The wait

[Ravenshire]

The seventh through tenth books are rather poor (especially the tenth). They're huge and meandering and in those 4,000 pages or so, there is disturbingly little plot advancement or character development. I have not actually read anything of Sanderson outside of the last three WoT books, but I thought he was a markedly superior writer than Jordan.

As far as how derivative the story was, eh. It didn't bother me nearly as much as the enormous chunks of nothing happening. I was entertained enough through the first few that I was willing to see it through to the end.

Has anyone here ever read any Ray Feist? He was my first adult fantasy love (though I kind of fell out of love with the Riftwar books after the Serpentwar Saga).

I can't say I was really entertained by WoT past the first one. Meh. Different strokes.

Sanderson, on the other hand, has been immensely entertaining. Every time he starts a new fantasy world, he creates a completely new magical system. They are always well explained and thought out. Which brings us to the one criticism I have of him. He does tend to over explain how those systems work. Once at the beginning is plenty Brandon!!!

I haven't read any Feist yet, but he's been recommended to me several times. Any particular book I should look for? Any I should avoid?

Maybe my analogy wasn't the best. In the Animorphs books I mentioned before, half of them are ghostwritten, and when K.A. Applegate comes back to do the last couple of books it seems she's lost sight of what the characters and such are about. She kills one off at the end for "realism", and the ending for the rest seem to be determined by how much they actually wanted to fight the Yeerks, as Applegate tries to force an anti-war message. Then she sends most of them off to a Bolivian Army ending to send the message that "stories never end", when I'm pretty sure they do.

Analogies are inherently flawed. But, they're a useful tool for getting a point across. I took your point. I'd just prefer to wait for the awesome burger, even if I'm hungry!

I've never read any of the "Animorphs" books, but I think something similar is happening in "The Song of Ice and Fire." Martin seems to have lost his direction and the latest book was a train wreck. In his case though, I think he just has too much on his plate with his writing, editing (short story collections and "Wild Card" books) and helping out over at HBO on "Game of Thrones" production.

While giving extra time can allow an author to bring good quality work, taking too long with your story can make you lose sight of it.

This is certainly a danger. The "Exiles" series I mentioned by Melanie Rawn may wind up being a good example. I'm beginning to believe it'll never happen. Still, I'll take that over a hack job, rushed to finish it. My imaginings about how it all turns out are probably better.