He builds interesting magic systems and when the cosmere gets completed we will see how well it all fits together. Honestly, it is amazing that it is just as easy to read the Mistborn and WOK books as it is the Wax and Wayne or evil librarian books for a younger audience. Having said that, I think Tolkien is worth the investment. I failed twice to read the trilogy in high school when I couldn't get into it. But I finally read it after my mission and I couldn't believe the melancholy and sense of loss I felt at the end of it. I have read most fantasy series and few series have affected me like LOTR.

I felt relief that Wheel of Time was finally saved by Sanderson at the end, but not much regret that it was finally over. To me, the only fantasy series that has comparable world building to Tolkien and as much ambition in bringing together multiple storylines into a bigger, Cosmere style context has been the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. It was hard work reading it the first time but I felt the same sense of loss at the end of it that I did with LOTR. And reading it the second time through with a much better understanding of how it fit together allowed me to have an amazing experience the second time fitting pieces together that I missed the first time through.