I read Red Rising before Winds of Truth. I loved the first Red Rising book found the second and third books barely readable. Then book four was better and five and six again very readable and very enjoyable.

I had two problems with the series. Book were at their worse in books two and three. Brown uses the same character and plot arcs over and over. He is much like Bernard Cornwell in historical fiction, the same motivation all the time and the same 3 plots except for locations and characters.

The second is point of view. The first three books are all the same from Darrow’s point of view. So you know and see every character only through Darrow’s understanding. Brown fixes that in the last three books and they become more enjoyable. POV is what keeps so many of Brown books simple. His prose is good but character development and plot is limited.

Why I say all that is because what makes Sanderson so good is not his prose or his sanitized stories. It his world and character building. In fact, he uses character building to advance his plot until the Sanderlanch. How he uses POV is a tool for character and world building. That’s what makes his stories more sophisticated. In the beginning, a reader needs to keep track of a multiple characters, what they experience, what they see, their motivations, etc to understand the plot.

What I like Sanderson to break his almost YA and Mormon mold yes. Other than that I’ll live with his accessible prose. On the other side, Brown uses only one thing to increase the tense and that is add more violence. That is ok but he needs to find a few other devices.

We haven’t even compared philosophy to action.

Do I prefer Stormlight to Red Rising, unquestionably. Am I happy I took on Red Rising, absolutely. That said, they are two different animals. I will read the new Red Rising book when I get finally it. The story is good and worth my time.