Podcast at the End of the Universe Episode 7!

[Kim]

This time we kick off our spoiler free discussion of The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson and Sphere by Michael Crichton.

You can listen on Soundcloud, iTunes, or your favourite podcast app!

[Silvana]

Interesting opinion on Mormon's authors and female characters. Before Mistborn, I only read Ender's Game and Valentine was okay so...anyway, I like reading about great female characters but I don't see the need of must having them represented equally in numbers in the books I read. Having said that, none of the female characters in Mistborn first and second novels are special to me either.

And I do agree about Elend being bland. Looking forward to listen to the spoiler episode.

[Trike]

I haven't noticed the woman thing in the other two Sanderson books I've read, but I had serious problems with those books. (Warbreaker review. Steelheart review.) One minor aspect of which was directly related to his Mormonism, in that he's afraid to curse. He uses curse words, but they're all fake ones he's made up. After a while it starts sounding like an episode of Scooby Doo: "Jinkies!"

However, I do listen to the Writing Excuses podcast he does, as well as watched his writing classes at BYU on YouTube, and he brings up Orson Scott Card and L.E. Modesitt frequently, because those guys are writers he admires. That's probably why his work has a similar feel.

I agree with Silvana that I don't actually need a balanced cast to enjoy a story (it's hard to think of a combat-centric war movie that has women as anything but tertiary characters, for instance), but if he's trying to emulate a world that can actually function, women need to play a role.

Sanderson has talked often about tokenism, especially avoiding falling into the trap of using a character as a stand-in for an entire race. All dwarves are this, all elves are that, all Vulcans do such-and-such, all Klingons behave this way, etc. Maybe he learned this the hard way by writing women like this. I don't have a large enough sample size to know.

One thing I *have* noticed is that Sanderson seems to be most adept at writing D&D modules more than anything else. He excels at worldbuilding. I agree with whoever said he should write a PnP RPG, or a video game. He'd be great at that.

I'm curious what things he's said that were so disagreed with. He's certainly not Card-level of douchenozzlery.

Anyway, back to the podcast for the Sphere portion.

[Sarah]

If you Google Brandon Sanderson + prophet + legislation of gay marriage you'll find some of his anti-gay comments. Not OSC level but not an author I'd go out of my way to read.

[Trike]

I've heard him talk about it and read his essay on his blog and I don't have an issue with his opinion. If one considers the source, the way he was brought up and the conservative religious community he lives in, his thoughts are those of a flaming liberal.

I mean, Orson Scott Card wants to literally overthrow the government via violent revolution because gay marriage is legal, and has long advocated that gays be arrested, hassled by the police, and worse. Far, far worse.

By comparison, Sanderson's "live and let live" attitude as well as defining marriage as solely a religious thing seems pretty forward-thinking.

[Don]

douchenozzelry.... Trike you just gave him the business!