Despite writing about dark topics - apocalyptic events, oppressed populations, the failures of heroes, etc. - he is missing the edge that you get from other authors who write similar stories.
You know what, I think you’re onto something here. I don’t need Scadrial/Cosmere to be the darkest and edgiest fantasy world ever, and a lot of fantasy readers read for escapism. But there is a certain friction you expect in the genre that just isn’t there for me in the first Mistborn trilogy, or the Stormlight books I read. Again, I can’t quantify it (and maybe I don’t have to), but the best example of my feeling is when I recall reading The Magician’s Nephew with my younger cousin around the same time that I started the Stormlight Archive, and man was I way more invested in Diggory and Polly’s reactions to the dystopias they were visiting than who/whatever was screwing with Kal again (free my boy from suffering, Sanderson).
You know what, I think you’re onto something here. I don’t need Scadrial/Cosmere to be the darkest and edgiest fantasy world ever, and a lot of fantasy readers read for escapism. But there is a certain friction you expect in the genre that just isn’t there for me in the first Mistborn trilogy, or the Stormlight books I read. Again, I can’t quantify it (and maybe I don’t have to), but the best example of my feeling is when I recall reading The Magician’s Nephew with my younger cousin around the same time that I started the Stormlight Archive, and man was I way more invested in Diggory and Polly’s reactions to the dystopias they were visiting than who/whatever was screwing with Kal again (free my boy from suffering, Sanderson).