Stand-alone novels:
Elantris — (2005) Publisher: Elantris was the capital of Arelon: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities for the benefit of all. Yet each of these demigods was once an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, leper-like, powerless creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling. Arelon's new capital, Kae, crouches in the shadow of Elantris. Princess Sarene of Teod arrives for a marriage of state with Crown Prince Raoden, hoping — based on their correspondence — to also find love. She finds instead that Raoden has died and she is considered his widow. Both Teod and Arelon are under threat as the last remaining holdouts against the imperial ambitions of the ruthless religious fanatics of Fjordell. So Sarene decides to use her new status to counter the machinations of Hrathen, a Fjordell high priest who has come to Kae to convert Arelon and claim it for his emperor and his god. But neither Sarene nor Hrathen suspect the truth about Prince Raoden. Stricken by the same curse that ruined Elantris, Raoden was secretly exiled by his father to the dark city. His struggle to help the wretches trapped there begins a series of events that will bring hope to Arelon, and perhaps reveal the secret of Elantris itself. A rare epic fantasy that doesn't recycle the classics and that is a complete and satisfying story in one volume, Elantris is fleet and fun, full of surprises and characters to care about. It's also the wonderful debut of a welcome new star in the constellation of fantasy.
   
The Hope of Elantris is a 49c “bonus scene” which you can download.
Available for download at Audible.com
 Elantris:
Good standalone
At the start, I want to give Brandon Sanderson props just for doing what seems to be the unthinkable nowadays — writing a standalone fantasy, a book that actually comes to a close, a book that is just that, a book and not the "start of a bright new fresh trilogy that out-Tolkien's Tolkien!" Luckily, the book holds up well and even merits beyond being a standalone.
Elantris is the name of the city that until ten years ago was inhabited by near-gods, ordinary people randomly transformed by the "Shaod," some sort of semi-virus (my comparison not Sanderson's) that struck all segments of the population of Arelon and turned them into powerful magic users. Elantris was a city of beauty and power, the capital of Arelon, until the magic suddenly disappeared a decade ago. The Shaod, however, still comes, though now it leaves the people disfigured and in seemingly eternal torment (pain of any sort remains forever, growing cumulatively in effect). Those it happens to our now shut into the ruins of Elantris and left there to suffer or die. All of this is swiftly conveyed in a two-page prologue.
The story itself centers on Prince Raoden, heir to the throne of Arelon, and his wife Princess Sarene of Teod. The two have not met — the marriage was a political one to cement relations between the only two nations that have resisted Fjordell, an expanding religious empire. At the book's start, Raoden is struck by the Shaod and exiled into Elantris. The story that unfolds focuses on his refusal to give into the inevitable "givens" of Elantris — suffering, privation, isolation, madness. Instead he tries to build a society within the city, continuing what had been his earlier unsuccessful attempts at reformist politics. He also tries to learn just what had destroyed Elantris' magic.
Sarene, having arrived and been told her newly-betrothed had died, stays on in Arelon and tries to strengthen the country (ruled by Raoden's inept father) so that it may stand as a strong ally with Teod (ruled by her father) against Fiordell.
Meanwhile, that empire's chief agent, Hrathen, a high leader in the hierarchy of the Shu-Dereth faith has also arrived in Arelon, given the mission to convert the country within three months. Otherwise the empire armies will do so at the tip of the sword. Hrathen is fresh from a bloody conversion, orchestrated by him, of another country and has no desire to see similar bloodshed, ruthless as he is in his attempts to convert the current Arelon leadership (and if they won't, he'll change the leadership by whatever means possible).
The book shifts among the three main characters and does so quite smoothly. The story itself is quick-paced, each one offering up its own bit of suspenseful action.
The book has its flaws. Raoden and Sarene are a bit too consistently good, too consistently successful. A darker tinge to each would have helped greatly. As it is, one never truly doubts whether or not they'll succeed and succeed relatively easily. Raoden is painted as a reformer, dangerous enough that it is not beyond consideration that his own father had him "killed" so as to rid himself of a gadfly son always undermining his father's feudal system. But there's too much of the sense of "royal presence and power" underlying his created Elantrian society to make that description feel completely true. His study and (not really giving much away here) solution to the disappearance of the magic also seems to come too easily and its repair is pretty anti-climactic.
Hrathen's story is the strongest of the three. Partially because his character undergoes some change, unlike the other two. Partially because he has a more complex storyline—he must use politics and public relations to battle the Princess for control of Arelon and also battle a challenging and more fundamentalist/fanatic upstart priest from within his own group who would be just as happy to see all of Arelon killed as converted. All this while he battles his own interior doubts. If the other main characters are a bit pallid, Hrathen brings a much more colorful (darkly colorful) edge to things.
The story, as mentioned, does come to a resolution, though it also leaves room for Sanderson to further explore these characters (well, some of them) and this land. If he chooses to do so, I'd pick up another Elantrian book. Elantris isn't great, but it's better than average and, as a first novel, bodes well for future ones. Recommended. —Bill Comments
  Warbreaker — (2009) From the author: In many ways, this book is a companion — yet opposite book — to ELANTRIS. Though set in separate worlds with very different systems of magic, both take the same concept, then run different directions with it.... Now, I want to try another book about deified men. Coincidentally, I decided I wanted to deal with another concept I promised in ELANTRIS, but then ignored — the bride who is sent to another kingdom to marry a man she doesn't know. Once again, I wanted to take it the opposite direction. In Elantris, Sarene arrives to discover her fiancé is dead and gone. In Warbreaker, however, I wanted to show what happened if the bride didn't get to dodge this uncomfortable situation, but actually had to marry the man she'd been promised to.
 Warbreaker
I just finished Warbreaker, and the words that keep coming to mind are "That was so good!" This is the first Brandon Sanderson novel I've read, and it certainly won't be the last. Warbreaker combines highly original world-building with an exciting plot that kept me on the edge of my seat.
The novel begins with the introduction of two major characters: Vivenna and Siri, princesses of the tiny kingdom of Idris. You may think you've seen these archetypes before — the stiff, elegant princess and the feisty, rebellious princess — but the way the two women develop is unexpected and realistic. Neither is prepared for what awaits them in the neighboring kingdom of Hallandren. The royal line of Idris once ruled Hallandren, and everything about present-day Hallandren is vilified in Idris, especially its magic, its colorful clothing and architecture, and its flesh-and-blood gods.
Siri is sent away to be married to Susebron, the mysterious God-King of Hallandren. I was reminded of the Cupid and Psyche tale, in that Siri is given every luxury but kept from learning the true nature of her husband. Vivenna runs away from Idris shortly after Siri's departure, planning to rescue Siri and find her own purpose in life, and ends up involved in a resistance movement. The court and the street are both filled with dangers. Things are not always what they seem, and few people can be trusted.
Most of Hallandren's gods are pushing for war with Idris, a war that Idris cannot possibly win, and the plot revolves around Siri and Vivenna's attempts to prevent it. They are aided by Lightsong, the reluctant god of courage, and by a mysterious man with a long and troubled past. The plot is exciting and complex, with lots of twists and turns. Often a revelation would make me jawdrop in surprise, and then the next moment I'd be thinking, "Of course! How did I not see that?" Those are the best kinds of plot twists — they seem to come out of nowhere but in retrospect make perfect sense.
There's a brief period when the story dragged a little for me. I've noticed that, as a reader, I tend to get bogged down when the point-of-view character is being buffeted along by the plot rather than driving events. Looking back, I wonder if I was subconsciously picking up on the fact that this character was being used as a pawn. Like many other things, it makes sense later.
A short scene I loved: the goddess Allmother's treatment of a petitioner, which showed that a god can change someone's life without using a drop of magic.
Warbreaker is dark in places, but the darkness is tempered by hilarious dialogue, a tender love story, and unexpected acts of heroism from the unlikeliest sources. I'm reminded of my fellow reviewer Kat's comment about a completely different book: it leads us into darkness but doesn't leave us wallowing there. In Warbreaker, you never know who might turn out to be a villain. You never know who might turn out to be a hero, either. —Kelly Comments
 Warbreaker
Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker is yet another strong showing from the author of the highly recommended Mistborn series and the stand-alone Elantris. Though not without flaws, the book’s problems are more than outweighed by its strengths, making it a highly enjoyable read.
Like his previous novels, Sanderson introduces a unique kind of magic, known as BioChromatic magic. Each person is born with a single “Breath,” which can be bought, sold, or given away freely (it cannot be taken). Having multiple Breaths allows someone to perform limited magic through a combination of spending Breath, leaching color from objects, and reciting Commands. One can, for example, imbue objects with a form of life by filling a rope with Breath and commanding it to hold a person. It costs a certain amount of Breath to perform certain acts (think spell points or mana) and there are rules regarding if/when one can recover spent Breaths. Accumulating more Breath makes you more powerful and nobody has more Breaths than the god-king of Hallandren, who has 50,000 as a result of a royal legacy and being “fed” breaths given by willing citizens.
There is also a special group known as Returned — people who have died and come back with a single, powerful Breath. They will “consume” that single breath and die again, but if they are fed extra breaths, they can live off of those instead, saving their single Returned Breath, which has power to heal, though if they use it or give it away they will die. In Hallandren, the Returned are considered gods. They live pampered, ageless lives in a compound with the god-king, and are petitioned by the people to use their divine breath on the petitioner’s behalf (some gods in fact do so, killing themselves as a result).
War is looming between Hallandren and Idris, a highlands country founded centuries ago by the then-royal family of Hallandren, their rule ended by Kalad the Usurper. Hallandren has long viewed Idris as a rebel land and tensions have been increasing for some time and attempts to either prevent war or hasten it are what drive most of the plot. The precipitating event is the coming-of-age of Vivenna, a princess of Idris contracted to become the God-king’s wife when she turned 22. But rather than send Vivenna, the king of Idris sends his other daughter Siri — his impetuous, rebellious, “useless” daughter.
Siri arrives in Hallandren’s capital city and takes her place in the gods’ compound as wife to the God-king (who comes with some surprises of his own), and soon becomes enmeshed in court intrigue between the god-king and his hierarchy of priests, as well as in the politics of the impending war. Meanwhile, Vivenna, unbeknownst to Siri, also arrives in the city, ostensibly to rescue Siri but equally because for her whole life she’d prepared to be the God-king’s wife as sacrifice for her people and with that taken away she’d lost her sense of self. While Siri tries to survive in the isolated compound, Vivenna, aided by a pair of mercenaries, works the city streets, trying to disrupt Hallandren’s ability to wage war and rally to her side the extensive expatriate population of Idrians that make up much of the city’s underclass.
Another major character is Lightsong, one of Hallandren’s Returned gods, who has always believed in doing as little as possibly and doing what little one must do as unseriously as possible. The aforementioned events, though, along with several others (his attempted recruitment into politics by the god Blushweaver, a series of nightmares, a murder in the compound, and the possible resurfacing of fragmented memories of his past life) threaten to turn him unwillingly into a person of importance.
Finally, there is the mysterious character whose scene opens the novel — Vasher, a man well-versed in BioChromatic magic who carries with him a black sword that causes almost all who hold it to kill anyone around them and then themselves.
The major strength of Warbreaker is its characterization. Each of the three major characters — Siri, Vivenna, and Lightsong — change dramatically as the story progresses. Siri must grow beyond the silly, irresponsible, “useless” second daughter. Vivenna must find a new path once the one she’d aimed at all her life was suddenly removed, and she finds that she knew neither Hallandren nor herself as well as she thought she did. And Lightsong, as much as he fights it, finds himself turning into someone serious. More impressively, Sanderson’s minor characters are almost all equally well-drawn, including Blushweaver (who first tries to pry Lightsong from his irrelevancy) and Denth (one of the two mercenaries working with Vivenna). Even characters who barely make an appearance, such as Vivenna’s friend Parlin or the goddess Allmother, have their sharply drawn moments.
Another major plus is the humor laced throughout Warbreaker, with Lightsong and his long-suffering priest Llarimar, and Denth and his partner Tonk Fah, acting almost as a pair of comic duos. Comedy isn’t easy to pull off, and in much fantasy it’s either sorely lacking or feels forced, but here it is actually funny and falls naturally into the characters’ personas. Even better are the times it serves more than the singular purpose of comic relief.
Then of course there’s the story itself. It’s a pleasure to read a relatively original fantasy plot — no quest, no long journey, no dark lord, no band of underdogs, no battle scenes coming at regular spacings to lead up to a Final Battle, no elegant elves or grumpy dwarves or sarcastic thieves. The whole premise is actually the antithesis of much fantasy because it’s about preventing a war instead of winning one. The canvas is small, as are the actions of the characters (meetings and conversations for the most part rather than sword-swinging and city-taking), but it doesn’t lack for tension. There are several twists — some which sharp-eyed readers might see coming, but even ones that were a heavily foreshadowed don’t lack for enjoyable revelation. And there are several honestly powerful emotional moments. Warbreaker has a plot that keeps you interested, and throws you off-stride enough, to keep it constantly fresh. Finally, with regard to the plot, it’s simply a pleasure to read a self-contained one. Sanderson clearly points toward a second book, but one feels quite happily satisfied with the resolution at the end of Warbreaker. So much so that one needn’t read a sequel, though I’d assume most will want to based on how good Warbreaker is.
Warbreaker isn’t a flawless book. Despite the time spent on the BioChromatic magic, and a few heavy info-dumps that were sprinkled into the text, I never really felt like I had a strong concrete handle on it, certainly nowhere near the understanding I felt I had with regard to allomancy in the Mistborn series. This was true both of the system/powers itself and the way it works in the general economy. Granted, one of the characters most well-versed in it says there is much more unknown than known about the system, and there is the probability that more will be explained in a sequel, but that line felt a bit more like a CYA line or placeholder line than an honest explanation. But while it’s a bit nagging of a flaw throughout, and especially at one point when a character seems to reveal a different and much stronger use of the power than I would have guessed was allowed, it never hinders enjoyment of the story, and I’m willing to grant Sanderson some leeway in return for coming up with yet another original magic system.
Characterwise, I would have liked to have seen Siri take more time to get her feet under her; she becomes a bit too good too quickly for my liking. And I could have done with less of Vivenna’s interior monologues on how she’s changing, mostly because Sanderson had done a good enough job in showing us that. And I wouldn’t have minded seeing more gods because the few we did see were so sharply drawn and interesting. I thought it also would have been nice to see what was going on in Idris, or at least to hear somehow what was happening there. Another relatively minor flaw was that characters seemed a bit less knowledgeable about history and BioChromatics than I would have expected given the relatively short historical time period over which this all developed (roughly 300 years).
Finally, the ending of Warbreaker felt rushed to me. It wrapped up a bit too quickly (I can’t say neatly as we left it so abruptly that I’m not sure it was all wrapped up neatly). And I’ve never been a fan of the epilogue, especially when it’s of the expository here’s-some-info-that-will-help-explain-what-really-happened sort.
The funny thing is, most of these flaws could have been taken care of with a slightly longer book. It isn’t often that I’m clamoring for a fantasy novel to be longer — usually just the opposite since so many can be so bloated — but I would have been more than happy to have spent another 100 pages in Sanderson’s Warbreaker just to allow for a slower, more full ending and a bit more characterization/explanation throughout.
If the worst you can say about a book is that it wasn’t long enough, the author is clearly doing something well. In Brandon Sanderson’s case, that's nearly everything. The parts that don’t quite measure up really don’t have much of a negative impact; the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. I’m looking forward to what follows — I hope we'll be getting a sequel to Warbreaker! Highly recommended.
—Bill Comments
 Warbreaker
I’ll confess here and now: After reading the blurb on one of Brandon Sanderson’s MISTBORN books, I promptly set it back down and wrote him off my list of authors to check out. That may sound harsh, but the truth is that it sounded like all the things I got fed up with about fantasy a long time ago. But it’s impossible to pass a copy of Warbreaker without noticing it, thanks to the exquisite cover art (let that be a lesson to you, publishers). So I picked it up, checked out the blurb, and read the prologue — not an easy feat, mind, as this is one heavy mother of a book — and decided to take it home with me.
Obviously I enjoyed the prologue. Vasher and Nightblood make for a couple of intriguing characters, and the premise of BioChromatic Breath is undeniably an interesting one. I was looking forward to more of that. Mostly, I got sisters Siri and Vivenna instead. I admit, I’m a little leery of male high fantasy authors because of their awful harpyish female characters (sorry, boys), but Brandon Sanderson handles them pretty well. Siri is impulsive and a little bit bratty, but her determination is admirable. Nothing daunts her for long and she doesn’t let despair rule her, making her a character I enjoyed following. On the other hand, I found Vivenna positively loathsome for most of the book, though to Sanderson’s credit it isn’t because she’s a poorly written female character or just plain poorly written. It’s more that her deeper nature isn’t revealed in the slightest until it’s almost too late.
In general, Sanderson’s characters are pretty well wrought (though Lightsong’s sense of humor only hits its mark about half the time) and he managed to construct a romantic relationship well. That’s something a lot of authors, male and female both, are incapable of. But they also mark one of the biggest disappointments for me, as well: Vasher. He’s such an interesting character and, as the Warbreaker, he’s arguably the titular character as well. Yet he’s conspicuously absent for somewhere around eighty percent of the book. What gives?
Here in the middle of Warbreaker is where things hit the skids for me. Much of the book was conversation — i.e., this character talks to that character, this character meets with that group of people, etc. Now I don’t need my entire book to be action (in fact, I find that exhausting) but for a long time none of these conversations felt like they were going anywhere. It seemed like we were just treading over the same ground repeatedly, waiting for the story to stop chasing its tail and do something. And that really is the major problem with Warbreaker: Redundancy.
It’s not just the plot that goes in circles. Words and phrases are at times so overused it hurts. I got tired of “plunging necklines” and “scandalous” clothing pretty quick (especially since we’re rarely told enough about the clothing to understand what makes it scandalous). And ugh! the constant repetition of the word “ostentatious” drove me crazy. We, as writers, need to embrace our friend the thesaurus. It keeps us from sounding like broken records. Though I’m not sure what could have helped the excessive use of characters rolling their eyes. You know how sometimes when you’re reading something you think “If I see insert word/phrase/whatever here one more time, I’ll scream”? Well, eventually I screamed.
I also had some problems for a while with the set up of BioChromatic Breath and how it works. Nothing that’s easier to describe than it Just Bugs Me, especially not without touching on some spoilers. But that does smooth itself out once Warbreaker is no longer ninety percent Vivenna chitchatting and thinking things are ostentatious. On the bright side, most of this was fairly free of Bad Fantasy Spelling Syndrome, with the occasional exception (e.g., T’Telir); If an author’s going to be repetitive, at least it’s better to repeat words I can actually read rather than names like Ablxdrxixue. (Yes, that’s made up, and thank goodness.)
At this point you might be wondering why I was still reading. There were bright spots, so I forged ahead. And then something happened. The plot made an abrupt twist onto Interesting Street and suddenly it was like a different person was writing Warbreaker. The last 200 pages or so are utterly fantastic, tightly written, well-paced, balancing action, plot, and character development deftly. I even came to like Vivenna — a character I’d found loathsome (not a word I use often). There are some great twists and, though I was a step ahead of Sanderson most of the way — I have a suspicious, paranoid mind, I can’t help it — he got me in the end.
At one point I wanted to give up on this book. Later, I was really glad I hadn’t. But it put me in an odd position. How do I rate Warbreaker? It’s undeniably worth reading, though readers with a patience level similar to mine should go in forearmed. Yet there was so much missed potential, too. If the book had been taken more firmly under hand — if the entire thing was as good as the last third — it would easily rank with the best books I’ve read. But it wasn’t. In the end, my score is the sum of my experience reading Warbreaker. It’s a bit of a bumpy ride, but given the chance, it’ll show its true colors. (Whaaaaaat? You know I had to say it.) —Beth Comments
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From his Q and A on Barnes and Nobles.
I've told Tor that I want to release KINGS on a schedule of two books, followed by one book in another setting, then two more KINGS. The series of KINGS has been named The Stormlight Archive. (The Way of Kings is the name of the first volume.)
So I should be doing plenty of shorter series in between. We'll see how busy this all keeps me. I think I'd go crazy if I weren't allowed to do new worlds every now and again.
But, then, KINGS turned out very, very well. (The first book is complete as of yesterday.) What is it about? Well...I'm struggling to find words to explain it. I could easily give a one or two line pitch on my previous books, but the scope of what I'm trying with this novel is such that it defies my attempts to pin it down.
It happens in a world where hurricane-like storms crash over the land every few days. All of plant life and animal life has had to evolve to deal with this. Plants, for instance, have shells they can withdraw into before a storm. Even trees pull in their leaves and branches. There is no soil, just endless fields of rock.
According to the mythology of the world, mankind used to live in The Tranquiline Halls. Heaven. Well, a group of evil spirits known as the Voidbringers assaulted and captured heaven, casting out God and men. Men took root on Roshar, the world of storms, but the Voidbringers chased them there, trying to push them off of Roshar and into Damnation.
The voidbringers came against man a hundred by a hundred times, trying to destroy them or push them away. To help them cope, the Almighty gave men powerful suits of armor and mystical weapons, known as Shardblades. Led by ten angelic Heralds and ten orders of knights known as Radiants, men resisted the Voidbringers ten thousand times, finally winning and finding peace.
Or so the legends say. Today, the only remnants of those supposed battles are the Shardblades, the possession of which makes a man nearly invincible on the battlefield. The entire world, essentially, is at war with itself--and has been for centuries since the Radiants turned against mankind. Kings strive to win more Shardblades, each secretly wishing to be the one who will finally unite all of mankind under a single throne.
That's the backstory. Probably too much of it. (Sorry.) The book follows a young spearman forced into the army of a Shardbearer, led to war against an enemy he doesn't understand and doesn't really want to fight. It will deal with the truth of what happened deep in mankind's past. Why did the Radiants turn against mankind, and what happened to the magic they used to wield?
I've been working on this book for ten years now. Rather than making it easier to describe and explain, that has made it more daunting. I'm sure I'll get better at it as I revise and as people ask me more often. :smileywink:
Brandon Sanderson i one of my favorite authors, and i can't wait til this series comes out. And his websites has to be one of the best fantasy authors websites on the net. Check it out.
Thanks for the help, K.I.A. !
thanks for these reviews (warbreaker) -- i am really excited about this novel and will make sure to put it on my list!