Cosmere picked up by Apple TV

[Ruin Explorer]

Out of curiosity, is there any element that particularly jumps out at you as pointless...? I did not find any of it boring, so I am honest to God not sure which you are referring to specifically.

I mean, it's been a few years, and these are giant ass books written in a rather forgettable style, it's not like Gene Wolfe who is basically writing in flame direct into the memory, but I would say whilst the first book had relatively little of this, only an excessive amount of repetitious scenes ("and then basically the same thing happened again but slightly differently so I described it for another four pages") or scenes which went on 3x too long (several "nobles arguing"-type scenes were like this), all of which should be fixable by other writers being involved and the TV format making repetitious stuff obviously expensive and stupid, so I'm not too worried about that. But the next two books had increasing amounts of just pointless fight scenes which weren't even exciting, wildly overly long scenes which were technically delivering information but were like, inappropriately long, sudden lengthy cuts to other characters where then not much happened apart from lore teasing of the "Oh yes let's talk obliquely about the thing that happened instead of being direct because mystery is inherently cool"-type (something I used to respect Sanderson for NOT doing, by the way!), and so on. But there are two kinda-memorable offenders, both I think from book 3. One was like, this city being taken over by cultists, but it was just so extended and done in such a crap way that it was deeply uncompelling, and also featured a Type-A Mysterious Wanker at absolute nuclear maximum mysterious wank mode (I'm told he's maybe from another, totally unrelated series of books set in the cosmere), just for bonus-time wasting. The other, which I think featured some of the same characters was a lengthy mysterious/magic journey, which once more involved external characters, this time so obviously from an unrelated book series that I looked it up whilst reading, and I will say, unfortunately, the female character was actually way cooler-seeming than anyone in Stormlight, and I thought "Wow am I wasting my time reading Stormlight, I should go read the cross-marketed book she's from, that sounds a lot more interesting", but she didn't get to do anything, and nothing much happened, and this was an awful lot of pages, and we learned absolutely nothing that seemed to mean anything.

Now, maybe, in some future book, this will matter, but like this kind of extended lore-wank, lore-teasing for esoteric lore doesn't work for TV shows - you have to keep it shorter and more direct, preferably less obvious in what it is, and most importantly, more human and relevant-feeling. It only kinda-works in the novels because Sanderson has an existing fanbase, some of whom aren't even reading the novels primarily for the characters or story, rather primarily to figure out cosmere lore mysteries, which is like, very serious nerd alert behaviour, and I say that as a nerd, who the nerd alert detector would definitely go off on with a high reading, but the kind of reading you'd get off someone primarily trying to work out cosmere lore stuff would like, break the meter. And that's not the kind of thing you can do in a TV show. In a TV show, you want like R + L = J level stuff, emotional stuff about relationships and people, not esoteric stuff about how the universe works.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, it's been a few years, and these are giant ass books written in a rather forgettable style, it's not like Gene Wolfe who is basically writing in flame direct into the memory, but I would say whilst the first book had relatively little of this, only an excessive amount of repetitious scenes ("and then basically the same thing happened again but slightly differently so I described it for another four pages") or scenes which went on 3x too long (several "nobles arguing"-type scenes were like this), all of which should be fixable by other writers being involved and the TV format making repetitious stuff obviously expensive and stupid, so I'm not too worried about that. But the next two books had increasing amounts of just pointless fight scenes which weren't even exciting, wildly overly long scenes which were technically delivering information but were like, inappropriately long, sudden lengthy cuts to other characters where then not much happened apart from lore teasing of the "Oh yes let's talk obliquely about the thing that happened instead of being direct because mystery is inherently cool"-type (something I used to respect Sanderson for NOT doing, by the way!), and so on. But there are two kinda-memorable offenders, both I think from book 3. One was like, this city being taken over by cultists, but it was just so extended and done in such a crap way that it was deeply uncompelling, and also featured a Type-A Mysterious Wanker at absolute nuclear maximum mysterious wank mode (I'm told he's maybe from another, totally unrelated series of books set in the cosmere), just for bonus-time wasting. The other, which I think featured some of the same characters was a lengthy mysterious/magic journey, which once more involved external characters, this time so obviously from an unrelated book series that I looked it up whilst reading, and I will say, unfortunately, the female character was actually way cooler-seeming than anyone in Stormlight, and I thought "Wow am I wasting my time reading Stormlight, I should go read the cross-marketed book she's from, that sounds a lot more interesting", but she didn't get to do anything, and nothing much happened, and this was an awful lot of pages, and we learned absolutely nothing that seemed to mean anything.

Now, maybe, in some future book, this will matter, but like this kind of extended lore-wank, lore-teasing for esoteric lore doesn't work for TV shows - you have to keep it shorter and more direct, preferably less obvious in what it is, and most importantly, more human and relevant-feeling. It only kinda-works in the novels because Sanderson has an existing fanbase, some of whom aren't even reading the novels primarily for the characters or story, rather primarily to figure out cosmere lore mysteries, which is like, very serious nerd alert behaviour, and I say that as a nerd, who the nerd alert detector would definitely go off on with a high reading, but the kind of reading you'd get off someone primarily trying to work out cosmere lore stuff would like, break the meter. And that's not the kind of thing you can do in a TV show. In a TV show, you want like R + L = J level stuff, emotional stuff about relationships and people, not esoteric stuff about how the universe works.

Yeah, the fall of Kholins and the journey through Shadesmar are overall important, but I would agree that something would need to change for a TV show. Actually expanding Kholins and it's importance would seem to be the way to go. The Cognitive Realm is weird enough that I don't really see how it will work in live action.

Honestly never believed in live action Stormlight: much better fit for a weird slowpaced Anime IMO. The biggest budget live action TV shows of all time are the Wheel of Time and Rings of Power, but doing Stormlight even half-assed would require so much more money just for the flora and fauna, I really don't forsee it working out. Part of what I like about Stormlight is how it uses the infinite special effects and casting budget of literature, the inevitable limits of television will rankle most likely.

 

[Parmandur]

OK, so the Sanderson Fandom has begun micro-analyzing the Producer and her production company, Theresa Kang-Lowe of Blue Marble Productions, and what that cna mean. She is a major veteran talent agent, who a few years ago went off on her own to make a new talent agency slash film production company, getting a big exclusive deal with Apple. She has worked with a lot of major film talent, and her company currently has some interesting clientele:

"Blue Marble Management represents artists such as Oscar®-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, Oscar®-winner Simon Beaufoy, Emmy®-winner Lena Waithe, Golden Globe®-nominee and best-selling author Gillian Flynn, Broadway playwright and Emmy®-nominated screenwriter Jason Kim, amongst other notables."

Theresa Kang-Lowe | Gold House

Theresa Kang-Lowe is the founder and CEO of Blue Marble Pictures and Blue Marble Management. Kang-Lowe is the first Asian American woman to launch a management and production company with an exclusive producing deal. Blue Marble Pictures has an exclusive multi-year producing deal with AppleTV+...

goldhouse.org

 

[Stalker0]

I do agree it is interesting that Apple would grant Brandon so much creative control when that has been historically reserved. I mean Brandon is a giant name, but he's not necessarily a monoloth of authorship, and there are some very big risks when giving someone with no tv experience that much creative control.

You could argue that for all of D&Ds mishandling of GoT's later scenes, the cuts they made to various plotlines over the first 4 seasons really improved the pace and flow of the story for many viewers. Some would argue its "better Got" than the OG books *your mileage on that of course will very". People often think a showrunners job is just to mirror the book content onto Tv, word for word, page for page. But the mediums are very different, and there is a lot of work (and often cuts) you have to make for a good transition.

So yeah, its a big gamble. So why open that door for Brandon? What did Apple see that they thought warranted that special deal? Or...have we become so exhausted for content that they are now desperate for successful franchises to mine?

 

[Stalker0]

Also, the Stormlight novels show a serious failure of self-editing. It's unclear to be whether this is a choice he's making (which he could also not make) or he sees it as inherent to the nature of the project, but to call Stormlight bloated and full of "filler" would be to quite seriously understate matters.

I don't agree with the level of critique here, but I will agree that later Stormlight books are getting more "bloated" than they need to be. I have definately found tangents in the later storiees I struggled to stay with which caused me to put the book down. In the first few books, I could not put the damn thing down....but later ones I did struggle to finsih sometimes.

So I can respect the concern. Brandon is falling into the trap some other authors do where the books just get longer and longer. Now I don't think he's anywhere near GRRM for that...and he's such a machine of writing it has impacted his deadlines very much....but its a reasonable concern if the trend continues.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You could argue that for all of D&Ds mishandling of GoT's later scenes, the cuts they made to various plotlines over the first 4 seasons really improved the pace and flow of the story for many viewers.

Absolutely. D&D genuinely did a good job when they were adapting existing material, and whilst I haven't seen 3 Body (or read the book), my understanding is they did a good job adapting that too. Seems like they have poor judgement/instincts with original material, but extant stuff? Good, maybe even great.

Or...have we become so exhausted for content that they are now desperate for successful franchises to mine?

I dunno. I'm hoping it's like "Theresa Kang-Lowe is an absolutely S-tier producer who producer-fu'd this deal into existing as evidence of her tremendous powers", and that like, nobody but her particularly felt the need for it (to be clear, not a criticism of Kang-Lowe, that's badass and I respect it), and that Sanderson will just have a normal level of involvement rather attempting his hand at directing or solo-screenwriting or anything. But I do wonder.

I don't agree with the level of critique here

That's totally fair - reactions to the same material and issues can vary a lot. Tolerances vary a ton. Some things I can deal with much more than others. I judge Stormlight a bit more harshly than some because I've seen Sanderson avoid these specific pitfalls before and had stronger books for it.

 

[Parmandur]

Sanderson has a few words to say about this here:

 

[Parmandur]

I dunno. I'm hoping it's like "Theresa Kang-Lowe is an absolutely S-tier producer who producer-fu'd this deal into existing as evidence of her tremendous powers", and that like, nobody but her particularly felt the need for it (to be clear, not a criticism of Kang-Lowe, that's badass and I respect it), and that Sanderson will just have a normal level of involvement rather attempting his hand at directing or solo-screenwriting or anything. But I do wonder.

Per the update he posted today, Sanderson is going to be spending his full time writing the first draft of a Mistborn screenplay through May (not the first time he has written a screenplay of Mistborn specifically, either) and is excited less by "control" per se as "partnership"...based on his stated adaptation philosophy over the years, I doubt he will be overly precious, but having ownership is important to him. I think the producwd may have players a big role, as this is a big opportunity for her to boost her talent clients.

That's totally fair - reactions to the same material and issues can vary a lot. Tolerances vary a ton. Some things I can deal with much more than others. I judge Stormlight a bit more harshly than some because I've seen Sanderson avoid these specific pitfalls before and had stronger books for it.

Stormlight started as his reaction to what he was being forced to write "for the market" before he sold.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Stormlight started as his reaction to what he was being forced to write "for the market" before he sold.

Yeah and I think Stormlight is prima facie evidence of the eternal truth that limitations breed creativity, and removing those limitations can result in something massive and sprawling but not necessarily actually any better.

But there's just Mistborn on the table so far and that's a compact and fairly together story, the weak parts of which could very easily be punched up by other writers or Sanderson himself.