sanderson, or Sanderson's Mormonism? Yes. All of those things." The Wired article by Jason Kehe (03/23/2023), "Brandon Sanderson Is Your God": "I realize, in a panic, that I now have a problem. Sanderson is excited to talk about his reputation. He's excited, really, to talk about anything. But none of his self-analysis is, for my purposes, exciting" (Wayback Machine).
I'm pretty sure if I had to choose between having an extended dinner with Sanderson or the Wired writer, Sanderson would win in a heartbeat. (Not to mention reading works by either of them.) The Wired writer comes across as wanting to be something like a more couth Hunter S. Thompson who could write a takedown on someone and have merit to what he said beyond the spectacle of brutalizing the subject. "OMG, they have different tastes in salt that I consider more pedestrian than mine. Laaaaaameeee."
And I'm pretty sure this is just rage-bait to get clicks from a well-liked author's fandom because they couldn't come up with an interesting story over the course of four days or whatever. So speaking of shameless online antics...
My one interaction with Sanderson was a pleasant exchange on Reddit when it was announced he was taking over the Wheel of Time series about the problems with the Mormon Church regarding LGBTQ issues.
posted by Candleman at 11:28 AM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
And I'm pretty sure this is just rage-bait to get clicks from a well-liked author's fandom because they couldn't come up with an interesting story over the course of four days or whatever. So speaking of shameless online antics...
My one interaction with Sanderson was a pleasant exchange on Reddit when it was announced he was taking over the Wheel of Time series about the problems with the Mormon Church regarding LGBTQ issues.
posted by Candleman at 11:28 AM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
I had to google who this guy was.
posted by peacesign at 11:30 AM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by peacesign at 11:30 AM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
Decades ago, speculative fiction's mad alchemist Paul Di Filippo had a fairly frustrating time writing for Wired. His account of the experience, entitled "THE JOY OF CORPORATE JOURNALISM, BY J. IVES TURNKEY", and the article whose editorial process it describes, "GLASS ACT" have largely been scrubbed from the Internet (perhaps because it ruffled too many feathers and it eventually made sense to make nice), but the Wayback Machine remembers all.
To my mind, even though this critique was written such a long time ago, it continues to cut right to the core of the limits of the Wired worldview, in which the journalist's role is to celebrate larger-than-life Thought Leaders who are the sole proprietors of some Big Idea that they, demigod-like, will use to sweep clean the various Augean stables of the world. There's an addiction to a concept of "genius" that pervades Silicon Valley and the VC tech world and Wired has stayed squarely on that brand since its inception. And once Di Filippo had revealed the magic trick, any appeal Wired had for me melted away. Almost without exception, when the Internet points me to some piece they've published, seeing that they're still locked into that approach immediately sours the piece.
So I'm completely unsurprised to see this approach fall so completely flat when faced with someone who isn't trying to sell themselves as a visionary, who treats their job like it's work and works diligently every day, and who unironically and unpretentiously enjoys the things they enjoy. And in spite of it all, the article is still desperate to try, somehow, to deify its subject, because it's literally the only card Wired has ever had in its meager hand.
posted by belarius at 11:32 AM on March 24, 2023 [47 favorites]
To my mind, even though this critique was written such a long time ago, it continues to cut right to the core of the limits of the Wired worldview, in which the journalist's role is to celebrate larger-than-life Thought Leaders who are the sole proprietors of some Big Idea that they, demigod-like, will use to sweep clean the various Augean stables of the world. There's an addiction to a concept of "genius" that pervades Silicon Valley and the VC tech world and Wired has stayed squarely on that brand since its inception. And once Di Filippo had revealed the magic trick, any appeal Wired had for me melted away. Almost without exception, when the Internet points me to some piece they've published, seeing that they're still locked into that approach immediately sours the piece.
So I'm completely unsurprised to see this approach fall so completely flat when faced with someone who isn't trying to sell themselves as a visionary, who treats their job like it's work and works diligently every day, and who unironically and unpretentiously enjoys the things they enjoy. And in spite of it all, the article is still desperate to try, somehow, to deify its subject, because it's literally the only card Wired has ever had in its meager hand.
posted by belarius at 11:32 AM on March 24, 2023 [47 favorites]
I was in a writing group in a bookstore years ago and Brandon Sanderson and author friends (I think it was the Writing Excuses group) were in there and came by to say hello. I can say in person he was a good egg, and seems like one online as well.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:36 AM on March 24, 2023
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:36 AM on March 24, 2023
Upon reading the article, hmmm, yeah, it is kind of dickish. "I don't like this guy, I find him boring, why do other people like him?!?! Waaaaah!!!!" *eye-roll* Author does come off as kind of a wanky brat that he's been assigned to deal with a nice Mormon.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:41 AM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:41 AM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
If anything, the profile wasn't mean enough.
Like, imagine if it were written by an avid fantasy fan who was able to hate on Sanderson in a comprehensive fantasy-expert way, so that there was more than the tired old "Tolkein is for grownups, and he's not Tolkien. " Or imagine a bileous takedown of Sanderson's Mormonism by someone with a real axe to grind (an ex Mormon, I'm assuming). Or, I dunno, an acidic anarchist takedown of his magic system ravings, starting with the word "system".
Sanderson's work seems kinda bland and nice to me, which I guess is why his hit piece comes across as kinda bland and nice. I was hoping for scorched earth.
posted by surlyben at 11:47 AM on March 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
Like, imagine if it were written by an avid fantasy fan who was able to hate on Sanderson in a comprehensive fantasy-expert way, so that there was more than the tired old "Tolkein is for grownups, and he's not Tolkien. " Or imagine a bileous takedown of Sanderson's Mormonism by someone with a real axe to grind (an ex Mormon, I'm assuming). Or, I dunno, an acidic anarchist takedown of his magic system ravings, starting with the word "system".
Sanderson's work seems kinda bland and nice to me, which I guess is why his hit piece comes across as kinda bland and nice. I was hoping for scorched earth.
posted by surlyben at 11:47 AM on March 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
Yeah, I can't imagine how anyone would, as writing this, would feel good about this. It's pretty straightforward to say "this is who this guy is and it's a bit odd" without being a dick, particularly to the fandom. Keha says he's a scifi/fantasty fan - he knows how much crap the genre community catches for being passionate about these worlds/stories and he still proceeds to crap all over it.
I think Janey Manley is being kind when they describe the piece as "lightly elitist" - it's very nose sniffy elitist.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:48 AM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think Janey Manley is being kind when they describe the piece as "lightly elitist" - it's very nose sniffy elitist.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:48 AM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I like Sanderson's books and have no opinion on the character of the author himself, but his strengths and weaknesses as an author are partly related to how explicit the mechanics of magic are in his worlds. It helps him avoid hand-wavy plot points where characters just dip into a bag of endless power to get out of any situation without cost, but at the same time it focuses on details other writers would leave as backstory and character interactions feel slightly secondary? It's hard for me to articulate, but he's one step from the litrpg subgenre in some ways. There is not really a sense of the numinous to his fantasy, it reads to me often as if a hard sci-fi author was taking a hand at writing fantasy. Sometimes I want an author who reads like an underdog, whose scars and survived traumas are close to the surface of their work, sometimes I want clean escapism where the tension only ratchets one notch. For the latter, Sanderson is as decent a choice as any.
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:50 AM on March 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:50 AM on March 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
My only prior knowledge about Sanderson was his support for the sad and rabid puppies when they first tried to take over the Hugo Awards, so I’ll say that this piece did a lot to rehabilitate his image. I don’t exactly remember what he said, but it was something along the lines of there are good people on both sides and everyone has a point.
Actually, his response to Kehe puts his support for the puppies in context, because temperamentally he just wants to see the best in people, an approach which works wonders in the context of someone with less power than him being mean to him, and not so much when faced with people trying to destroy a beloved public institution.
Oh, one more thing… it’s odd what a restrictive definition Kehe has of what constitutes good writing. As far as I can tell, his only criteria is sentence construction, that a good writer is someone who fashions euphonious sentences. Even the canon features lots of writers who no one reads for their sentences, but their ideas. George Eliot doesn’t dazzle with her words, but her thought, to give an example.
Sanderson is clearly very good at certain aspects of writing which is what entrances his fans, and that Kehe seems unable to see beyond the surface of the prose is fairly striking, even as he lays out those qualities in the article. I wondered for a while if Kehe was deliberately setting himself up as a foil to Sanderson, to draw out what the latter does well, but by the end I was convinced that it was accidental. Either way, I came out of this article with a much higher opinion of Sanderson than I had before.
posted by Kattullus at 11:55 AM on March 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
Actually, his response to Kehe puts his support for the puppies in context, because temperamentally he just wants to see the best in people, an approach which works wonders in the context of someone with less power than him being mean to him, and not so much when faced with people trying to destroy a beloved public institution.
Oh, one more thing… it’s odd what a restrictive definition Kehe has of what constitutes good writing. As far as I can tell, his only criteria is sentence construction, that a good writer is someone who fashions euphonious sentences. Even the canon features lots of writers who no one reads for their sentences, but their ideas. George Eliot doesn’t dazzle with her words, but her thought, to give an example.
Sanderson is clearly very good at certain aspects of writing which is what entrances his fans, and that Kehe seems unable to see beyond the surface of the prose is fairly striking, even as he lays out those qualities in the article. I wondered for a while if Kehe was deliberately setting himself up as a foil to Sanderson, to draw out what the latter does well, but by the end I was convinced that it was accidental. Either way, I came out of this article with a much higher opinion of Sanderson than I had before.
posted by Kattullus at 11:55 AM on March 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
For me, the most eye-rolling part of Kehe's article was when he was complaining about Sanderson's prose and the fantasy writer he held up as the ideal prose stylist was ... Tolkien.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of Tolkien and he was great at many things, and his prose was sometimes, frankly, plodding. It could be beautiful, too, but there are plods.
Basically, if you admire Tolkien as a writer, you should already be aware that beautiful prose is NOT the be-all and end-all of good writing, and that other factors can matter very much -- imagination, originality, plot, worldbuilding, theme, scope, character arc, etc., etc., etc. Because holding up Tolkien as the most sophisticated of prose writers ever to put pen to paper just makes you look like a doof.
(Incidentally, I personally think Sanderson has both brilliant hits and mediocre misses in his work, but brilliant hits is more than most writers ever get. And I'm not reading them for the prose FFS.)
posted by kyrademon at 11:56 AM on March 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
Now, don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of Tolkien and he was great at many things, and his prose was sometimes, frankly, plodding. It could be beautiful, too, but there are plods.
Basically, if you admire Tolkien as a writer, you should already be aware that beautiful prose is NOT the be-all and end-all of good writing, and that other factors can matter very much -- imagination, originality, plot, worldbuilding, theme, scope, character arc, etc., etc., etc. Because holding up Tolkien as the most sophisticated of prose writers ever to put pen to paper just makes you look like a doof.
(Incidentally, I personally think Sanderson has both brilliant hits and mediocre misses in his work, but brilliant hits is more than most writers ever get. And I'm not reading them for the prose FFS.)
posted by kyrademon at 11:56 AM on March 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
He reminds me a little of Isaac Asimov - someone who writes very quickly, compulsively, and with a pretty straightforward or even bland style. Also, no sex.
Part of the secret is, once you have a certain corpus of works in print, they all support each other. Each additional book just adds to the network. Asimov got onto the nonfiction gravy train for many years, partly because he could write things very quickly that he knew would sell - "Asimov's Guide to Physics" or whatever was pretty simple to churn out, and was guaranteed to sell to pretty much every library in the country, because "Asimov's Guide to Chemistry," "Asimov's Guide to Biology," "Asimov's Guide to World History," etc etc etc had all already sold the same.
Writing the one greatest book in history is not really the way to literary success (if by that, you mean making a lot of money selling books - or even just supporting yourself), but writing a couple hundred decent books surely is.
The same thing seems to work for Sanderson. And if it does, so what?
Also, workaholics are usually very boring people. If they were more exciting/interesting they would be out doing exciting and interesting things instead of staying home and writing, writing, writing.
posted by flug at 11:58 AM on March 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
Part of the secret is, once you have a certain corpus of works in print, they all support each other. Each additional book just adds to the network. Asimov got onto the nonfiction gravy train for many years, partly because he could write things very quickly that he knew would sell - "Asimov's Guide to Physics" or whatever was pretty simple to churn out, and was guaranteed to sell to pretty much every library in the country, because "Asimov's Guide to Chemistry," "Asimov's Guide to Biology," "Asimov's Guide to World History," etc etc etc had all already sold the same.
Writing the one greatest book in history is not really the way to literary success (if by that, you mean making a lot of money selling books - or even just supporting yourself), but writing a couple hundred decent books surely is.
The same thing seems to work for Sanderson. And if it does, so what?
Also, workaholics are usually very boring people. If they were more exciting/interesting they would be out doing exciting and interesting things instead of staying home and writing, writing, writing.
posted by flug at 11:58 AM on March 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
I dunno, I read the article as kinda fond and admiring of Sanderson, and sweet about his fans. It's possible that that's because my own take on Sanderson is that he seems like a nice guy and a very intelligent writer whose books don't interest me at all, so the Wired piece felt like it reflected how I already feel about the guy (and about fantasy fans, many of whom are my friends). He strikes me as the world's best dungeon master: ingeniously well-wrought worlds, characters who operate perfectly with one another, and while I don't want to listen to him talk about his latest world for three hours at a party, some of my closest friends would respond to that like it's catnip.
And maybe it's that I grew up reading far worse prose-writers like Dan Brown, so "his writing style isn't great" strikes me as less insulting than, say, Matt Taibbi writing about Thomas Friedman. There's nothing wrong about writing sorta-mediocre sentences if you're doing plenty of other things with your writing, and Sanderson clearly does, which the article acknowledges. But his writing style is pretty bland, and it's kinda fun to focus a profile on that.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:58 AM on March 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
And maybe it's that I grew up reading far worse prose-writers like Dan Brown, so "his writing style isn't great" strikes me as less insulting than, say, Matt Taibbi writing about Thomas Friedman. There's nothing wrong about writing sorta-mediocre sentences if you're doing plenty of other things with your writing, and Sanderson clearly does, which the article acknowledges. But his writing style is pretty bland, and it's kinda fun to focus a profile on that.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:58 AM on March 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
Sanderson is not for me, and, based on his rabid/sad puppies involvement and his chosen religious affiliation, I suspect if we dug down not very far at all, we'd find his politics are not for Mefi, but, I must say: first, this is the perfect unbothered response from a guy sitting on a pile of money, and, second, it's actually a fairly elegant though low-key burn. It's hard to combine the two. This is how the people Wired have worshipped such as Musk should be responding to rock-throwing from the smallfolk. Honestly, kinda impressed.
posted by praemunire at 12:04 PM on March 24, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:04 PM on March 24, 2023 [19 favorites]
About to dive into this with glee. A friend of mine who is a published (debut book out this year) fantasy author asked me what I knew about this thing last night and filled me in on all the gossip, which made it sound really interesting to read even though the characterization of Sanderson everywhere else but this Wired article seems to be that he's Canadian in his niceness.
(His books are not for me; I gave up WOT before he was attached; but my niblings love his work.)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 12:05 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
(His books are not for me; I gave up WOT before he was attached; but my niblings love his work.)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 12:05 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have tried reading a couple of Sanderson's books and they sure are... eminently functional. Mostly I just remember being told again and again and again how a protagonist used his power of Pushing things. Every time. You'd think that after an entire sequence devoted to him moodily flying around the city by Pushing against spent bullet casings (he can only Push metal, you see) and Storing his weight in his special magic armbands, then in the middle of a fight sequence next chapter you could just write that he flew up out of the way of a blow, but no, he drops a bullet and he Pushes off of it, then he Pushes against the iron railings above to change the arc, and... there were characters and a story somewhere in there I guess beneath the endless litany of ways this dude used his power, but that's all I can remember. I gave up halfway through.
I can see the appeal, they're competent enough YA, and if you haven't read a lifetime's worth of sf/f then it's more fun to be thinking about the ways these things work, but I just need... more than a sixth-grade level in my reading at this point in my life.
posted by egypturnash at 12:06 PM on March 24, 2023 [15 favorites]
I can see the appeal, they're competent enough YA, and if you haven't read a lifetime's worth of sf/f then it's more fun to be thinking about the ways these things work, but I just need... more than a sixth-grade level in my reading at this point in my life.
posted by egypturnash at 12:06 PM on March 24, 2023 [15 favorites]
(Dude also makes a ton more money than me cranking out reams of this purely functional prose so obviously there's a need it's filling.)
posted by egypturnash at 12:07 PM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 12:07 PM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
Oh dear, a popular author who a lot of people like didn't manage to do two incompatible things at once: 1) surprise and delight a hyper-educated writer who has learned and read so much that common patterns, structures, and vocabulary frustrate and bore him, and 2) comfort and excite thousands of young, lonely, eager readers who would be at least a little, and possibly a lot, alienated by sophisticated prose structure and literary innovations for which they have no context.
What really gets me is this quote at the end of the Wired article: "What I do know, now, is this: So many of us mistake sentences for story, but story is the thing. Things happening. Characters changing. Surprise endings."
He wrote that _after_ complaining about Sanderson's sentences, vocabulary, and prose that's measured at a "sixth-grade reading level."
Hey, dude, what do you think communication _is_? What do you think being a writer _is_?
posted by amtho at 12:08 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
What really gets me is this quote at the end of the Wired article: "What I do know, now, is this: So many of us mistake sentences for story, but story is the thing. Things happening. Characters changing. Surprise endings."
He wrote that _after_ complaining about Sanderson's sentences, vocabulary, and prose that's measured at a "sixth-grade reading level."
Hey, dude, what do you think communication _is_? What do you think being a writer _is_?
posted by amtho at 12:08 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
(I got so bored during the Tolkien books. Any writer who demands their fantasy be Tolkien-esque gets a bit of a side eye from me)
posted by Going To Maine at 12:11 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 12:11 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm a Sanderson fan. Not a hardcore, all-the-merch-and-cons-and-stuff type, but I'll buy the Kindle or paperbacks of all his stuff at least. (I never even tried Wheel of Time because of a friend's criticism of Robert Jordan, and it just never grabbed my interest. ) My two criticisms of his writing are:
- the worldbuilding/hard magic systems, even though they generally work well, sometimes are explained in big exposition dumps that read like an RPG manual. At least it's interesting game mechanics.
- sometimes his treatment of women comes off as a little weird. Much less so than a lot of male fantasy authors, though -- I'm rereading Gene Wolfe right now and, uh, wow. And IMHO Sanderson has gotten better about it with more recent books.
Is he a "great author?" Probably not. But he entertains me a lot. I like the humor, I like the characters, I often really dig some things about the worldbuilding, and I especially like the big emotional payoff moments and the big "oh shit" revelation moments.
Kehe came off as really obsessed with the whole Mormon thing, and almost like someone who doesn't really read fantasy. I didn't know Sanderson was Mormon until it was pointed out somewhere online. The thing I've noted about religion in his books is the number of times the plot has wound up being "kill God to save the world."
posted by Foosnark at 12:11 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
- the worldbuilding/hard magic systems, even though they generally work well, sometimes are explained in big exposition dumps that read like an RPG manual. At least it's interesting game mechanics.
- sometimes his treatment of women comes off as a little weird. Much less so than a lot of male fantasy authors, though -- I'm rereading Gene Wolfe right now and, uh, wow. And IMHO Sanderson has gotten better about it with more recent books.
Is he a "great author?" Probably not. But he entertains me a lot. I like the humor, I like the characters, I often really dig some things about the worldbuilding, and I especially like the big emotional payoff moments and the big "oh shit" revelation moments.
Kehe came off as really obsessed with the whole Mormon thing, and almost like someone who doesn't really read fantasy. I didn't know Sanderson was Mormon until it was pointed out somewhere online. The thing I've noted about religion in his books is the number of times the plot has wound up being "kill God to save the world."
posted by Foosnark at 12:11 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
I read Sanderson's response with the Pratchett discussion and then the Wired article, and... that shower. Did this guy... build a Bloody Stupid Johnson-style shower? in his guest suite?
Also: name-checking famously prolific fantasy author Terry Pratchett was a nice touch, and if I remember Going Postal right, it tips its hat to the also famously prolific author Anthony Trollope.
(I've never gotten around to reading Sanderson, but I've been aware of him for years.)
posted by mersen at 12:14 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also: name-checking famously prolific fantasy author Terry Pratchett was a nice touch, and if I remember Going Postal right, it tips its hat to the also famously prolific author Anthony Trollope.
(I've never gotten around to reading Sanderson, but I've been aware of him for years.)
posted by mersen at 12:14 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I kind of suspect Mormon weirds some people out if you haven't spent enough time with Mormons--and also I note the author flew to Utah, the capital of Mormonland. I grew up with friends/neighbors who were Mormon even though I'm not from Utah and frankly, they weren't very different from everyone else other than they had to go to that Mormon church school thing before they went to regular school in the morning. (And presumably weren't drinking/caffeinated.) I haven't been to Utah but I would imagine it might be weird for a non-Mormon going to a majority-Mormon state, especially if this guy's self-concept is edgy and hardcore or whatever.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:17 PM on March 24, 2023
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:17 PM on March 24, 2023
i think more and more, the obsession w/ world buoilding in fantasy and sf preclude genuine questions--why are you building this world, what are the moral or social consquences of this world; and i als worry that world building happens at the expense of charachter or thematic devolpment.
i also worry about how sexless these worlds built are, and how violent they are.
also, also, i think we need to start talking pretty plainly about how bad the wiring is, how the sentences fial to hang, abut how the cult of narrative kills anything else.
(there is an essay to write about Sanderson vs Card vs Brian Evenson (esp Evenson--I wonder if Sanderson and Everson are ever in a room together, I wonder what it means that Sanderson is allowed to teach at BYU and Evenson is not even allowed in the church)
posted by PinkMoose at 12:22 PM on March 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
i also worry about how sexless these worlds built are, and how violent they are.
also, also, i think we need to start talking pretty plainly about how bad the wiring is, how the sentences fial to hang, abut how the cult of narrative kills anything else.
(there is an essay to write about Sanderson vs Card vs Brian Evenson (esp Evenson--I wonder if Sanderson and Everson are ever in a room together, I wonder what it means that Sanderson is allowed to teach at BYU and Evenson is not even allowed in the church)
posted by PinkMoose at 12:22 PM on March 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
Sanderson is the kind of guy who, when Covid opened up a significant portion of his time to use as he wished, sat down and wrote four extra novels. As far as I can tell, he's a very genuine person who believes in writing, kindness and Mormonism. I've never heard of anyone complaining about interactions with him. I understand the criticism of his works... Sometimes they are pedestrian and a little too caught up in describing the magic system du jour, but that's about the worst that can be said there. Love hate or indifferent, I don't think there's any hidden depths to Sanderson. He's a smart guy who expends his energies on writing and being nice. I'll take more people like him any day.
posted by Jacen at 12:24 PM on March 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 12:24 PM on March 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
From the Wired article:
he says he wears [a blazer] because it makes him look professorial. It doesn’t. He isn’t.
And yet, he made $55 million last year and had his books read by millions of people, and the journalist didn’t.
Sanderson is not my type of writer and his books and his life might well be extremely dull. However, they led to this naked display of petty envy and jealousy, which is fascinating, in a train wreck kind of way.
I hope this isn’t the most interesting thing this journalist ever produces, but it might be.
posted by rpfields at 12:29 PM on March 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
he says he wears [a blazer] because it makes him look professorial. It doesn’t. He isn’t.
And yet, he made $55 million last year and had his books read by millions of people, and the journalist didn’t.
Sanderson is not my type of writer and his books and his life might well be extremely dull. However, they led to this naked display of petty envy and jealousy, which is fascinating, in a train wreck kind of way.
I hope this isn’t the most interesting thing this journalist ever produces, but it might be.
posted by rpfields at 12:29 PM on March 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
I am not a Sanderson fan; I don't think his books are bad or look down on them as being at a "sixth-grade reading level". Heck, I'm in my 40s and I read a lot of churned-out pulpish YA fiction. A lot a lot. Sanderson's books in particular just aren't for me, and that's fine. And, even if I'm not a fan of his works, his response in that Reddit thread did make me just a little bit a fan of Sanderson himself. What a well-written, measured, compassionate response. We could use more of that.
posted by xedrik at 12:38 PM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by xedrik at 12:38 PM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
I kind of suspect Mormon weirds some people out if you haven't spent enough time with Mormons...
"At the same time, I accept and sustain the leaders of the LDS church. I believe that a prophet of God has said that widespread legislation to approve gay marriage will bring pain and suffering to all involved. I trust those whom I have accepted as my spiritual leades. I feel that what they have said is God's will."
You don't need to spend more time with Mormons, you need to believe them when they tell you who they are.
If you're about to tell me these screen caps are old, here he is six months ago politely reaffirming them.
Perhaps I should have more patience for those still in the "maybe there's still a way we can be neutral in the face of oppression" phase. Metafilter has moved on from Scott Adams, Brendan Eich, and JK Rowling (and hopefully from Steve Pinker and JD Vance too), and I await the day when Brandon Sanderson's gentle politeness will lose its effectiveness as a shield.
Meanwhile, Sanderson will continue to provide the LDS church with millions of dollars.
posted by AlSweigart at 12:39 PM on March 24, 2023 [34 favorites]
"At the same time, I accept and sustain the leaders of the LDS church. I believe that a prophet of God has said that widespread legislation to approve gay marriage will bring pain and suffering to all involved. I trust those whom I have accepted as my spiritual leades. I feel that what they have said is God's will."
You don't need to spend more time with Mormons, you need to believe them when they tell you who they are.
If you're about to tell me these screen caps are old, here he is six months ago politely reaffirming them.
Perhaps I should have more patience for those still in the "maybe there's still a way we can be neutral in the face of oppression" phase. Metafilter has moved on from Scott Adams, Brendan Eich, and JK Rowling (and hopefully from Steve Pinker and JD Vance too), and I await the day when Brandon Sanderson's gentle politeness will lose its effectiveness as a shield.
Meanwhile, Sanderson will continue to provide the LDS church with millions of dollars.
posted by AlSweigart at 12:39 PM on March 24, 2023 [34 favorites]
If you think Sanderson's "the church's general stance on LGBTQ people is not where I, as a liberal member of the church, would like it to be" is equivalent to JK Rowling's anti-trans stance then I'm not sure we are speaking the same language.
posted by Foosnark at 1:00 PM on March 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Foosnark at 1:00 PM on March 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
HAHAHAHA, I read all this thinking I had read some books by Brandon Sanderson and found them fine while they were going on but eminently forgettable. Turns out the books I was thinking of were by Patrick Rothfuss though. I think maybe I just am not much of a fantasy reader
posted by potrzebie at 1:11 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 1:11 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
He seems like a nice enough guy but this...this is truly disturbing.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:14 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:14 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
If you think Sanderson's "the church's general stance on LGBTQ people is not where I, as a liberal member of the church, would like it to be"
More precisely, Sanderson's "I believe God thinks gay marriage will wreak harm on the world." Which is different in kind from your paraphrase.
Within certain constraints, it is possible to belong to a large institution without endorsing, or being moral responsible, for all its tenets. You may be working for change internally. You may be ashamed of that particular aspect, yet not so much as to think it outweighs your reasons for belonging. It's a nuanced question. But when you're like, yeah, I do think God is against gay marriage, you've bought that gay marriage stance.
posted by praemunire at 1:15 PM on March 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
More precisely, Sanderson's "I believe God thinks gay marriage will wreak harm on the world." Which is different in kind from your paraphrase.
Within certain constraints, it is possible to belong to a large institution without endorsing, or being moral responsible, for all its tenets. You may be working for change internally. You may be ashamed of that particular aspect, yet not so much as to think it outweighs your reasons for belonging. It's a nuanced question. But when you're like, yeah, I do think God is against gay marriage, you've bought that gay marriage stance.
posted by praemunire at 1:15 PM on March 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
He seems like a nice enough guy but this...this is truly disturbing.
That seems like a Mormon thing. I had a Mormon coworker whose wife was in unbelievable pain from suffering stones during pregnancy (can't remember if it was kidney or gall) but refused all painkillers.
Personally I've had fillings done without Novocaine just because I hate my mouth being numb the whole damn day. I had a really deft dentist though. No way would I do a procedure like impacted wisdom teeth without local.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:23 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
That seems like a Mormon thing. I had a Mormon coworker whose wife was in unbelievable pain from suffering stones during pregnancy (can't remember if it was kidney or gall) but refused all painkillers.
Personally I've had fillings done without Novocaine just because I hate my mouth being numb the whole damn day. I had a really deft dentist though. No way would I do a procedure like impacted wisdom teeth without local.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:23 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sanderson's "the church's general stance on LGBTQ people is not where I, as a liberal member of the church, would like it to be"
Being neutral in the face of oppression is not neutral. It always helps the oppressor. (And I have no qualms calling what LGBT folks are facing right now oppression.)
Oh, if Sanderson wants to stay within the LDS church and not leave over LGBT issues, I can maybe see that. Maybe. A little. For better or worse, there's more to the LDS church than its homophobia.
Sanderson tells the questioner in the AMA, "Thank you for a bold but not insulting phrasing of that question." But if he's afraid of sounding insulting or unwilling to just come out and say, "It's perfectly okay to be gay" or "The LDS church's views are homophobic and wrong"... he's not being bold and I doubt how hard he's pushing the church towards reform. At best, he's being a coward. At worst, he's being smarter about his private views than Scott Adams.
As I said, I await the day when Brandon Sanderson's gentle politeness will lose its effectiveness as a shield among Mefites.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:28 PM on March 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
Being neutral in the face of oppression is not neutral. It always helps the oppressor. (And I have no qualms calling what LGBT folks are facing right now oppression.)
Oh, if Sanderson wants to stay within the LDS church and not leave over LGBT issues, I can maybe see that. Maybe. A little. For better or worse, there's more to the LDS church than its homophobia.
Sanderson tells the questioner in the AMA, "Thank you for a bold but not insulting phrasing of that question." But if he's afraid of sounding insulting or unwilling to just come out and say, "It's perfectly okay to be gay" or "The LDS church's views are homophobic and wrong"... he's not being bold and I doubt how hard he's pushing the church towards reform. At best, he's being a coward. At worst, he's being smarter about his private views than Scott Adams.
As I said, I await the day when Brandon Sanderson's gentle politeness will lose its effectiveness as a shield among Mefites.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:28 PM on March 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
More precisely, Sanderson's "I believe God thinks gay marriage will wreak harm on the world." Which is different in kind from your paraphrase.
It wasn't a paraphrase, it was directly quoted from the second sentence in the screenshot that you linked. Meanwhile, I can't find any reference to gay marriage in that screenshot.
posted by Foosnark at 1:29 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
It wasn't a paraphrase, it was directly quoted from the second sentence in the screenshot that you linked. Meanwhile, I can't find any reference to gay marriage in that screenshot.
posted by Foosnark at 1:29 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Interesting Twitter thread from Cate Eland, pointing out how oblivious Kehe is to the work women put into making it possible for Sanderson to keep up his publishing rate. She also highlights the incredibly odd way Kehe describes his dinner conversation with Sanderson’s wife.
posted by Kattullus at 1:54 PM on March 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 1:54 PM on March 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
The Wired piece is, as the kids say (or used to say? get off my lawn), hella cringe. Opening your long-form profile piece by complaining about getting the assignment is, um, a bold choice, and I was hoping maybe he'd have some sort of plot twist where Sanderson actually does turn out to be really charismatic or interesting or draw the author in, in some way. But no. He decided the guy was boring at the outset, then met the dude, confirmed his prior biases, and wrote it up.
What confuses me a little is why did the editor run with it?
Like, is Wired that short on material that they have to publish this sort of phoned-in hack job? When the draft landed on the editor's desk, he could have just said "uh, thanks but no thanks" and sent someone else to interview Sanderson a second time. It doesn't sound like the guy's schedule is exactly a brick wall of press engagements.
Maybe it's because I'm old, or maybe it's just a change in the cultural undercurrent, but I don't find the sort of detached cynicism that Kehe seems to be shooting for appealing in the slightest.
I'd much rather read something earnest, whether it's because they're a serious superfan of Sanderson or hate him. As others have said, why not send someone who has a fucking opinion? Like an ex-Mormon, or an author who writes in the genre (bet there are a lot of them who have Strong Opinions, given the amount of money he's raking in), or, I dunno, a sex-positive feminist? I bet any of them could have gotten something interesting out of a few hours with Sanderson.
But I guess maybe that editor is having the last laugh, since I definitely just read Kehe's article only because it's bad; a "better" profile of Sanderson might have flown right under the radar.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:14 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
What confuses me a little is why did the editor run with it?
Like, is Wired that short on material that they have to publish this sort of phoned-in hack job? When the draft landed on the editor's desk, he could have just said "uh, thanks but no thanks" and sent someone else to interview Sanderson a second time. It doesn't sound like the guy's schedule is exactly a brick wall of press engagements.
Maybe it's because I'm old, or maybe it's just a change in the cultural undercurrent, but I don't find the sort of detached cynicism that Kehe seems to be shooting for appealing in the slightest.
I'd much rather read something earnest, whether it's because they're a serious superfan of Sanderson or hate him. As others have said, why not send someone who has a fucking opinion? Like an ex-Mormon, or an author who writes in the genre (bet there are a lot of them who have Strong Opinions, given the amount of money he's raking in), or, I dunno, a sex-positive feminist? I bet any of them could have gotten something interesting out of a few hours with Sanderson.
But I guess maybe that editor is having the last laugh, since I definitely just read Kehe's article only because it's bad; a "better" profile of Sanderson might have flown right under the radar.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:14 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't understand the derision towards Mormonism. Sure, all the background stuff sounds like fantasy, but, don't all religions?
posted by sid at 2:22 PM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by sid at 2:22 PM on March 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
Opening your long-form profile piece by complaining about getting the assignment is, um, a bold choice
Isn't that every Caity Weaver piece Metafilter fawns over? It's hacky.
However, in this case, sending a hack writer to profile a hack writer seems appropriate.
(In honour of Sanderson's wild popularity on reddit, I am wearing a fedora as I type this comment.)
posted by betweenthebars at 2:26 PM on March 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
Isn't that every Caity Weaver piece Metafilter fawns over? It's hacky.
However, in this case, sending a hack writer to profile a hack writer seems appropriate.
(In honour of Sanderson's wild popularity on reddit, I am wearing a fedora as I type this comment.)
posted by betweenthebars at 2:26 PM on March 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
He seems like a nice enough guy but this...this is truly disturbing.
Congenital insensitivity to pain and alexithymia are the terms for what Kehe is describing in that section--not sure how accurate his descriptions are though. They're disturbing in that they can cause a lot of problems for people who have those conditions, but this was the only part of the piece that really helped me connect with Sanderson. There's a lot I've recognized in how he writes that's familiar to my experience of the world as an alexithymic and otherwise neurodivergent person. It's one of the things that many people consider a flaw, which makes total sense if you're a person who regularly feels things and is wondering why his writing feels flat and lifeless. Again, idk how accurately Kehe has characterized this but I found that section the most meaningful and it saddened me that this information about Sanderson came out in such a classic "what a disgusting weirdo" way, especially because he asked Kehe not to print it.
posted by brook horse at 2:30 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
Congenital insensitivity to pain and alexithymia are the terms for what Kehe is describing in that section--not sure how accurate his descriptions are though. They're disturbing in that they can cause a lot of problems for people who have those conditions, but this was the only part of the piece that really helped me connect with Sanderson. There's a lot I've recognized in how he writes that's familiar to my experience of the world as an alexithymic and otherwise neurodivergent person. It's one of the things that many people consider a flaw, which makes total sense if you're a person who regularly feels things and is wondering why his writing feels flat and lifeless. Again, idk how accurately Kehe has characterized this but I found that section the most meaningful and it saddened me that this information about Sanderson came out in such a classic "what a disgusting weirdo" way, especially because he asked Kehe not to print it.
posted by brook horse at 2:30 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't understand the derision towards Mormonism. Sure, all the background stuff sounds like fantasy, but, don't all religions?
I don’t judge individual Mormons out of hand, no more so than any other member of a religion. But at his level of income, Sanderson’s tithing means that he’s giving millions to a church actively working towards the destruction of LGBT lives. It’s approaching Rowling levels. Sure, he’s not vindictive or viterupative like she is, but he doesn’t have to be. He’s super nice, apparently genuinely so, and I do appreciate it; in the arts, it’s underrated. But, if it hasn’t been said already, “nice is different than good.” (Another major point of Pratchett’s as well.)
That said, this article was awful, so much so that it will do nothing but good for Sanderson.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:33 PM on March 24, 2023 [19 favorites]
I don’t judge individual Mormons out of hand, no more so than any other member of a religion. But at his level of income, Sanderson’s tithing means that he’s giving millions to a church actively working towards the destruction of LGBT lives. It’s approaching Rowling levels. Sure, he’s not vindictive or viterupative like she is, but he doesn’t have to be. He’s super nice, apparently genuinely so, and I do appreciate it; in the arts, it’s underrated. But, if it hasn’t been said already, “nice is different than good.” (Another major point of Pratchett’s as well.)
That said, this article was awful, so much so that it will do nothing but good for Sanderson.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:33 PM on March 24, 2023 [19 favorites]
About the Mormon/pain meds thing - I knew a Mormon kid in college who blew out his knee while playing football. He wouldn't touch any of the pain meds they prescribed for him out of his beliefs, which is... a thing? No thank you on my part.
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:35 PM on March 24, 2023
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:35 PM on March 24, 2023
Addendum: potzrebie, I missed your comment. I had been thinking that Sanderson’s work wasn’t for me because I tried a book after he appeared on MBMBaM and seemed like fun; I wasn’t into it. But that was Rothfuss!
posted by Countess Elena at 2:37 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Countess Elena at 2:37 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
a church actively working towards the destruction of LGBT lives.
Do you have information on what they've been doing? Last I heard they supported the Respect For Marriage Act because they don't believe that the rules they have for their own members should apply to anyone else. While this is still homophobic and harmful to LGBT Mormons, it is wildly different from what JK Rowling or evangelical churches are doing. If there's been other legislation or targeted attempts to restrict the rights of LGBT people that the LDS church has supported recently I would like to know, though.
posted by brook horse at 2:42 PM on March 24, 2023
Do you have information on what they've been doing? Last I heard they supported the Respect For Marriage Act because they don't believe that the rules they have for their own members should apply to anyone else. While this is still homophobic and harmful to LGBT Mormons, it is wildly different from what JK Rowling or evangelical churches are doing. If there's been other legislation or targeted attempts to restrict the rights of LGBT people that the LDS church has supported recently I would like to know, though.
posted by brook horse at 2:42 PM on March 24, 2023
Why shouldn’t you add salt to yakisoba?
posted by Hartster at 2:42 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Hartster at 2:42 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Go up one in the twitter thread for the evils of gay marriage.
In the meantime, in the other one, "I believe in the message, teachings, and doctrine of the church." Not "the church is wrong." Nope. It may not be where he wants it to be, but that's because he feels a little uncomfy about that, not because he thinks they're wrong.
posted by praemunire at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
In the meantime, in the other one, "I believe in the message, teachings, and doctrine of the church." Not "the church is wrong." Nope. It may not be where he wants it to be, but that's because he feels a little uncomfy about that, not because he thinks they're wrong.
posted by praemunire at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
I kind of suspect Mormon weirds some people out if you haven't spent enough time with Mormons--and also I note the author flew to Utah, the capital of Mormonland. I grew up with friends/neighbors who were Mormon even though I'm not from Utah and frankly, they weren't very different from everyone else other than they had to go to that Mormon church school thing before they went to regular school in the morning. (And presumably weren't drinking/caffeinated.) I haven't been to Utah but I would imagine it might be weird for a non-Mormon going to a majority-Mormon state, especially if this guy's self-concept is edgy and hardcore or whatever.
My experience of Mormons has been that they as individuals mostly have their shit together and that makes sense because they are part of a group that is not a kind place for people who don’t have their shit together even slightly. There isn’t really a place for me in their world but as neighbors they’ve never really given me any cause to complain about them on an individual level. I imagine I’d feel the same way about Sanderson if I ever met him.
I’ve visited Utah a few times and I’m firmly of the opinion that if you can’t have fun in Utah you probably can’t have fun anywhere. Some of the best, wildest parties I’ve ever attended were in Utah. Most places in the US there’s no crossover between subcultures even when the differences between those subcultures are invisible to the outside observer. Drum and bass kids don’t hang with trance kids despite their tastes being indistinguishable to most non-EDM fans, and neither socializes in goth spaces. In Utah, though, there’s just MORMONS and EVERYONE ELSE so all of the parties I ever attended there were ravers and punks and pop fans (not to mention the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies and dickheads) all mixed together and getting along in a way I hadn’t seen before. It was great.
I’ve known a couple of non-Mormon people who have refused painkillers during dental work. They had their reasons. It’s not for me but it’s also not for me to judge; they’re not doing anyone any harm.
I haven’t read any Sanderson and I probably won’t but the Wired article reminded a time in my mid-twenties where after a couple of solid decades of every day being a fraught cycle of tension and resolution I had finally gotten to a place of relative calm and safety and I to spend a non-insignificant amout of time and money working out with my therapist how if I was finding love and happiness boring maybe love and happiness weren’t the problems and I should reflect on that.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:01 PM on March 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
My experience of Mormons has been that they as individuals mostly have their shit together and that makes sense because they are part of a group that is not a kind place for people who don’t have their shit together even slightly. There isn’t really a place for me in their world but as neighbors they’ve never really given me any cause to complain about them on an individual level. I imagine I’d feel the same way about Sanderson if I ever met him.
I’ve visited Utah a few times and I’m firmly of the opinion that if you can’t have fun in Utah you probably can’t have fun anywhere. Some of the best, wildest parties I’ve ever attended were in Utah. Most places in the US there’s no crossover between subcultures even when the differences between those subcultures are invisible to the outside observer. Drum and bass kids don’t hang with trance kids despite their tastes being indistinguishable to most non-EDM fans, and neither socializes in goth spaces. In Utah, though, there’s just MORMONS and EVERYONE ELSE so all of the parties I ever attended there were ravers and punks and pop fans (not to mention the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies and dickheads) all mixed together and getting along in a way I hadn’t seen before. It was great.
I’ve known a couple of non-Mormon people who have refused painkillers during dental work. They had their reasons. It’s not for me but it’s also not for me to judge; they’re not doing anyone any harm.
I haven’t read any Sanderson and I probably won’t but the Wired article reminded a time in my mid-twenties where after a couple of solid decades of every day being a fraught cycle of tension and resolution I had finally gotten to a place of relative calm and safety and I to spend a non-insignificant amout of time and money working out with my therapist how if I was finding love and happiness boring maybe love and happiness weren’t the problems and I should reflect on that.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:01 PM on March 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'm not at all a fan of the Mormon church but could we stick to discussing the main content of the article rather than the fact that he's Mormon? I don't view the Catholic Church as any better than the Mormons when it comes to LBGTQ rights (and several other things) but we don't have a hatefest on Catholicism every time the subject of an FPP happens to be Catholic.
The Mormon church is intensely hard to walk away from. If you do it formally, you're likely to be ostracized by your family and friends. This is even worse if you're a Utah Mormon because of how dominant it is there, dominating both politics and social life. And the level of childhood indoctrination is high compared to many other religions, which tends to live strong imprints in people's belief systems.
Which is why so many liberalish people stay in the church.
AlSweigart's "gotcha" link just reads like a guy struggling between what he's been taught all his life (and is pretty much immersed in) and what he deep down has come to believe is right.
P.S. like BrotherCaine, I have declined Novocaine for minor drillings because a small amount of pain annoys me less than the aftereffects (and it has had variable effects on me anyway as far as pain reduction). So I'm not sure why that's a gotcha either.
posted by Candleman at 3:14 PM on March 24, 2023 [11 favorites]
The Mormon church is intensely hard to walk away from. If you do it formally, you're likely to be ostracized by your family and friends. This is even worse if you're a Utah Mormon because of how dominant it is there, dominating both politics and social life. And the level of childhood indoctrination is high compared to many other religions, which tends to live strong imprints in people's belief systems.
Which is why so many liberalish people stay in the church.
AlSweigart's "gotcha" link just reads like a guy struggling between what he's been taught all his life (and is pretty much immersed in) and what he deep down has come to believe is right.
P.S. like BrotherCaine, I have declined Novocaine for minor drillings because a small amount of pain annoys me less than the aftereffects (and it has had variable effects on me anyway as far as pain reduction). So I'm not sure why that's a gotcha either.
posted by Candleman at 3:14 PM on March 24, 2023 [11 favorites]
What confuses me a little is why did the editor run with it?
Yeah, that editor should have demanded a few more re-writes to tone down the sarcasm, which would have made it a more effective criticism.
posted by ovvl at 3:39 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that editor should have demanded a few more re-writes to tone down the sarcasm, which would have made it a more effective criticism.
posted by ovvl at 3:39 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
He's 47. He's not trapped on a farm somewhere with no access to different beliefs or different kinds of people. At what point do you become responsible for your own beliefs, and the harm they cause? Characterizing it as a "gotcha" seems somewhat strange, as if it were a trick or trap. Presumably he stands behind the statement he wrote himself that "I believe in the message, teachings, and doctrine of the church."
Anyway, I'm sure many Mormons individually are lovely people but the church doctrines on these and similar matters is horrible, and it doesn't feel quite right to have a lovefest over a guy who may be personally a nice person but is still out there endorsing those beliefs, and tithing to support them. One of my earliest bosses as a lawyer was very kind to me when I was very ill during my time at his firm. If you met him, you'd think he was at least a mildly charming guy, a guy who inspires confidence in his judgment (horrible manager, but that's neither here nor there). He goes to bed at 9 pm. He gets tipsy on like one drink. I doubt he's ever spoken a slur in his life. He's out there now persecuting trans kids with one of the more "respectable" right-wing legal groups. "Nice" people still get to that place. That's really the more interesting angle to take on someone like Sanderson, I think, rather than whether he's not "exciting."
posted by praemunire at 3:41 PM on March 24, 2023 [20 favorites]
Anyway, I'm sure many Mormons individually are lovely people but the church doctrines on these and similar matters is horrible, and it doesn't feel quite right to have a lovefest over a guy who may be personally a nice person but is still out there endorsing those beliefs, and tithing to support them. One of my earliest bosses as a lawyer was very kind to me when I was very ill during my time at his firm. If you met him, you'd think he was at least a mildly charming guy, a guy who inspires confidence in his judgment (horrible manager, but that's neither here nor there). He goes to bed at 9 pm. He gets tipsy on like one drink. I doubt he's ever spoken a slur in his life. He's out there now persecuting trans kids with one of the more "respectable" right-wing legal groups. "Nice" people still get to that place. That's really the more interesting angle to take on someone like Sanderson, I think, rather than whether he's not "exciting."
posted by praemunire at 3:41 PM on March 24, 2023 [20 favorites]
Look say one thing for Mormons, they might be guided by God when it comes to marriage rules, but they do it knowing that their God has a track record of changing His mind when He needs to…
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:12 PM on March 24, 2023
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:12 PM on March 24, 2023
I was surprised to see no mention of Tracy Hickman, co-writer of a bunch of Dragonlance novels. Mormon fantasy writer, less than exalted prose, big on rules systems...
(Unlike Hickman, Sanderson is playing in his own IP sandbox and that sure seems to be working for him.)
posted by mersen at 4:24 PM on March 24, 2023
(Unlike Hickman, Sanderson is playing in his own IP sandbox and that sure seems to be working for him.)
posted by mersen at 4:24 PM on March 24, 2023
I mean, as a queer and trans person, I think that donating to specifically anti-LGBTQ groups and tithing to churches are not the same thing. 23% of the population is Catholic, 35% is evangelical--if I decided every Catholic and evangelical were inherently less worthy of support because of church doctrine (or decided whether to support them based on whether they tithed or not), despite their individual views and actions, I'd have a hard time functioning in society.
Like yeah, it is difficult and kind of weird that many of the extremely supportive people in my life tithe to the Catholic church. I always have to blink a little when I remember the person who goes to bat hardest for me as a trans person at my university also attends mass every week and tithes to the church. But the idea of equating "anyone who tithes to the Catholic church" with JK Rowling or others donating to anti-trans groups is mindboggling.
One other random observation is I'm seeing criticism of the Wired writer for having some envy of the $55 million per year.
The article says $10 million most years, but since the "$55 million last year" number is embarrassingly wrong (that number comes from the amount his Kickstarter made, which was for the costs of printing four novels + some trinkets, so a large chunk of that is taken up by manufacturing costs and is not income), so I wouldn't trust the $10 million either (I couldn't find anything corroborating this or any other number for his income).
posted by brook horse at 4:30 PM on March 24, 2023 [19 favorites]
Like yeah, it is difficult and kind of weird that many of the extremely supportive people in my life tithe to the Catholic church. I always have to blink a little when I remember the person who goes to bat hardest for me as a trans person at my university also attends mass every week and tithes to the church. But the idea of equating "anyone who tithes to the Catholic church" with JK Rowling or others donating to anti-trans groups is mindboggling.
One other random observation is I'm seeing criticism of the Wired writer for having some envy of the $55 million per year.
The article says $10 million most years, but since the "$55 million last year" number is embarrassingly wrong (that number comes from the amount his Kickstarter made, which was for the costs of printing four novels + some trinkets, so a large chunk of that is taken up by manufacturing costs and is not income), so I wouldn't trust the $10 million either (I couldn't find anything corroborating this or any other number for his income).
posted by brook horse at 4:30 PM on March 24, 2023 [19 favorites]
That said I'm definitely jealous of his shower.
posted by brook horse at 4:32 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 4:32 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
(I got so bored during the Tolkien books. Any writer who demands their fantasy be Tolkien-esque gets a bit of a side eye from me)
The good Tolkien is The Hobbit.
posted by grobstein at 4:36 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
The good Tolkien is The Hobbit.
posted by grobstein at 4:36 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
The good Tolkien is The Hobbit.
If you’re looking to fight someone today I have my copy of The Father Christmas Letters close at hand and I’m ready to go.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:47 PM on March 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
If you’re looking to fight someone today I have my copy of The Father Christmas Letters close at hand and I’m ready to go.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:47 PM on March 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
Like yeah, it is difficult and kind of weird that many of the extremely supportive people in my life tithe to the Catholic church.
There are plenty of Catholics and even some evangelicals who think their church's doctrine on this point is flat-out wrong, though. (More Catholics than evangelicals, as the evangelicals tend to leave their church for another when they figure out the shittiness of the doctrine, which is harder for Catholics.) That's not Sanderson's position, and for someone with a good income (I agree that the $55m is probably an exaggeration, but he's clearly comfy enough) not dependent on his church and plenty of access to the non-Mormon world to continue to support that particular set of doctrines is, well, disappointing.
posted by praemunire at 5:12 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
There are plenty of Catholics and even some evangelicals who think their church's doctrine on this point is flat-out wrong, though. (More Catholics than evangelicals, as the evangelicals tend to leave their church for another when they figure out the shittiness of the doctrine, which is harder for Catholics.) That's not Sanderson's position, and for someone with a good income (I agree that the $55m is probably an exaggeration, but he's clearly comfy enough) not dependent on his church and plenty of access to the non-Mormon world to continue to support that particular set of doctrines is, well, disappointing.
posted by praemunire at 5:12 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Methinks someone at Wired is soups jelly.
posted by slogger at 5:19 PM on March 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by slogger at 5:19 PM on March 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have resisted reading Sanderson for years. But I finally read the first Mistborn book earlier this year, and it was fine. Yes, I've read better, and I've stopped reading worse. But I wasn't able to put it down easily, and that's saying something.
I also thought the Wired article was fine, in a different way. Writers aren't always very interesting people, and Sanderson is probably pretty typical in that regard. I didn't find it all that insulting, and I agree pretty much with what Sanderson said on Reddit: the guy came looking for a story, couldn't really find it, and had to turn something in.
Frankly, as Brandon Sanderson has found, writing compulsively has its own rewards. I'm sure his church is very happy with him as well, if he's tithing as he should.
posted by lhauser at 6:27 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I also thought the Wired article was fine, in a different way. Writers aren't always very interesting people, and Sanderson is probably pretty typical in that regard. I didn't find it all that insulting, and I agree pretty much with what Sanderson said on Reddit: the guy came looking for a story, couldn't really find it, and had to turn something in.
Frankly, as Brandon Sanderson has found, writing compulsively has its own rewards. I'm sure his church is very happy with him as well, if he's tithing as he should.
posted by lhauser at 6:27 PM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Anytime I find a novel whose first chapter does not specifically repudiate Leviticus 20:13, I go burn down the author's house(s).
posted by mittens at 6:52 PM on March 24, 2023 [24 favorites]
posted by mittens at 6:52 PM on March 24, 2023 [24 favorites]
Mittens, I find that an unnecessarily extreme exaggeration of other MeFite’s views, but by god is it the funniest thing I’ve read all day.
posted by brook horse at 7:13 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 7:13 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
i'm glad we live in an age where people who aren't super-literary readers can still find something they enjoy. i'm not one of those people, but this is better than having only those super-literary works & a lot of people who don't read at all.
i'm a little surprised no one has mentioned what is screamingly obvious to me--that BS is on the autistic spectrum. which makes him one of the most worldly-successful members of our tribe.
the mormon thing i can do without. it's ugly, like most religions, & having nice people in it only makes the thing uglier.
posted by graywyvern at 7:30 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
i'm a little surprised no one has mentioned what is screamingly obvious to me--that BS is on the autistic spectrum. which makes him one of the most worldly-successful members of our tribe.
the mormon thing i can do without. it's ugly, like most religions, & having nice people in it only makes the thing uglier.
posted by graywyvern at 7:30 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
He writes a top shelf middlebrow spec fic. That is to say, a good-quality extruded fantasy product. EFP isn't unreadable, isn't unenjoyable, but it isn't very memorable either. I've read a dozen or more of his books on airplane rides over the past decade, and they work perfectly in that context. I hate even the best movie on an airplane, but give me a reliably distracting ext for four hours and I'm a happy clam. Sanderson does that perfectly reliably.
I do read a fair bit, but tracking back my reading habits for the past long while, it strikes that I generally only read his stuff when I want a pleasant distraction.
I still could not relate the plot of a single book though.
posted by bonehead at 7:35 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I do read a fair bit, but tracking back my reading habits for the past long while, it strikes that I generally only read his stuff when I want a pleasant distraction.
I still could not relate the plot of a single book though.
posted by bonehead at 7:35 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Decades ago, speculative fiction's mad alchemist Paul Di Filippo had a fairly frustrating time writing for Wired. His account of the experience, entitled "THE JOY OF CORPORATE JOURNALISM, BY J. IVES TURNKEY", and the article whose editorial process it describes, "GLASS ACT" have largely been scrubbed from the Internet (perhaps because it ruffled too many feathers and it eventually made sense to make nice), but the Wayback Machine remembers all.
To my mind, even though this critique was written such a long time ago, it continues to cut right to the core of the limits of the Wired worldview, in which the journalist's role is to celebrate larger-than-life Thought Leaders who are the sole proprietors of some Big Idea that they, demigod-like, will use to sweep clean the various Augean stables of the world. There's an addiction to a concept of "genius" that pervades Silicon Valley and the VC tech world and Wired has stayed squarely on that brand since its inception.
Thanks belarius! For anyone curious, here's the article as it was eventually published.
From Di Filippo's account:
To my mind, even though this critique was written such a long time ago, it continues to cut right to the core of the limits of the Wired worldview, in which the journalist's role is to celebrate larger-than-life Thought Leaders who are the sole proprietors of some Big Idea that they, demigod-like, will use to sweep clean the various Augean stables of the world. There's an addiction to a concept of "genius" that pervades Silicon Valley and the VC tech world and Wired has stayed squarely on that brand since its inception.
Thanks belarius! For anyone curious, here's the article as it was eventually published.
From Di Filippo's account:
Rainbow became semi-inarticulate. "This has to be a creation myth, Paul, a creation myth."posted by russilwvong at 7:38 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
"Listen, Rainbow, I'm not Neal Stephenson following cable-layers around the globe, or Bruce Sterling at Burning Man. Florida is not Singapore. This is about two guys building a house for a rich businessman. I can't pretend there's more to this story than there is."
Graywyvern, I have been thinking that a lot of the meanness (and tedium) of this article to me was that the fact that this guy went to interview an extremely prolific fantasy author known for highly rules- and detail-focused fantasy and then seemed disgusted and appalled to find the guy is extremely neurodivergent. Like. My man. What did you expect?
posted by brook horse at 7:44 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 7:44 PM on March 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
Mormonism is Christianity made compatible with capitalism (emphasis on personal responsibility and individual liberty, no wild stretches required to equate material wealth with virtue, a heavily material and self glorifying understanding of heaven, etc). So no matter how happy and nice they are, there's always going to be something a little off about it.
posted by Reyturner at 8:17 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Reyturner at 8:17 PM on March 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
Sanderson was on the side of the Sad Puppies? hard pass. This ain't 1953 anymore.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:33 PM on March 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:33 PM on March 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
Can't believe this jerk Wired writer is making me feel even slightly bad for Brandon Sanderson, whose writing just bored me (not even to tears) and had me reevaluating my capacity to appreciate middlebrow fantasy.
I kind of understand the article writer's impulse to push Sanderson's buttons and maybe inspire a grimdark turn away from the anodyne. I get the sense he wanted to be like Tyler Durden when he asks, "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." That's just not compatible with the physics in Sanderson's world.
posted by otsebyatina at 8:58 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I kind of understand the article writer's impulse to push Sanderson's buttons and maybe inspire a grimdark turn away from the anodyne. I get the sense he wanted to be like Tyler Durden when he asks, "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." That's just not compatible with the physics in Sanderson's world.
posted by otsebyatina at 8:58 PM on March 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Given what I've seen of Christians, I think it's already compatible?
posted by Carillon at 9:00 PM on March 24, 2023
posted by Carillon at 9:00 PM on March 24, 2023
the wired piece is trying to be a little too hunter s thompson but i suspect i’d have a similar reaction to him. he’s a committed mormon so you can take for granted that he thinks i’m destined to burn (or whatever mormons thinks happens to sodomites), so i would struggle to paint a sympathetic portrait. but we’re really burying the lead on his books. dean koonz, john grisham, dan brown, lee childs, they unload reams of trash on the world for sure, but sanderson is on a whole other level. the first book of his i found was 1200 pages. i tried reading it but it was so… nothing. nothing to say about life or love or the world just a skyscraper of nothing, not an anthology or a whole cycle of nothing but just one book of 1200 pages of it and the rest of them are the same. thousands and thousands and thousands of pages. it’s almost sinister to produce so much insignificance, such an incredible mountain of forgettable prose. and the psychology required to continue producing this logorhea is scary to contemplate. an indefatigable ostinato of avoiding reflection. i’ve wasted plenty of time on worthless page turners but this is like binge watching the color bars.
posted by dis_integration at 9:03 PM on March 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 9:03 PM on March 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
I heard that Brandon Sanderson includes too many links in his FPPs.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 2:37 AM on March 25, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 2:37 AM on March 25, 2023 [12 favorites]
And yet, he made $55 million last year and had his books read by millions of people, and the journalist didn’t.
It makes me extremely uncomfortable when people take the stance of "it doesn't matter that [person] said bad thing about [millionaire], because [millionaire] is rich and influential and [person] isn't." It's fundamentally pretty smarmy, and reduces an attempt at discourse down to "the richer and more influential person is innately superior, smarter, and more worthwhile."
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:13 AM on March 25, 2023 [13 favorites]
It makes me extremely uncomfortable when people take the stance of "it doesn't matter that [person] said bad thing about [millionaire], because [millionaire] is rich and influential and [person] isn't." It's fundamentally pretty smarmy, and reduces an attempt at discourse down to "the richer and more influential person is innately superior, smarter, and more worthwhile."
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:13 AM on March 25, 2023 [13 favorites]
It also makes me uncomfortable to associate a person's participation in a church that his family and friends belong to with the transphobia bender that JKR has been on. Sanderson was raised Mormon, attended BYU, served as a missionary, raised a Mormon family. His life has been profoundly and fundamentally oriented around his faith. It's a problematic-as-fuck faith and its holy book is so poorly-written that it... maybe explains Sanderson's prose, idk... but it's unbelievably unreasonable to think that someone whose life is that inextricably entwined with a faith is going to abruptly sever his own identity over political differences.
MetaFilter doesn't handle religion well. There's an interesting conversation to be had about a millionaire's moral culpability in donating money to the Mormon church, but—with all due respect to you intelligent, lovely, and interesting people—we are not the community to have it.
(And Gretchen Felker-Martin, whose tweets were linked above, is similarly an interesting and fun person, as well as about the last person who I'd want to have as a participant in any conversation about Things Gretchen Doesn't Like.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:17 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
MetaFilter doesn't handle religion well. There's an interesting conversation to be had about a millionaire's moral culpability in donating money to the Mormon church, but—with all due respect to you intelligent, lovely, and interesting people—we are not the community to have it.
(And Gretchen Felker-Martin, whose tweets were linked above, is similarly an interesting and fun person, as well as about the last person who I'd want to have as a participant in any conversation about Things Gretchen Doesn't Like.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:17 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted, I love when people trot out the dollars, because the writing world is full of all sorts of weird dynamics built around much of its fundamentally non-profit status, and an active aversion to writing fiction that people enjoy reading. I'm not sure whether that's smarmy or not, but many, many literary shitbags valorize nigh-unreadable garbage. At this point, at least in U.S. literary circles, the latter wildly outnumber the former, and one of the things I now look for is actual readership among authors.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:19 AM on March 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:19 AM on March 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
So it’s okay to donate milllions of dollars to a dangerous cult when you’re raised in it?
posted by sinfony at 6:16 AM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by sinfony at 6:16 AM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
A book saying nothing to you doesn’t mean it’s saying nothing. Idk what book you read but Stormlight Archives has a lot to say to me as a depressed epileptic atheist with dissociative episodes caused by trauma. Generally people talk about liking Sanderson’s characters so much because they touch on a number of real and difficult experiences in surprisingly sensitive and accurate ways—man does his research. Is it extraordinarily deep about them? No, but if I wanted something deep enough to trigger my deep seated issues I’d read some aggressively traumaporn litfic, rather than appreciating an escapist fantasy that also still reflects these pieces of myself gently and speaks to me with care about them.
posted by brook horse at 7:26 AM on March 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 7:26 AM on March 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
nothing to say about life or love or the world just a skyscraper of nothing, not an anthology or a whole cycle of nothing but just one book of 1200 pages of it
Dunno if it was the same one, but the 1200-pager that was my first and last experience with Sanderson was The Way of Kings. (IIRC this may have been a recommendation from an Ask Mefi thread about good recent SFF.) Googling it just now I see someone on Goodreads enthusiastically assuring me that the last 300 pages are the best. I'm pretty sure I "finished" the book but I can't speak to whether that review is accurate. Nor indeed can I say anything about what happened in that part of the book, as the non-page-turning parts of my brain had apparently switched off several hundred pages earlier.
Anyway I guess the interaction between two practitioners of different yet somehow equally exhaustingly dull forms of writing is slightly more interesting than either of them in isolation. The only thing that was missing from our sundae was a few sprinkles of the classically unedifying MeFi specialty "is this person/thing good or the worst moral evil that ever evilled", and now that we've added that I guess we can close the thread up.
posted by Not A Thing at 8:13 AM on March 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
Dunno if it was the same one, but the 1200-pager that was my first and last experience with Sanderson was The Way of Kings. (IIRC this may have been a recommendation from an Ask Mefi thread about good recent SFF.) Googling it just now I see someone on Goodreads enthusiastically assuring me that the last 300 pages are the best. I'm pretty sure I "finished" the book but I can't speak to whether that review is accurate. Nor indeed can I say anything about what happened in that part of the book, as the non-page-turning parts of my brain had apparently switched off several hundred pages earlier.
Anyway I guess the interaction between two practitioners of different yet somehow equally exhaustingly dull forms of writing is slightly more interesting than either of them in isolation. The only thing that was missing from our sundae was a few sprinkles of the classically unedifying MeFi specialty "is this person/thing good or the worst moral evil that ever evilled", and now that we've added that I guess we can close the thread up.
posted by Not A Thing at 8:13 AM on March 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
Having recently read the Mistborn books, I feel like Sanderson would be well suited to writing for video games. The writing itself is kind of middling but somehow compelling; it's popcorn and hot dogs. This would make it high prose for video games. His approach to magic is pretty mechanical, which also suits the video game medium.
I didn't know he was a Mormon until a couple of books in, but it definitely tracks, given the almost total lack of sex and his tendency to make up swear words instead of using real ones.
The read I got on him from the wired article is that he's really guarded, in a way that feels super familiar to my own religious upbringing (fundamentalist baptist rather than Mormon, but the cultures share a lot of DNA). This interviewer wasn't going to get past the defenses to anything interesting; as soon as he did (like the bit about not feeling pain) the conversation got shut down. Would be interesting to see if a more skilled interviewer could get more out of him
posted by JDHarper at 9:33 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
I didn't know he was a Mormon until a couple of books in, but it definitely tracks, given the almost total lack of sex and his tendency to make up swear words instead of using real ones.
The read I got on him from the wired article is that he's really guarded, in a way that feels super familiar to my own religious upbringing (fundamentalist baptist rather than Mormon, but the cultures share a lot of DNA). This interviewer wasn't going to get past the defenses to anything interesting; as soon as he did (like the bit about not feeling pain) the conversation got shut down. Would be interesting to see if a more skilled interviewer could get more out of him
posted by JDHarper at 9:33 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
Kehe wrote an enthusiastic article about R. A. Lafferty. Kehe is apparently desperate for interesting prose and should never have been asked to write about Sanderson.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:26 AM on March 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:26 AM on March 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
CW: I’m about to be very insensitive to Mormons. I grew up in the church and hold it in total contempt.
Jason Kehe’s piece, “Brandon Sanderson Is Your God,” acknowledges that 1. Lots of people find Brandon Sanderson fun to read. 2. Brandon Sanderson is a very nice person. Then Jason is mean: he suggests that Brandon’s prose is weak, and his persona is boring. Jason comes across as very self-aware that he is being rude. Brandon remains polite and engaged. That is a testament to his missionary-trained patience.
Jason needed a villain in his story. Brandon, the friendly Mormon boy, is a very poor villain. Lacking alternatives, that role fell (reluctantly) to Jason. But Jason fell short of being a compelling villain. He was Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg instead of Darth Vader. His villainy amounted to the Terminator throwing the hero against the wall (very dramatic!) instead of unceremoniously crushing his skull. I find his lack of commitment disturbing.
Brandon Sanderson dropped one conversation-worthy quote: “As I build books, God builds people.” Jason’s piece leaves it dramatically unexamined. In Sanderson’s fiction, according to Jason, “A character becomes a god, and the god beholds his planet below. If Sanderson is a writer, that is all he is doing. He is living his fantasy of godhead on Earth.” Jason seems to be willing to be impolite, even rude, to Sanderson and Mormons. Allow me to go to the Dark Side and ask the properly vicious question.
Mormons practice an earnest belief in fictional nonsense; does that help them write better science fiction and fantasy? Spoiler: yes, absolutely.
An atheist might respond that all religions amount to earnest belief in nonsense. But Mormonism is special. First, because its founding was recent. Second, because its founding documents are obvious fabrications. Even hard-core atheists must recognize that the bible is old and that some characters in the bible have been historically verified. King Herod was a real person, known in Roman records. He is recognized as real by the faithful and heathen alike. This is not the case for Mormonism. Mormon scripture lacks any independent historical corroboration.
The Book of Mormon itself was “translated” from a golden tablet (an otherwise unknown and very impractical writing medium) which was “taken into heaven.” This was convenient for the convicted fraud “prophet” who “discovered” it but failed to show it to anyone else. No one could check his work. Only Mormons put any value in the Mormon scriptures (beyond their dubious merits as bible fanfiction). This is intellectually different than, say, Pentecostal churches. Those may seem very strange to outsiders, but they still have familiar and widely respected core texts.
Faith in the authenticity of the book of Mormon is an act of mental gymnastics. It requires a person to be familiar with its preposterous origin story and believe in it anyway. Mormons practice constantly suspending their disbelief in fiction (for their whole lives, in many cases). That seems like a very useful skill for a writer of fantasy fiction. Mormons all know how to take fantasy seriously.
It goes deeper. The specific Mormon philosophical/theological beliefs are directly aligned with writing fantasy. In Sanderson’s view, the creative act of writing about fictional worlds is a direct analog to the godly act of creation. God’s work amounts to worldbuilding an epic fantasy series that is THE EARTH AND ITS PEOPLES. That resolves some of the mental conflict: Joseph Smith’s act of creating (ahem, “translating”) the Book of Mormon made its characters real in some deep spiritual sense. Mormons live according to the traditions of people that Smith wrote into existence. Mormons organize their whole lives as a fantasy novel LARP; of course they write good fantasy novels.
posted by drhex at 12:50 PM on March 25, 2023 [17 favorites]
Jason Kehe’s piece, “Brandon Sanderson Is Your God,” acknowledges that 1. Lots of people find Brandon Sanderson fun to read. 2. Brandon Sanderson is a very nice person. Then Jason is mean: he suggests that Brandon’s prose is weak, and his persona is boring. Jason comes across as very self-aware that he is being rude. Brandon remains polite and engaged. That is a testament to his missionary-trained patience.
Jason needed a villain in his story. Brandon, the friendly Mormon boy, is a very poor villain. Lacking alternatives, that role fell (reluctantly) to Jason. But Jason fell short of being a compelling villain. He was Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg instead of Darth Vader. His villainy amounted to the Terminator throwing the hero against the wall (very dramatic!) instead of unceremoniously crushing his skull. I find his lack of commitment disturbing.
Brandon Sanderson dropped one conversation-worthy quote: “As I build books, God builds people.” Jason’s piece leaves it dramatically unexamined. In Sanderson’s fiction, according to Jason, “A character becomes a god, and the god beholds his planet below. If Sanderson is a writer, that is all he is doing. He is living his fantasy of godhead on Earth.” Jason seems to be willing to be impolite, even rude, to Sanderson and Mormons. Allow me to go to the Dark Side and ask the properly vicious question.
Mormons practice an earnest belief in fictional nonsense; does that help them write better science fiction and fantasy? Spoiler: yes, absolutely.
An atheist might respond that all religions amount to earnest belief in nonsense. But Mormonism is special. First, because its founding was recent. Second, because its founding documents are obvious fabrications. Even hard-core atheists must recognize that the bible is old and that some characters in the bible have been historically verified. King Herod was a real person, known in Roman records. He is recognized as real by the faithful and heathen alike. This is not the case for Mormonism. Mormon scripture lacks any independent historical corroboration.
The Book of Mormon itself was “translated” from a golden tablet (an otherwise unknown and very impractical writing medium) which was “taken into heaven.” This was convenient for the convicted fraud “prophet” who “discovered” it but failed to show it to anyone else. No one could check his work. Only Mormons put any value in the Mormon scriptures (beyond their dubious merits as bible fanfiction). This is intellectually different than, say, Pentecostal churches. Those may seem very strange to outsiders, but they still have familiar and widely respected core texts.
Faith in the authenticity of the book of Mormon is an act of mental gymnastics. It requires a person to be familiar with its preposterous origin story and believe in it anyway. Mormons practice constantly suspending their disbelief in fiction (for their whole lives, in many cases). That seems like a very useful skill for a writer of fantasy fiction. Mormons all know how to take fantasy seriously.
It goes deeper. The specific Mormon philosophical/theological beliefs are directly aligned with writing fantasy. In Sanderson’s view, the creative act of writing about fictional worlds is a direct analog to the godly act of creation. God’s work amounts to worldbuilding an epic fantasy series that is THE EARTH AND ITS PEOPLES. That resolves some of the mental conflict: Joseph Smith’s act of creating (ahem, “translating”) the Book of Mormon made its characters real in some deep spiritual sense. Mormons live according to the traditions of people that Smith wrote into existence. Mormons organize their whole lives as a fantasy novel LARP; of course they write good fantasy novels.
posted by drhex at 12:50 PM on March 25, 2023 [17 favorites]
But Mormonism is special. First, because its founding was recent. Second, because its founding documents are obvious fabrications
It would be interesting to take a look at the statistics - what proportion of fantasy writers are Mormon, what proportion of readers. Google isn't bringing much up for me. But even if there's a significant over-representation, it might have more to do (or also to do) with a religious community whose beliefs and practices alienate it from the wider culture surrounding it finding it more comfortable in "genre" than mainstream literature. It wouldn't be the first time.
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:33 PM on March 25, 2023
It would be interesting to take a look at the statistics - what proportion of fantasy writers are Mormon, what proportion of readers. Google isn't bringing much up for me. But even if there's a significant over-representation, it might have more to do (or also to do) with a religious community whose beliefs and practices alienate it from the wider culture surrounding it finding it more comfortable in "genre" than mainstream literature. It wouldn't be the first time.
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:33 PM on March 25, 2023
I agree the statistics would be interesting, and I do think the idea that a religious tradition that requires faith in things that appear pretty ridiculous on their face, without the veil of "ancientness" to hide behind, could be something of an advantage when it comes to world-building.
But, taking a quick look at this Top 10 Bestselling Fantasy Novelists (2022), we see:
- Brandon Sanderson (LDS)
- Lev Grossman (Non-religious)
- Andrzej Sapkowski (Atheist)
- Tomi Adeyemi (Bio does not state)
- N.K. Jemisin (“spiritual but not religious”)
- Cassandra Clare ("Clare is Jewish and has described her family as 'not religious'.")
- Evan Winter (Bio does not state; "Winter was born in England and raised in Zambia.")
- Brandon Sanderson again (LDS)
- Rick Riordan (Bio does not state)
- Scott Lynch (Bio does not state)
While it's possible that some of the people who choose not to publicize their religious leanings could be LDS, it seems not especially likely.
The only other recent fantasy author who comes to mind is Stephanie Meyer. (Yes, the article also mentions OSC, and I'm sure his stuff still sells well, but I haven't seen any new work of his hitting the best-seller lists in a while.)
So really it's Meyer and Sanderson holding up the "LDS members are good at pop fantasy" argument, and that seems a bit thin. It could be that they're both just good at writing to the popular zeitgeist, and happen to be Mormon? Hard to say.
I think it's possible that both authors' anodyne approach to sexuality might have helped their commercial appeal—Sanderson's characters and plots are apparently pretty sexless, and Meyer's Twilight series dragged readers through thousands of pages to infamously finally deliver one rather awkward sex scene… (although its frustrated fanfic community did kinda spawn Fifty Shades). But that's also hard to prove; it's not like very explicitly sexual novels haven't also been successful (e.g. ASOIAF, 50S).
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:34 PM on March 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
But, taking a quick look at this Top 10 Bestselling Fantasy Novelists (2022), we see:
- Brandon Sanderson (LDS)
- Lev Grossman (Non-religious)
- Andrzej Sapkowski (Atheist)
- Tomi Adeyemi (Bio does not state)
- N.K. Jemisin (“spiritual but not religious”)
- Cassandra Clare ("Clare is Jewish and has described her family as 'not religious'.")
- Evan Winter (Bio does not state; "Winter was born in England and raised in Zambia.")
- Brandon Sanderson again (LDS)
- Rick Riordan (Bio does not state)
- Scott Lynch (Bio does not state)
While it's possible that some of the people who choose not to publicize their religious leanings could be LDS, it seems not especially likely.
The only other recent fantasy author who comes to mind is Stephanie Meyer. (Yes, the article also mentions OSC, and I'm sure his stuff still sells well, but I haven't seen any new work of his hitting the best-seller lists in a while.)
So really it's Meyer and Sanderson holding up the "LDS members are good at pop fantasy" argument, and that seems a bit thin. It could be that they're both just good at writing to the popular zeitgeist, and happen to be Mormon? Hard to say.
I think it's possible that both authors' anodyne approach to sexuality might have helped their commercial appeal—Sanderson's characters and plots are apparently pretty sexless, and Meyer's Twilight series dragged readers through thousands of pages to infamously finally deliver one rather awkward sex scene… (although its frustrated fanfic community did kinda spawn Fifty Shades). But that's also hard to prove; it's not like very explicitly sexual novels haven't also been successful (e.g. ASOIAF, 50S).
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:34 PM on March 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One removed. Please don't insult / attack other members. FAQ.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:03 AM on March 26, 2023
posted by taz (staff) at 2:03 AM on March 26, 2023
Tracy Hickman, co-writer of a bunch of Dragonlance novels
And if you don't know much about Mormonism, you might miss a lot about a book whose first half involves a quest to recover precious-metal objects inscribed with the lore of a forgotten religion which can only be read with the aid of magic glasses, aided by blue-eyed fair-skinned Noble Savages.
posted by jackbishop at 7:41 AM on March 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
And if you don't know much about Mormonism, you might miss a lot about a book whose first half involves a quest to recover precious-metal objects inscribed with the lore of a forgotten religion which can only be read with the aid of magic glasses, aided by blue-eyed fair-skinned Noble Savages.
posted by jackbishop at 7:41 AM on March 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
While it's possible that some of the people who choose not to publicize their religious leanings could be LDS, it seems not especially likely.
I'm pretty embedded in the SF scene and while there are definitely some Mormon (and a lot more ex-Mormon) folks writing/editing/etc, I do not at all get the sense that it's disproportionate - there are as many or more Jews (including non-religious Jews) as Mormons, and, if Wikipedia is to be believed, they're about the same percentage of the US population. Now, whether there are more Mormons (or Jews) in science fiction as opposed to other genres, that's an interesting question.
(Anecdata is not data, etc. And Scott's not Mormon. Dunno how he chooses to publicly identify, but he's definitely not Mormon.)
posted by restless_nomad at 10:32 AM on March 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm pretty embedded in the SF scene and while there are definitely some Mormon (and a lot more ex-Mormon) folks writing/editing/etc, I do not at all get the sense that it's disproportionate - there are as many or more Jews (including non-religious Jews) as Mormons, and, if Wikipedia is to be believed, they're about the same percentage of the US population. Now, whether there are more Mormons (or Jews) in science fiction as opposed to other genres, that's an interesting question.
(Anecdata is not data, etc. And Scott's not Mormon. Dunno how he chooses to publicly identify, but he's definitely not Mormon.)
posted by restless_nomad at 10:32 AM on March 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
jackbishop: good Lord, that's messed with my perspective even more than finding out that Tracy Hickman was a guy.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:10 AM on March 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 11:10 AM on March 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
wat
posted by Balna Watya at 8:07 PM on March 26, 2023
posted by Balna Watya at 8:07 PM on March 26, 2023
So I think two things can be true: Sanderson can have a history of saying homophobic things, and be contributing a lot of money to a church which actions homophobia and this article can be a mean mess that fails to engage with any of that.
The article doesnt actually get into the problematic parts of mormonism at all. In fact it basically only ever really attacks it at a very surface level, as if the very concept of belief is obviously foolish. That quote that is supposedly a bombshell really feels very anodyne to me, and ultimately if the author wanted (and they really seemed to want this) to find a great angle on whih to attack Sanderson, they spectacularly failed to do so.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:02 AM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
The article doesnt actually get into the problematic parts of mormonism at all. In fact it basically only ever really attacks it at a very surface level, as if the very concept of belief is obviously foolish. That quote that is supposedly a bombshell really feels very anodyne to me, and ultimately if the author wanted (and they really seemed to want this) to find a great angle on whih to attack Sanderson, they spectacularly failed to do so.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:02 AM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Even visiting/teaching at BYU is an immoral act. There are so many academic conferences/orgs that will refuse to have BYU as a host because it is hostile to queer people.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:11 AM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:11 AM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'd blissfully ignored this for a while but finally read the Kehe piece.
It was nowhere near as villainous as I'd been lead to believe. In fact, it raised genuinely unsettling facts, especially the implied graphomania and the insensitivity to pain - these are at the core of the piece to me alongside the basic disdain for Sanderson's religion and how it impacts his writing.
The complaint is that Sanderson isn't - for lack of a better allegory - suffering for his art. It's easy, it's voluminous, he doesn't identify with and feel the physical or emotional pain of his stories. It's offensive to anyone who has suffered to make sentences work, to make a system of magic also be an analysis of deep emotional truths where the pain becomes the impossible difference between wishing and doing, making the truly magical real.
Systems of world building, while hard and complicated and requiring careful maintenance and the kind of constant expansion and attention and detail Sanderson is happy to provide aren't the same things - aren't saying the same things - as works that treat the fantasy as both a means to analyze something human or explicitly nonhuman and make the unknowable knowable.
Kehe may come across as an envious heel, but in reading clearly the story of a benevolent magician-king who everyone loves and treats everyone well in a way that creates an overarching and creeping dread as you realize what undead automaton underlies the popular but unexamined authorship.
Kehe is unsettled by the painlessness of Sanderson's work and the painless life that underlies it. Maybe that's a failing of our postmodern conception of needing to suffer for art but... I have to say I love me some rigorous and satisfying systemic world building as much as the next nerd. It's a clear temptation to just let yourself enjoy the careful structure and satisfying consistency.
But that feels like a Last Temptation of Christ kind of moment. Choosing satisfying and pleasant reflection of what you suspect and self-conceive is the real evil - in this assessment - because it denies that there is pain to be felt and that there's meaning to be derived from the experience. That there is lust and sex and systems that break or achieve more or less than seems possible. That following the rules and doing the work means nothing in a universe of chaos. That godhood isn't mechanical and probably nobody is paying attention to your tiny lives at all.
So... I'm team Kehe here. The author is talented enough, prolific in a way that's unnerving to those who aren't graphomaniacs, and utterly unwilling to examine how he's using those gifts to reinforce all the status quo without the slightest experience of suffering - not only avoiding it but being immune to it.
posted by abulafa at 6:04 PM on March 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
It was nowhere near as villainous as I'd been lead to believe. In fact, it raised genuinely unsettling facts, especially the implied graphomania and the insensitivity to pain - these are at the core of the piece to me alongside the basic disdain for Sanderson's religion and how it impacts his writing.
The complaint is that Sanderson isn't - for lack of a better allegory - suffering for his art. It's easy, it's voluminous, he doesn't identify with and feel the physical or emotional pain of his stories. It's offensive to anyone who has suffered to make sentences work, to make a system of magic also be an analysis of deep emotional truths where the pain becomes the impossible difference between wishing and doing, making the truly magical real.
Systems of world building, while hard and complicated and requiring careful maintenance and the kind of constant expansion and attention and detail Sanderson is happy to provide aren't the same things - aren't saying the same things - as works that treat the fantasy as both a means to analyze something human or explicitly nonhuman and make the unknowable knowable.
Kehe may come across as an envious heel, but in reading clearly the story of a benevolent magician-king who everyone loves and treats everyone well in a way that creates an overarching and creeping dread as you realize what undead automaton underlies the popular but unexamined authorship.
Kehe is unsettled by the painlessness of Sanderson's work and the painless life that underlies it. Maybe that's a failing of our postmodern conception of needing to suffer for art but... I have to say I love me some rigorous and satisfying systemic world building as much as the next nerd. It's a clear temptation to just let yourself enjoy the careful structure and satisfying consistency.
But that feels like a Last Temptation of Christ kind of moment. Choosing satisfying and pleasant reflection of what you suspect and self-conceive is the real evil - in this assessment - because it denies that there is pain to be felt and that there's meaning to be derived from the experience. That there is lust and sex and systems that break or achieve more or less than seems possible. That following the rules and doing the work means nothing in a universe of chaos. That godhood isn't mechanical and probably nobody is paying attention to your tiny lives at all.
So... I'm team Kehe here. The author is talented enough, prolific in a way that's unnerving to those who aren't graphomaniacs, and utterly unwilling to examine how he's using those gifts to reinforce all the status quo without the slightest experience of suffering - not only avoiding it but being immune to it.
posted by abulafa at 6:04 PM on March 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Life is full of pain, and it's often thrust upon us by deliberate choices of others... Or perhaps worse, ignorance and the avoiding of choices of others. Or even our own failings.
Does writing have to be searing to be worthwhile? Is middlebrow a failure? I love Sanderson's books. He's written very good books in a variety of genre. It sells, it's popular, it makes millions of people happy. He's spilling his mind on the paper, but probably not his soul. I don't think he's ever going to write something that is searing, harrowing, transcendental. I'm not sure that's his goal or even a goal that might make sense to him.
But what's the point of a book? I certainly don't want to see Brown or JKR attempting a Holocaust novel or a deep meditation on existential dread and ennui. Should everything strive to be Maus or Grave of the Fireflies?
Sometimes books are a refuge from being stuck in an airplane. Sometimes books are a refuge from a small or hard life, the confinement that we fall or are forced into. If all books are about pain, at what point does reading become masochistic or even self destructive?
Sanderson probably does live in a very safe little world. Unshakable faith often provides that. And some of his actions enable people to do things that make my life worse. That's undeniable. But he's also made my life better with his works. Dreams of good people fighting for good things is a lovely little shelter. I don't know. Pain is universal and so exquisitely individual and different each second that lasts a frozen eternity. I'd rather have Sanderson in the world than not. I understand that many people would rather have JKR, probably minus the bigotry, than not. Words connect us with people, for good or evil or just the middle telling of a story.
posted by Jacen at 8:58 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Does writing have to be searing to be worthwhile? Is middlebrow a failure? I love Sanderson's books. He's written very good books in a variety of genre. It sells, it's popular, it makes millions of people happy. He's spilling his mind on the paper, but probably not his soul. I don't think he's ever going to write something that is searing, harrowing, transcendental. I'm not sure that's his goal or even a goal that might make sense to him.
But what's the point of a book? I certainly don't want to see Brown or JKR attempting a Holocaust novel or a deep meditation on existential dread and ennui. Should everything strive to be Maus or Grave of the Fireflies?
Sometimes books are a refuge from being stuck in an airplane. Sometimes books are a refuge from a small or hard life, the confinement that we fall or are forced into. If all books are about pain, at what point does reading become masochistic or even self destructive?
Sanderson probably does live in a very safe little world. Unshakable faith often provides that. And some of his actions enable people to do things that make my life worse. That's undeniable. But he's also made my life better with his works. Dreams of good people fighting for good things is a lovely little shelter. I don't know. Pain is universal and so exquisitely individual and different each second that lasts a frozen eternity. I'd rather have Sanderson in the world than not. I understand that many people would rather have JKR, probably minus the bigotry, than not. Words connect us with people, for good or evil or just the middle telling of a story.
posted by Jacen at 8:58 PM on March 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
That’s a wildly fantastical interpretation of insensitivity to pain. People who have that still suffer, often immensely. They frequently die young and have major disabilities by mid-life because of the way not being cued to avoid harmful things fucks you up (guarantee Sanderson has major back problems incoming; this is extremely common w/this condition because of lack of cues to correct posture). And I would hardly take Kehe’s assessment of his emotions at face value. Not expressing emotion, or struggling to feel your feelings doesn’t mean you don’t suffer. Alexithymic people experience the same suffering that all people do, we aren’t magical monsters, we just can’t express or identify it. He literally said he feels things through his characters—antithetical to your claim that he doesn’t identify with or feel any of the pain or suffering in his stories. That’s also common of alexithymics; we struggle to feel things in our own bodies but can experience them through art.
I’ve had bouts of graphomania though they never lasted more than a few months. Invariably it was because I was suffering immensely in my personal life and the only way for me to have any access to those feelings was through writing others experiencing it. My partner even had to point it out to me—that I would write obsessively
when I was stressed, and that it often reflected what was going on in my life. They assumed I knew this about myself… I didn’t, because I didn’t know what I was feeling other than on an intellectual level (“I am going through xyz hardships and that’s bad”).
Kehe obviously knows nothing about any of these conditions and only threw these details out as juicy “look at this weirdo” facts, and it clearly worked. The truth is, people like this are not on some different plane of reality where suffering doesn’t exist. They’re real people who struggle to be in touch with their bodies in ways that cause profound amounts of suffering, but which is even harder to express or get support for because it won’t show on your face and you have no words to describe it and your body is failing to protect you from harm in all the ways it should.
I’m sure it’s appealing to think Sanderson truly doesn’t suffer, but that’s fantasy. Complete fantasy. Even the extremely bizarre cases of people whose brain injuries completely remove fear still feel disgust, anger, etc. There is no such condition other than being in a coma in which a person doesn’t experience any suffering (and even that is questionable). There are conditions that disconnect one from the body and which make the interacting and understand of emotion and pain signals incredibly complex, but I promise you the suffering is still there and being experienced even if we don’t show or identify it.
posted by brook horse at 9:06 PM on March 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
I’ve had bouts of graphomania though they never lasted more than a few months. Invariably it was because I was suffering immensely in my personal life and the only way for me to have any access to those feelings was through writing others experiencing it. My partner even had to point it out to me—that I would write obsessively
when I was stressed, and that it often reflected what was going on in my life. They assumed I knew this about myself… I didn’t, because I didn’t know what I was feeling other than on an intellectual level (“I am going through xyz hardships and that’s bad”).
Kehe obviously knows nothing about any of these conditions and only threw these details out as juicy “look at this weirdo” facts, and it clearly worked. The truth is, people like this are not on some different plane of reality where suffering doesn’t exist. They’re real people who struggle to be in touch with their bodies in ways that cause profound amounts of suffering, but which is even harder to express or get support for because it won’t show on your face and you have no words to describe it and your body is failing to protect you from harm in all the ways it should.
I’m sure it’s appealing to think Sanderson truly doesn’t suffer, but that’s fantasy. Complete fantasy. Even the extremely bizarre cases of people whose brain injuries completely remove fear still feel disgust, anger, etc. There is no such condition other than being in a coma in which a person doesn’t experience any suffering (and even that is questionable). There are conditions that disconnect one from the body and which make the interacting and understand of emotion and pain signals incredibly complex, but I promise you the suffering is still there and being experienced even if we don’t show or identify it.
posted by brook horse at 9:06 PM on March 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
I mean, fuck, how can you see the sentence “I write to feel human” and not feel the profound pain this man experiences? If he truly didn’t suffer, he wouldn’t be compelled to feel human. But he does, because feeling like you’re not human is a a horrible
feeling that weighs down on you your whole life. I promise you he’s earned his artist suffering creds. If his books don’t speak to you, that’s fine, but it’s probably because how he’s suffered is very different from how you’ve suffered—not because the suffering isn’t there.
posted by brook horse at 9:17 PM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
feeling that weighs down on you your whole life. I promise you he’s earned his artist suffering creds. If his books don’t speak to you, that’s fine, but it’s probably because how he’s suffered is very different from how you’ve suffered—not because the suffering isn’t there.
posted by brook horse at 9:17 PM on March 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
I would hardly take Kehe’s assessment of [Sanderson's] emotions at face value. Not expressing emotion, or struggling to feel your feelings doesn’t mean you don’t suffer.
Indeed. And not being willing to open up about your emotions or vulnerabilities in front of a journalist doesn't mean you don't have any. It might mean you don't trust them not to do a hatchet job on you.
After reading what this writer came up with when he thought his subject was too cheerful and content, I shudder to think what he would have done if he'd been allowed past the metaphorical "company parlour."
posted by rpfields at 10:06 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Indeed. And not being willing to open up about your emotions or vulnerabilities in front of a journalist doesn't mean you don't have any. It might mean you don't trust them not to do a hatchet job on you.
After reading what this writer came up with when he thought his subject was too cheerful and content, I shudder to think what he would have done if he'd been allowed past the metaphorical "company parlour."
posted by rpfields at 10:06 PM on March 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Brook Horse, you diagnosed Sanderson - and you may be spot on - but he's undeniably rich and insulated by family, circumstances, and the institutions of his religion. Someone less insulated with the same (potential) condition may not be able to succeed the way he has - the rich have more in common with each other than any other identity. Hiring and surrounding himself with family may be classic nepotism or may be him being subtly exploited by then or may be him fully self aware and using his unique qualities to his monetary advantage and to advance and secure dynastic wealth because why wouldn't you?
But others with the conditions you cite do manage to be self aware enough to allow (I presume) that if you had huge wealth and a position of power there might be some responsibility to use that platform not to fund bigotry and persecution, however socially acceptable those things may appear, being church-sponsored.
Kehe judges him harshly and from a position of some obvious insecurity. He swings at the writing quality maybe not realizing it's just a proxy for the work he feels a writer should do - the emotional and artisanal work, not really the sentence-crafting.
Clearly there's a market for Sanderson, and art - especially writing - has an uncomfortable relationship with what sells well and is mass-market successful versus what has historically become considered part of the (gate kept, not even close to meritocratic) canon. Then some (maybe overlapping) set of what's subjectively then objectively "good writing" and what relationship that has with success and longevity.
Writing in the present day is one art form that is more likely to persist into the future without (necessarily) reinterpretation given that it can survive even very low-fidelity replication intact (unlike a lot of art forms where the original may be physical or even a digital original of something more complex than text has orders of magnitude different storage and transmission requirements, increasing the likelihood of introduction of errors or overall loss).
Why this tangent into longevity of media and art? Isn't there room for everything across every spectrum and for every audience in the future? Maybe yes, but today I can totally see how someone like Sanderson presents (to Kehe) as a kind of denial of service flooding attack on genre literature which clearly Kehe does actually experience and enjoy. In my read (of Kehe), the sheer volume and ease with which Sanderson generates successful but merely adequate prose leaves less air for authors who take a different, and yes, perhaps more classical (and maybe neurotypical - though I'm not super comfortable with that level of generalization) approach to the art form.
However, I wrote:
without the slightest experience of suffering - not only avoiding it but being immune to it.
And I regret that, I got carried away with a convenient bow to tie it all together. I'm sure Sanderson experiences suffering, I'm not sure he's using his position to its full potential to both alleviate and not proliferate suffering of others. I'm glad those of you who enjoy the escape can do so, especially if that alleviates some of your individual suffering. It's not enough for me, though.
posted by abulafa at 4:04 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
But others with the conditions you cite do manage to be self aware enough to allow (I presume) that if you had huge wealth and a position of power there might be some responsibility to use that platform not to fund bigotry and persecution, however socially acceptable those things may appear, being church-sponsored.
Kehe judges him harshly and from a position of some obvious insecurity. He swings at the writing quality maybe not realizing it's just a proxy for the work he feels a writer should do - the emotional and artisanal work, not really the sentence-crafting.
Clearly there's a market for Sanderson, and art - especially writing - has an uncomfortable relationship with what sells well and is mass-market successful versus what has historically become considered part of the (gate kept, not even close to meritocratic) canon. Then some (maybe overlapping) set of what's subjectively then objectively "good writing" and what relationship that has with success and longevity.
Writing in the present day is one art form that is more likely to persist into the future without (necessarily) reinterpretation given that it can survive even very low-fidelity replication intact (unlike a lot of art forms where the original may be physical or even a digital original of something more complex than text has orders of magnitude different storage and transmission requirements, increasing the likelihood of introduction of errors or overall loss).
Why this tangent into longevity of media and art? Isn't there room for everything across every spectrum and for every audience in the future? Maybe yes, but today I can totally see how someone like Sanderson presents (to Kehe) as a kind of denial of service flooding attack on genre literature which clearly Kehe does actually experience and enjoy. In my read (of Kehe), the sheer volume and ease with which Sanderson generates successful but merely adequate prose leaves less air for authors who take a different, and yes, perhaps more classical (and maybe neurotypical - though I'm not super comfortable with that level of generalization) approach to the art form.
However, I wrote:
without the slightest experience of suffering - not only avoiding it but being immune to it.
And I regret that, I got carried away with a convenient bow to tie it all together. I'm sure Sanderson experiences suffering, I'm not sure he's using his position to its full potential to both alleviate and not proliferate suffering of others. I'm glad those of you who enjoy the escape can do so, especially if that alleviates some of your individual suffering. It's not enough for me, though.
posted by abulafa at 4:04 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
today I can totally see how someone like Sanderson presents (to Kehe) as a kind of denial of service flooding attack on genre literature which clearly Kehe does actually experience and enjoy. In my read (of Kehe), the sheer volume and ease with which Sanderson generates successful but merely adequate prose leaves less air for authors who take a different, and yes, perhaps more classical (and maybe neurotypical - though I'm not super comfortable with that level of generalization) approach to the art form.
It may very well be what the writer thought, but it's a completely ignorant take on how publishing works. Sanderson (and Jordan before him) are the people who are making an actual profit for the publishers, which frees up budget for them to take more risks on new writers. Most books don't (or at least, most books don't earn through their advance, which means they aren't ongoing revenue streams.) Sanderson has almost certainly been directly responsible for the careers of probably dozens of newer writers over the last fifteen years - as have Scalzi, GRRM, and the other frontlisters that keep putting books out that keep selling.
And I am super, super uncomfortable with the idea that being successful as an artist means your entire life is suddenly subject to intense moral scrutiny. Or that people need to be of the correct religion before unvarnished personal attacks on them become impolite. I don't care if the writer was really trying to do some sort of subtle critique of the institution of Mormonism - what he actually wrote was a pedestrian and contemptible takedown of an ordinary, if non-neurotypical, dude.
posted by restless_nomad at 5:14 AM on March 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
It may very well be what the writer thought, but it's a completely ignorant take on how publishing works. Sanderson (and Jordan before him) are the people who are making an actual profit for the publishers, which frees up budget for them to take more risks on new writers. Most books don't (or at least, most books don't earn through their advance, which means they aren't ongoing revenue streams.) Sanderson has almost certainly been directly responsible for the careers of probably dozens of newer writers over the last fifteen years - as have Scalzi, GRRM, and the other frontlisters that keep putting books out that keep selling.
And I am super, super uncomfortable with the idea that being successful as an artist means your entire life is suddenly subject to intense moral scrutiny. Or that people need to be of the correct religion before unvarnished personal attacks on them become impolite. I don't care if the writer was really trying to do some sort of subtle critique of the institution of Mormonism - what he actually wrote was a pedestrian and contemptible takedown of an ordinary, if non-neurotypical, dude.
posted by restless_nomad at 5:14 AM on March 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
And I am super, super uncomfortable with the idea that being successful as an artist means your entire life is suddenly subject to intense moral scrutiny.
I have bad news for you about being a public figure.
Or that people need to be of the correct religion before unvarnished personal attacks on them become impolite.
The correct religion in this case being "the one that doesn't as a matter of policy discriminate and oppress." I'm perfectly happy to lump all those who fail that basic test together, the fact that so many want to carve out exceptions due to family and culture and societal reinforcement deserves some pretty intense moral scrutiny - especially when those in question are public figures who have the means to not be bound by those constraints. I know that's an extreme position, it's also inconveniently the correct one in my view.
which frees up budget for them to take more risks on new writers.
Supposing this holds (citation needed btw), are those publishers more likely to take on new authors of the Sanderson "inoffensive and dependable" model or not? Lots of queer anarchist imagistic poetic genre-crossing risks being picked up? Or more James S.A. Corey content farms (which I enjoy by the way!)
what he actually wrote was a pedestrian and contemptible takedown of an ordinary, if non-neurotypical, dude.
That dude has so much sway, money, and opportunity to do better. Instead he ignores inconvenient realities of his privilege and does mechanistic god-cosplay(competently and prolifically). Good for him, but he doesn't get a pass. Kehe didn't do an amazing job but I think he did indict the distance and complacency Sanderson enjoys and suggested some hints as to why he can enjoy it without self doubt or criticism.
posted by abulafa at 5:40 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have bad news for you about being a public figure.
Or that people need to be of the correct religion before unvarnished personal attacks on them become impolite.
The correct religion in this case being "the one that doesn't as a matter of policy discriminate and oppress." I'm perfectly happy to lump all those who fail that basic test together, the fact that so many want to carve out exceptions due to family and culture and societal reinforcement deserves some pretty intense moral scrutiny - especially when those in question are public figures who have the means to not be bound by those constraints. I know that's an extreme position, it's also inconveniently the correct one in my view.
which frees up budget for them to take more risks on new writers.
Supposing this holds (citation needed btw), are those publishers more likely to take on new authors of the Sanderson "inoffensive and dependable" model or not? Lots of queer anarchist imagistic poetic genre-crossing risks being picked up? Or more James S.A. Corey content farms (which I enjoy by the way!)
what he actually wrote was a pedestrian and contemptible takedown of an ordinary, if non-neurotypical, dude.
That dude has so much sway, money, and opportunity to do better. Instead he ignores inconvenient realities of his privilege and does mechanistic god-cosplay(competently and prolifically). Good for him, but he doesn't get a pass. Kehe didn't do an amazing job but I think he did indict the distance and complacency Sanderson enjoys and suggested some hints as to why he can enjoy it without self doubt or criticism.
posted by abulafa at 5:40 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have bad news for you about being a public figure.
Yeah. And I think it's shitty. I think it absolutely distracts us from actual systemic change in a way that alienates people and gets extremely easily turned on minorities. In fact, it's usually used on minorities. It's not an accident that the aspects of Sanderson's life that you read as "unnerving" are the things that are very likely signs of his non-neurotypicality.
The correct religion in this case being "the one that doesn't as a matter of policy discriminate and oppress."
And which one would that be? Because let me tell you, as a religious minority myself, this is not a lens that I am likely to be convinced leads down a good road. Not a fan of the Mormon Church myself, but it's actually very far from the biggest thread to my personal health and welfare and those of most other people. It's a minority religion, though, and it's weird, so it is much, much more comfortable to attack than unremarkable mainline American Protestantism, which is a much bigger concern. And yet somehow people just... don't ask questions of unremarkable mainline Protestants.
That dude has so much sway, money, and opportunity to do better.
Sure. And there are millions of people making exactly the same money and being exactly as complacent but they're not artists and so they don't get Wired takedowns of their dress sense. And they're not Mormon and so people don't ask questions about their relationship to their church. They make bad clickbait, and so we just ignore them, and focus on the weird ones that we can make fun of. It's shitty. And it doesn't improve anything.
(I'm chasing down a cite for the how-publishing-works thing, it's such a truism in pro writer circles that it's shockingly difficult to google. But the "most books don't earn out" thing is easy - "only about 25% of books earn back their advance. ".)
posted by restless_nomad at 6:15 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah. And I think it's shitty. I think it absolutely distracts us from actual systemic change in a way that alienates people and gets extremely easily turned on minorities. In fact, it's usually used on minorities. It's not an accident that the aspects of Sanderson's life that you read as "unnerving" are the things that are very likely signs of his non-neurotypicality.
The correct religion in this case being "the one that doesn't as a matter of policy discriminate and oppress."
And which one would that be? Because let me tell you, as a religious minority myself, this is not a lens that I am likely to be convinced leads down a good road. Not a fan of the Mormon Church myself, but it's actually very far from the biggest thread to my personal health and welfare and those of most other people. It's a minority religion, though, and it's weird, so it is much, much more comfortable to attack than unremarkable mainline American Protestantism, which is a much bigger concern. And yet somehow people just... don't ask questions of unremarkable mainline Protestants.
That dude has so much sway, money, and opportunity to do better.
Sure. And there are millions of people making exactly the same money and being exactly as complacent but they're not artists and so they don't get Wired takedowns of their dress sense. And they're not Mormon and so people don't ask questions about their relationship to their church. They make bad clickbait, and so we just ignore them, and focus on the weird ones that we can make fun of. It's shitty. And it doesn't improve anything.
(I'm chasing down a cite for the how-publishing-works thing, it's such a truism in pro writer circles that it's shockingly difficult to google. But the "most books don't earn out" thing is easy - "only about 25% of books earn back their advance. ".)
posted by restless_nomad at 6:15 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
And which one would that be?
Exactly. If you're reading me as somehow defending one sect over another you're massively off base. None. The answer is none of them, with occasional exceptions like Friends/quakers I guess.
With regard to publishing I don't know or care whether a book makes back its advance, I care what kind of media publishers and decision-makers choose to invest in and why and what that perpetuates and what kind of content is ignored because it is not supported by profitability. You did not address whether the things they choose to invest in based on the success of Sanderson are more (competent, verbose, sexless) things like Sanderson or things that are risks. I'm pretty sure we both know the answer but I would be happy to learn that I am mistaken.
millions of people making exactly the same money
I'm taking this as hyperbole, but in 2015 it was about 150 people making 50M a year* in the US, more recently it looks like around 300. That's a number of humans with enormous money and sway who I will happily and repeatedly judge based on how they spend or don't spend that money and sway.
Politeness, deference to religious institution, and "what about all the other rich influential people who aren't artists" are all great examples of strategies to sustain the status quo. I am completely okay with being impolite, even directly judgmental, of those who have the ability, freedom, cash, and influence to do better and do not. Public figures such as artists do get more exposure to that judgment, but the answer is not less judgment, It's more exposure.
* By wages, might or might not include whatever revenue streams are actually at play for Sanderson or for your army of clickbait millionaires.
posted by abulafa at 6:46 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Exactly. If you're reading me as somehow defending one sect over another you're massively off base. None. The answer is none of them, with occasional exceptions like Friends/quakers I guess.
With regard to publishing I don't know or care whether a book makes back its advance, I care what kind of media publishers and decision-makers choose to invest in and why and what that perpetuates and what kind of content is ignored because it is not supported by profitability. You did not address whether the things they choose to invest in based on the success of Sanderson are more (competent, verbose, sexless) things like Sanderson or things that are risks. I'm pretty sure we both know the answer but I would be happy to learn that I am mistaken.
millions of people making exactly the same money
I'm taking this as hyperbole, but in 2015 it was about 150 people making 50M a year* in the US, more recently it looks like around 300. That's a number of humans with enormous money and sway who I will happily and repeatedly judge based on how they spend or don't spend that money and sway.
Politeness, deference to religious institution, and "what about all the other rich influential people who aren't artists" are all great examples of strategies to sustain the status quo. I am completely okay with being impolite, even directly judgmental, of those who have the ability, freedom, cash, and influence to do better and do not. Public figures such as artists do get more exposure to that judgment, but the answer is not less judgment, It's more exposure.
* By wages, might or might not include whatever revenue streams are actually at play for Sanderson or for your army of clickbait millionaires.
posted by abulafa at 6:46 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ok, huge point of clarification, the $55 million number (as I mentioned above) is completely wrong. He makes way less than that, Kehe doesn’t understand how Kickstarters work, and he has no sources for any of his numbers. All other sources indicate something between $6-8 million net worth, which includes all of his assets, so his income is even lower.
At what income level are you obligated to leave your church? How much money is enough to insulate you against being cut off and ostracized by your entire social support network and cultural heritage?
posted by brook horse at 6:56 AM on March 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
At what income level are you obligated to leave your church? How much money is enough to insulate you against being cut off and ostracized by your entire social support network and cultural heritage?
posted by brook horse at 6:56 AM on March 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
I will happily and repeatedly judge based on how they spend or don't spend that money and sway.
You are 100% entitled to do that! I do too! What I don't do is hold people up to public ridicule for the fit of their blazer. And as brook horse points out, holding him up to scrutiny for his wealth really requires you don't wildly fuck up whatever numbers you are holding up as evidence of his wealth.
I'm pretty sure we both know the answer but I would be happy to learn that I am mistaken.
It's hard to draw one-to-one causality in terms of any specific debut, but Tor in particular, who Sanderson publishes with, as well as their separate-but-closely-tied sibling Tor.com, publish a tremendous amount of innovative, queer, interesting SF. They publish a whole lot of the stuff that wins awards these days - awards that are increasingly going to women and PoC. (They publish a lot of tedious bullshit, too, but that is both my opinion and the nature of the beast.) It's still a Big 5-based publishing house, and I'm not going to claim that it doesn't have problems (it's probably much better on queer stuff than PoC stuff, for example) but it's not Baen.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:09 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
You are 100% entitled to do that! I do too! What I don't do is hold people up to public ridicule for the fit of their blazer. And as brook horse points out, holding him up to scrutiny for his wealth really requires you don't wildly fuck up whatever numbers you are holding up as evidence of his wealth.
I'm pretty sure we both know the answer but I would be happy to learn that I am mistaken.
It's hard to draw one-to-one causality in terms of any specific debut, but Tor in particular, who Sanderson publishes with, as well as their separate-but-closely-tied sibling Tor.com, publish a tremendous amount of innovative, queer, interesting SF. They publish a whole lot of the stuff that wins awards these days - awards that are increasingly going to women and PoC. (They publish a lot of tedious bullshit, too, but that is both my opinion and the nature of the beast.) It's still a Big 5-based publishing house, and I'm not going to claim that it doesn't have problems (it's probably much better on queer stuff than PoC stuff, for example) but it's not Baen.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:09 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
At what income level are you obligated to leave your church?
About 5M.
How much money is enough to insulate you against being cut off and ostracized by your entire social support network and cultural heritage?
About 10M.
I don't think you actually want an answer because the real answer is a lot less than this because people have done it with nothing in the bank and suffered for it and been made to suffer by the very institution that ... Is somehow defensible in this case?
That institution that requires families to ostracize those who depart and offers material support so long as you are a member of the church in good standing and withdraws it once you are not could choose to behave differently. Its members could choose to behave differently and change it from within. But they don't, and every person with wealth and influence who continues to support that institution makes it easier for them not to change. So, yeah, I do hold them more and more directly responsible, especially then those who have bravely suffered the consequences of leaving the church that reviles them.
People are working really really hard in this thread to defend someone who makes plenty of money (Kickstarter or no, multiple houses and convention and merchandising income isn't middle class).
Maybe everyone is defending him because his art is so strong that it transcends the choices he makes with his self, his money, his influence, and the choices that he supports by his publishers, his fans, and so on.
How weak would his art have to be for him to be held responsible for the institutions that have helped him to be successful, which he still supports, and which continue to behave oppressively with the threat of ostracism and withdrawal of those resources?
posted by abulafa at 7:10 AM on March 29, 2023
About 5M.
How much money is enough to insulate you against being cut off and ostracized by your entire social support network and cultural heritage?
About 10M.
I don't think you actually want an answer because the real answer is a lot less than this because people have done it with nothing in the bank and suffered for it and been made to suffer by the very institution that ... Is somehow defensible in this case?
That institution that requires families to ostracize those who depart and offers material support so long as you are a member of the church in good standing and withdraws it once you are not could choose to behave differently. Its members could choose to behave differently and change it from within. But they don't, and every person with wealth and influence who continues to support that institution makes it easier for them not to change. So, yeah, I do hold them more and more directly responsible, especially then those who have bravely suffered the consequences of leaving the church that reviles them.
People are working really really hard in this thread to defend someone who makes plenty of money (Kickstarter or no, multiple houses and convention and merchandising income isn't middle class).
Maybe everyone is defending him because his art is so strong that it transcends the choices he makes with his self, his money, his influence, and the choices that he supports by his publishers, his fans, and so on.
How weak would his art have to be for him to be held responsible for the institutions that have helped him to be successful, which he still supports, and which continue to behave oppressively with the threat of ostracism and withdrawal of those resources?
posted by abulafa at 7:10 AM on March 29, 2023
How weak would his art have to be for him to be held responsible for the institutions that have helped him to be successful, which he still supports, and which continue to behave oppressively with the threat of ostracism and withdrawal of those resources?
This doesn't have anything to do with the quality of his art. This has everything to do with the quality of these tactics, which, I contend, are counterproductive, alienating, and have a strong tendency to hurt people who are nominally not the target. Shitty journalism is shitty journalism. I'd be much more interested in an in-depth interview, however damning, of what he gets out of his relationship to his church. But that would require a journalist who was willing to do some work to build trust and communication. Instead we got a collection of cheap shots from a bored tech reporter.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:34 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
This doesn't have anything to do with the quality of his art. This has everything to do with the quality of these tactics, which, I contend, are counterproductive, alienating, and have a strong tendency to hurt people who are nominally not the target. Shitty journalism is shitty journalism. I'd be much more interested in an in-depth interview, however damning, of what he gets out of his relationship to his church. But that would require a journalist who was willing to do some work to build trust and communication. Instead we got a collection of cheap shots from a bored tech reporter.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:34 AM on March 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
> "I care what kind of media publishers and decision-makers choose to invest in..."
I mean, this is complicated. Do the big publishers who publish Sanderson like to publish more stuff like that because it sells really well? Sure. But yes, they also pick up queer anarchist imagistic poetic genre-crossing risks.
Tor publishes Annalee Newitz and Foz Meadows, and they gave Laurie J. Marks her start. Gollancz made Nicola Griffith available in the UK again a while back. Penguin Random House publishes Torrey Peters and Kate Bornstein. All three of those publishers publish some of Sanderson's books.
This info comes from the quickest of google searches on order of "queer books Tor". I could probably find you a ton more just rummaging around my bookshelves.
But, again, it's complicated. Stuff that's too out there might absolutely get rejected by mainstream publishers. Mediocre stuff that will sell well absolutely might get published by them. But it's really, really not true that anyone who publishes Sanderson will never touch something more literary, and well known in the publishing industry that the books that sell, whatever they may be, fund the ones that don't.
posted by kyrademon at 7:35 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I mean, this is complicated. Do the big publishers who publish Sanderson like to publish more stuff like that because it sells really well? Sure. But yes, they also pick up queer anarchist imagistic poetic genre-crossing risks.
Tor publishes Annalee Newitz and Foz Meadows, and they gave Laurie J. Marks her start. Gollancz made Nicola Griffith available in the UK again a while back. Penguin Random House publishes Torrey Peters and Kate Bornstein. All three of those publishers publish some of Sanderson's books.
This info comes from the quickest of google searches on order of "queer books Tor". I could probably find you a ton more just rummaging around my bookshelves.
But, again, it's complicated. Stuff that's too out there might absolutely get rejected by mainstream publishers. Mediocre stuff that will sell well absolutely might get published by them. But it's really, really not true that anyone who publishes Sanderson will never touch something more literary, and well known in the publishing industry that the books that sell, whatever they may be, fund the ones that don't.
posted by kyrademon at 7:35 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
(And once again, I will reiterate, while some of Sanderson's stuff is mediocre, SOME OF IT REALLY IS NOT.)
posted by kyrademon at 7:37 AM on March 29, 2023
posted by kyrademon at 7:37 AM on March 29, 2023
(And of course, further complicating matters, sometimes the queer anarchist imagistic poetic genre-crossing risks do really well. This Is How You Lose The Time War was a big hit. I guarantee that Simon & Schuster are looking for the next TIHYLTTW *and* the next Sanderson.)
posted by kyrademon at 7:46 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by kyrademon at 7:46 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m bowing out here because it’s clear this is about a specific axe to grind with people who participate in any religious community (except “maybe Quakers”).
As someone who experienced chronic horrendous abuse at the hands of fundamentalists, and who was cast out from the church and ostracized and made homeless with nothing to my name except an overnight weekend bag (literally I am your “nothing in the bank” exemplar), I don’t think any amount of money makes you responsible for not leaving. But we clearly aren’t going to agree on that issue and there’s no point arguing more.
posted by brook horse at 8:14 AM on March 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
As someone who experienced chronic horrendous abuse at the hands of fundamentalists, and who was cast out from the church and ostracized and made homeless with nothing to my name except an overnight weekend bag (literally I am your “nothing in the bank” exemplar), I don’t think any amount of money makes you responsible for not leaving. But we clearly aren’t going to agree on that issue and there’s no point arguing more.
posted by brook horse at 8:14 AM on March 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
So I already said this but I want to expand on this a little bit, as abulafa seems to be defending Kehe in particular.
Do I think there is room in the world for an article which attacks Sanderson? Absolutely. He's said some pretty homophobic stuff in the past, and continues to publically support a religious institution which has spent a fair amount of effort trying to make the lives of LGBT people worse.
You could also reasonably make an argument that he is not a good writer, although I would be a bit less sympathetic to that. And Kehe does sort of make this case, although I don't think particularly impressively; he picks out some bad sentences, which in a corpus of dozens of books with thousands of words I'm pretty sure you could do for any author. I'll note that Kehe also wrote a fairly glowing profile of Becky Chambers whose prose can also be pretty clunky.
But sensitivity or not to pain? Why on earth is that relevant at all? The fact that he came across as kind of dull, or pretentious? There are large chunks of the article that just come across as petty, and mean, and really not easily supporting his core thesis.
I guess you could make some kind of vague argument that despite Sanderson not talking much about his faith, his books are infused with it. Which... OK I guess, but I don't see this as a particular scandal. Again Kehe's problem with Mormonism isn't the active harm that the institution has done, but just that he finds Mormons a bit weird, which is honestly a fairly bigoted way of framing the issue.
To actually give my own opinion here; I have read quite a lot of Sanderson's work. I enjoy his work. I think he's good at painting interesting characters in exciting worlds, and tells engaging stories which make the pages fly by. I would agree that his focus on rules can make his stories feel mechanical sometimes, and ultimately I don't think I've loved any book of his I've read, but I've certainly had a good time with them.
I actually only found out about his faith, and his background much more recently. When I looked into this, I saw a lot of LGBT fans of his who were quite passionate in pointing out that his worst comments were from his past, and that at least in his writing and in his engagement with fans he seems to have made a real effort to listen to feedback. That said, by being a member of his church he is actively funding a hateful institution, and I don't think it's an unreasonable position to not want to support someone who does that.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 8:27 AM on March 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
Do I think there is room in the world for an article which attacks Sanderson? Absolutely. He's said some pretty homophobic stuff in the past, and continues to publically support a religious institution which has spent a fair amount of effort trying to make the lives of LGBT people worse.
You could also reasonably make an argument that he is not a good writer, although I would be a bit less sympathetic to that. And Kehe does sort of make this case, although I don't think particularly impressively; he picks out some bad sentences, which in a corpus of dozens of books with thousands of words I'm pretty sure you could do for any author. I'll note that Kehe also wrote a fairly glowing profile of Becky Chambers whose prose can also be pretty clunky.
But sensitivity or not to pain? Why on earth is that relevant at all? The fact that he came across as kind of dull, or pretentious? There are large chunks of the article that just come across as petty, and mean, and really not easily supporting his core thesis.
I guess you could make some kind of vague argument that despite Sanderson not talking much about his faith, his books are infused with it. Which... OK I guess, but I don't see this as a particular scandal. Again Kehe's problem with Mormonism isn't the active harm that the institution has done, but just that he finds Mormons a bit weird, which is honestly a fairly bigoted way of framing the issue.
To actually give my own opinion here; I have read quite a lot of Sanderson's work. I enjoy his work. I think he's good at painting interesting characters in exciting worlds, and tells engaging stories which make the pages fly by. I would agree that his focus on rules can make his stories feel mechanical sometimes, and ultimately I don't think I've loved any book of his I've read, but I've certainly had a good time with them.
I actually only found out about his faith, and his background much more recently. When I looked into this, I saw a lot of LGBT fans of his who were quite passionate in pointing out that his worst comments were from his past, and that at least in his writing and in his engagement with fans he seems to have made a real effort to listen to feedback. That said, by being a member of his church he is actively funding a hateful institution, and I don't think it's an unreasonable position to not want to support someone who does that.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 8:27 AM on March 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
specific axe to grind with people who participate in any religious community (except “maybe Quakers”).
I was asked, I answered the question. Do I have an ax to grind with institutions that perpetuate oppression, bigotry, homophobia, and racism? Yep. All of them, to various degrees. Not even sorry, but I do not intend to chase anybody out of the conversation.
I might go so far as to say that your responsibility to leave an institution of oppression is inversely proportional to your independent ability to do so. The more money, resources and comfort you have available, the higher that responsibility. It's baffling to me that that is being interpreted as somehow blaming the victim here when I characterize the act of leaving with nothing to hand as immensely brave, clearly traumatic, and entirely the fault of the institution that makes it hard to leave, not the person leaving it.
I'm defending Kehe (not even slightly un-critically I might add) in part, because the hate on was so strong in the earlier thread, I basically ignored the article. I'm glad I went back and read it.
I don't think he was 100% successful, but I also think describing it as hacky, hit job, and pedestrian is also off base. The article gave me a chance to look at this phenomenon of an artist and the growing fan base that supports him and ask critical questions about how his faith, family, institutions, and yes personal characteristics might feed into and otherwise support his ability to succeed in this way. I don't look at this as especially different from reading about a successful visual artist whose work I might enjoy and finding out they are the progeny (or as some might call it, a nepo-baby) of some much more famous and successful artist or public figure. In that case, too, I would reevaluate my relationship with their art because quite literally of who they are and what opportunities they had that someone else making art might not have had. Now suppose instead of some successful artist parents they had been supported by, say the Church of Scientology or a particularly powerful Catholic organization or a Hindutva political-social group - If we want to draw comparisons to other socially conservative religious-aligned institutions.
It is absolutely necessary to understand how people who have earned public trust, fandom, and so forth got into power. The sooner we stop pretending that these stories are somehow impolite to explore, the faster we will take power away from institutions that exploit this temerity to relate privilege, success, and institutional membership.
posted by abulafa at 9:08 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was asked, I answered the question. Do I have an ax to grind with institutions that perpetuate oppression, bigotry, homophobia, and racism? Yep. All of them, to various degrees. Not even sorry, but I do not intend to chase anybody out of the conversation.
I might go so far as to say that your responsibility to leave an institution of oppression is inversely proportional to your independent ability to do so. The more money, resources and comfort you have available, the higher that responsibility. It's baffling to me that that is being interpreted as somehow blaming the victim here when I characterize the act of leaving with nothing to hand as immensely brave, clearly traumatic, and entirely the fault of the institution that makes it hard to leave, not the person leaving it.
I'm defending Kehe (not even slightly un-critically I might add) in part, because the hate on was so strong in the earlier thread, I basically ignored the article. I'm glad I went back and read it.
I don't think he was 100% successful, but I also think describing it as hacky, hit job, and pedestrian is also off base. The article gave me a chance to look at this phenomenon of an artist and the growing fan base that supports him and ask critical questions about how his faith, family, institutions, and yes personal characteristics might feed into and otherwise support his ability to succeed in this way. I don't look at this as especially different from reading about a successful visual artist whose work I might enjoy and finding out they are the progeny (or as some might call it, a nepo-baby) of some much more famous and successful artist or public figure. In that case, too, I would reevaluate my relationship with their art because quite literally of who they are and what opportunities they had that someone else making art might not have had. Now suppose instead of some successful artist parents they had been supported by, say the Church of Scientology or a particularly powerful Catholic organization or a Hindutva political-social group - If we want to draw comparisons to other socially conservative religious-aligned institutions.
It is absolutely necessary to understand how people who have earned public trust, fandom, and so forth got into power. The sooner we stop pretending that these stories are somehow impolite to explore, the faster we will take power away from institutions that exploit this temerity to relate privilege, success, and institutional membership.
posted by abulafa at 9:08 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sanderson didn't get big because of his faith. He got big because he was hand-selected by Robert Jordan's editor-and-widow to finish the series when he was a young novelist with a couple of mildly successful books. He got handed a monumentally huge project with a similarly huge fanbase, did a creditable job with it, and that springboarded him into a place where he was able to write full-time.
If you want to make the argument that he's somehow successful because of his religion, you have to make that argument. You can't just point at it and say "See?"
(He's also done things like create a free writing advice podcast that heavily features minoritized writers, which is, I believe, an incredibly effective way to support and promote people other than himself. I don't think writing books obligates you to do anything other than write books, however successful you are, but I do notice when people try to reach down the ladder and help other folks. )
In that case, too, I would reevaluate my relationship with their art because quite literally of who they are and what opportunities they had that someone else making art might not have had.
Then yeah, we're not going to meet in the middle here. The purpose of art isn't activism. The purpose of consuming art isn't activism either.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:31 AM on March 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
If you want to make the argument that he's somehow successful because of his religion, you have to make that argument. You can't just point at it and say "See?"
(He's also done things like create a free writing advice podcast that heavily features minoritized writers, which is, I believe, an incredibly effective way to support and promote people other than himself. I don't think writing books obligates you to do anything other than write books, however successful you are, but I do notice when people try to reach down the ladder and help other folks. )
In that case, too, I would reevaluate my relationship with their art because quite literally of who they are and what opportunities they had that someone else making art might not have had.
Then yeah, we're not going to meet in the middle here. The purpose of art isn't activism. The purpose of consuming art isn't activism either.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:31 AM on March 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
The purpose of art isn't activism. The purpose of consuming art isn't activism either.
I don't think you get to decide the purpose of art or the purpose of consuming art for anyone but yourself. I'm pretty comfortable with my definitions. There isn't really a middle to meet in here - when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
posted by abulafa at 11:39 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't think you get to decide the purpose of art or the purpose of consuming art for anyone but yourself. I'm pretty comfortable with my definitions. There isn't really a middle to meet in here - when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
posted by abulafa at 11:39 AM on March 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
As a Quaker I gotta say I really enjoy Mr. Sanderson's books.
posted by Jarcat at 2:55 PM on March 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Jarcat at 2:55 PM on March 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
Adam Morgan (Esquire, 03/29/2023), "Welcome to Brandon Sanderson's Fantasy Empire."
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:43 PM on March 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:43 PM on March 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
Thanks for that article Wobuffet. I think that article provides a nice contrast that highlights the issues I have with Kehe's journalism. For a start Morgan's article feels better researched, and actually manages to throw criticism in a way that Kehes article, by being cruder and less refined, failed to deliver. I actually found the angle on how kickstarters cut out small bookshops novel, and not something I'd thought of.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:35 AM on March 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:35 AM on March 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
I've heard that Sanderson got the Wheel of Time sequel because he was already a Jordan fan, so he didn't have to get up to speed on the details of a long series. I'm sure his work ethic didn't hurt, either.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:35 AM on March 30, 2023
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:35 AM on March 30, 2023
Sanderson didn't get big because of his faith. He got big because he was hand-selected by Robert Jordan's editor-and-widow to finish the series when he was a young novelist with a couple of mildly successful books. He got handed a monumentally huge project with a similarly huge fanbase, did a creditable job with it, and that springboarded him into a place where he was able to write full-time.
He had already written Mistborn as a successful follow on to the well received debut in Elantris by the time he was chosen to finish WoT. I think he'd still likely be fairly famous, but it might have taken a little longer. WoT certainly accelerated things for him, but I don't think it would have slowed him down too much to have been passed over for it. He was already getting multi-book deals and on the path to the next level of sales. He's the David Eddings or the Weiss-Hickman of his generation. He would have been very popular anyway.
(I think he's somewhat better than either of those examples as a writer, but he occupies the same spot in a bookseller's heart).
posted by bonehead at 10:16 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
He had already written Mistborn as a successful follow on to the well received debut in Elantris by the time he was chosen to finish WoT. I think he'd still likely be fairly famous, but it might have taken a little longer. WoT certainly accelerated things for him, but I don't think it would have slowed him down too much to have been passed over for it. He was already getting multi-book deals and on the path to the next level of sales. He's the David Eddings or the Weiss-Hickman of his generation. He would have been very popular anyway.
(I think he's somewhat better than either of those examples as a writer, but he occupies the same spot in a bookseller's heart).
posted by bonehead at 10:16 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
Saw this in my feed today: Outside (Sanderson's personal blog). While this discussions seems to have moved on, it is his response to the article. I found it moving, and helpful context. I'm also a big fan of Sanderson's writing - probably clear from the fact that I subscribe to his blog. :)
posted by slide at 12:36 PM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by slide at 12:36 PM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
Brandon Sanderson's Prolific Fantasy Writing Is Exactly What The Genre Needs - His Religion Shouldn't Matter
(note: not making this argument myself, was surprised to have this pop up in my feed, passing along)
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:13 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
(note: not making this argument myself, was surprised to have this pop up in my feed, passing along)
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:13 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
As such, it's probably best to avoid throwing stones at Sanderson's perceived religious influences, unless you want to hit Tolkien (and C.S. Lewis, and any number of other fantasy writers) on the way.
But what if I really do want that? Is it ok then Mister former-Cracked.com scribbler with the effortless perspective on American Mormonism afforded by your Finnish MFA and Marvel universe expertise?
I got fed up with Tolkien pretty fast, and C.S. Lewis basically immediately. The sense of betrayal incandescing off my ten year old soul at the pedantic laziness of Aslan the Christ Lion could power a city.
Professionalism is good for the publisher and the market and I guess the fans who want more of the same product. It's not inherently antithetical to art - but the implication that not conforming to the publishing world's notion of reliability somehow makes for a lesser writer sure is cozily nestled in this piece. Right there next to religion is off limits as long as it's in the service of market productivity.
But focusing on the parasocial sense of entitlement to authors' work that makes GRRM fans frothing mad and which Sanderson has successfully leveraged isn't some kind of rhetorical coup de grace, it's admitting how much the author relies on the core fallacy of capitalism: nevermind the quality - we'll make it up in volume!
posted by abulafa at 4:29 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
But what if I really do want that? Is it ok then Mister former-Cracked.com scribbler with the effortless perspective on American Mormonism afforded by your Finnish MFA and Marvel universe expertise?
I got fed up with Tolkien pretty fast, and C.S. Lewis basically immediately. The sense of betrayal incandescing off my ten year old soul at the pedantic laziness of Aslan the Christ Lion could power a city.
Professionalism is good for the publisher and the market and I guess the fans who want more of the same product. It's not inherently antithetical to art - but the implication that not conforming to the publishing world's notion of reliability somehow makes for a lesser writer sure is cozily nestled in this piece. Right there next to religion is off limits as long as it's in the service of market productivity.
But focusing on the parasocial sense of entitlement to authors' work that makes GRRM fans frothing mad and which Sanderson has successfully leveraged isn't some kind of rhetorical coup de grace, it's admitting how much the author relies on the core fallacy of capitalism: nevermind the quality - we'll make it up in volume!
posted by abulafa at 4:29 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
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The one part that I think the author failed to get at or crack or analyze correctly is the exact nature of Sanderson's self promotion. Reading Sanderson's response and his writing about his own books on his web site.... I totally get how Kehe looked at this and said, "This is so self-promotional! What is behind this facade?"
But I believe Sanderson when he says that the answer is "nothing"! That's interesting, and the author didn't manage to explore that. You wouldn't know that's how it is at all if you read the piece in a vaccum.
posted by billjings at 11:06 AM on March 24, 2023 [9 favorites]