Brandon Sanderson was nominated for the Campbell Award (Best New Writer) in 2006 and 2007. He has recently been chosen to complete the final part of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time. Read some of Brandon Sanderson's work at his website.
Comments
Mistborn — (2006-2008) Publisher: For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the Sliver of Infinity, reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Rulers most hellish prison. Kelsier snapped and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark. Kels plan looks like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, shes a half-Skaa orphan, but shes lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.
Mistborn: The Final Empire: Great start to a series
I was a fan of Brandon Sanderson's first novel, Elantris, though the novel had some pretty clear flaws. I'm an even bigger fan of his follow-up, Mistborn, a book that has all the plusses of Elantris without the problems.
Mistborn takes places in an ashen, devastated world where the "Skaa" are a brutally downtrodden majority who do all the work for the aristocratic minority of the Great Houses, who themselves are ruthlessly dominated (in differing ways) by the Lord Ruler, a religious godhead. Supposedly immortal — he's ruled for centuries via his magic power and his two competing bureaucracies — the "obligators" and the Inquisitors — a fearsome secret police who have steel rods impaling their eyes and who are near impossible to kill. There are also ominous hints that the Lord Ruler also has been protecting the people of Mistborn from some great evil known as the Darkness.
The Skaa have seemingly lost any hope of rebellion over centuries of failed attempts but this all changes with the appearance of Kelsier — a Skaa/noble halfbreed who is a "Mistborn Allomancer," one who can "burn" swallowed metals that fuel magical/superhuman abilities, such as greater strength and endurance, greater use of the five senses, etc. This magical system, a rare stroke of originality in a genre that too often lazes along with the same old tropes (oral spells, wizard's runes, etc), is one of the true pleasures of the novel. It's also nice to see a system with some strong limitations to it — there are only ten metals that have the effect, one is limited by how much of the metal one has, and most allomancers have the ability to burn only one metal. Kelsier, though, and his young female apprentice Vin, are true Mistborn, able to burn all ten. The reader learns about the system sometimes through Kelsier's usage and sometimes through his tutelage of Vin, thus avoiding the clumsy early exposition of many fantasy novels as well as teasing out the explanation, adding a sense of suspense and mystery.
The basic plot involves Kelsier's gathering of a group of Skaa thieves to do the unthinkable — overthrow the Great Houses and the Lord Ruler. The secondary (though equally important) plot is Vin's coming-of-age as she is tries to move from being an orphaned street thief Skaa who trusts nobody to a full-fledged mistborn who can also play the role of an aristocratic lady.
As mentioned, there is a lot to like in Mistborn. The magical system. The focus on politics and economics as a means of rebellion (as opposed to "Dark lord bad. Do bad things with swords. We use swords and kill dark lord".) The character development of Vin throughout the novel. The character development of Kelsier. The suspense over the impending rebellion. The likeability of the side characters, who while not as fully developed as Vin or Kelsier, have their own distinctive and enjoyable personalities. The humor that shows up now and then. The quick pace of the action. The twists and turns of plot. Good action scenes. A few surprises at the end. A sense of completion nicely balanced with an ominous sense that worse is to come. The novel's structure, which has each chapter beginning with some paragraphs from the Lord Ruler's diary/journal during the days leading up to whatever event made him the Lord Ruler. This facet works quite well on several levels, though to go into more detail would be perhaps to spoil the ending so I won't risk it. Suffice to say it was a nice touch of craft.
What's not to like? The reader could have a greater sense of the world as a whole. Sometimes one wishes for a bit more struggle by the characters, especially Vin who seems to move a bit too easily at times, too naturally into both foreign worlds — the magical one and the aristocratic one. The ending seems somewhat rushed, though this is more a desire to linger over it rather than a complaint about what actually happens. But these few flaws are certainly relatively minor and are completely overwhelmed by the book's positives. Brandon Sanderson has done something rare here — written a sharply original fantasy that stands on its own as a single book while teasing the reader into a sense of impatience for the sequel. Stronglyrecommended. —BillComments
Mistborn: The Final Empire on audio
In preparation for the next Wheel of Time installment, I decided I'd like to get a feel for Brandon Sanderson's work, so I downloaded Mistborn from Audible.com ($7.49 for the 3 month trial version!). I was completely entertained for 25 hours!
Since my fellow reviewers (Bill above and Julie below) have given you most of the facts about Mistborn, I only need to say a few things and to address the audio production.
My favorite thing about Mistborn was the creative, detailed, and rule-bound magic system. A minority of people in the Final Empire have the genetic ability to burn certain metals which provides them temporary powers (depending on the metal) such as enhanced sensations, super strength, detection of other allomancers, influence over the emotions of others, and the ability to push and pull off of metals in the vicinity. Most allomancers can only burn one metal, but Mistborns can burn all of them. I thought this was fascinating and enjoyed hearing how Vin and Kelsier used metals to travel, jump over walls, and fight. I was particularly impressed with the very detailed and thoughtful fight scenes. It must have been tough for Mr. Sanderson to make sure that everything they did with metals made sense physically (there are a lot of "opposite reactions" to take into account). This is really cool stuff. There are hints and rumors that there may be more metals that most allomancers don't know about, and I'm hoping we'll see some of these in the next book.
There was really only one thing that annoyed me in Mistborn, and that was the overuse of the word "paused." Almost every page says either "Vin paused," "Kelsier paused," or someone else paused. The purpose was to show that characters where thinking before speaking, but it started to get to me. Perhaps this was because I was listening to it on audio and the reader said it exactly the same way every time so that it became noticeable.
Speaking of the audiobook, it was read by Michael Kramer who also narrated the Wheel of Time novels. He always does an excellent job, but I was so familiar with his voices (after listening to every single WOT book this year) that he made some of Mr. Sanderson's characters sound like WOT characters because he used the same voices (in fact, Ham, the big beefy guy in Mistborn had the same voice as Perrin the big beefy blacksmith from WOT). It was both this and Mr. Sanderson's writing style that made me think that The Final Empire felt a lot like early Wheel of Time installments. It is obvious that Brandon Sanderson has been influenced by Robert Jordan and this is probably why he was chosen to write the final WOT novels. I can only say that I'm looking forward to them!
So, yes, I really loved Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn and have downloaded the second book, The Well of Ascension. —KatComments
Mistborn: The Final Empire
Vin, a skaa street urchin, struggles every day just to survive. These are dark days for the Final Empire… if you're a skaa that is. Oppressed for years by the noblemen of the Final Empire, which is ruled with an iron fist by the "Lord Ruler," the skaa work as slaves every day, sweeping the streets, working in the mills, mines, and fields.
There are a lucky few like Vin who have some talent. Talent earns them places with the many numerous skaa thieving crews, groups of men who make small-time raids on the noblemen of the
Empire. Dragged there by her abusive brother, Vin remained to pay off her and her brother's debt to the Crew Chief after he ran away and left her. One day however, after a raid gone wrong, Vin meets up with Kelsier, a handsome, scheming Crew Chief who just happens to be an Allomancer. And not just any Allomancer — a Mistborn.
Allomancers use metals such as Iron, Tin, and Pewter to enhance their bodily powers. Most Allomancers can only use one metal, but a select few, Mistborn, can use all of the 10 metals. Once Vin finds out that she is in fact a Mistborn as well, Kelsier offers her a chance to become a member of his crew. This crew however, isn't just going to "pull a job," they're going to pull the biggest job in the history of the final empire…
"Lord Ruler…" That's what I have to say about Mistborn! It was SO GOOD! The first installment to the Mistborn series is one not to be missed! Brandon Sanderson has created such a good balance of good, evil, action, drama, politics, scheming, backstabbing, mystery — you name it, Mistborn has it all!
Though the language in Mistborn took some getting used to, it wasn't the usual boring "court battles" that a lot of fantasy is famous for. I understood all of the politics and actually wanted more, surprising even myself.
Mistborn was a refreshing book in a world of sub-standard fantasy littering most of the genre nowadays. If you need a little excitement on your bookshelf pick up Mistborn! —JulieComments
The Well of Ascension
Bridge books are always dicey things — many fall into a sophomore slump, meandering along trying to get from A to C with the required stop at B (because everyone knows a fantasy story can’t be told in only two books; three is clearly the sacred minimum — damn you Tolkien!). Luckily, The Well of Ascension doesn’t fall into that trap.
Mistborn is set in an ashen, mist-filled world whose myths tell of a time when plants were green. The world is dominated by the Lord Ruler, a seemingly immortal tyrant who had ruled for centuries, ruthlessly oppressing the majority population of Skaa, as well as the much smaller class of nobles. The Lord Ruler is also the hero who centuries ago defeated the mysterious “Deepness,” saving the world from complete destruction. The magic system in Mistborn is “allomancy.” Allomancers (a small percentage of the population) can “burn” certain metals to give them superhuman abilities, such as super-strength, super-senses, etc. There are only 10 such metals known and most allomancers can burn only one. True mistborns, however, can burn all. One powerful and charismatic mistborn, Kelsier, leads a group of thieves in their greatest caper — taking down the Lord Ruler. Integral to his plans is a street urchin girl named Vin, a more powerful mistborn than Kelsier.
One of the pleasures of The Well of Ascension is that it picks up where most fantasy novels end. Ding dong, the Dark Lord is Dead. What’s left to tell? Turns out plenty. First of all, the rebels start to learn that it’s easy to carp from the sidelines but when it’s your turn to actually rule, things aren’t so simple. They also face the rule of “unintended consequences.” Sure, the tyrannical Dark Lord is dead. But all that tyranny had a plus side — people were too scared to fight among themselves. Now civil war has broken out and young, bookish Elend Venture, the new king of Luthadel, faces three besieging armies, all trying to take his city and the rumored stockpile of treasure amassed by the Lord Ruler.
Oh, and that “free the Skaa, end despotism, move toward rule by the people” stuff that sounded so good in conspiratorial alley-meetings? Turns out sometimes “the people” aren’t so smart. Or grateful. Not to mention the nobles continue to plot to find ways to retain their power, even if that means giving up the city to one of the armies.
The newly-freed Skaa, by the way, are wondering why they aren’t getting regular stockpiles of food and tools, etc. When they slaved on plantation estates they were horribly treated but someone fed them. Now they have to do it themselves and winter is quickly approaching.
And finally, the whole “Lord Ruler saved the world from a great evil” propaganda may, it turns out, have been right. And with the Lord Ruler gone, that evil may be back. The mists are now coming during the day and are starting to kill people. And that’s not to mention the son-wanting-to-kill the father subplot, the brother-versus-brother subplot, the Vin and Elend romance subplot, the new bad Mistborn in town subplot, the other romance subplot.
Sanderson is juggling a lot here and the truth is he does it with a lot of aplomb. There’s a sense of true fun in the telling of this story, despite its dark moments. It doesn’t quite have the humor or Oceans 11 banter of Mistborn; it is a much more introspective, darker book in many ways, but it still feels like the author had a great time with it. The magical system remains a strength due to its utter originality and the way it gets refined and furthered, though the allomantic battles are a bit hard to follow at times. The secondary characters, with one prime exception and two other less-pronounced ones, aren’t as strong as in Mistborn, but the focus on Elend and Vin makes up for that somewhat as they are compelling characters, if not as charismatic as Kelsier. Vin’s victories seem a bit too predictable at times, but Sanderson balances that somewhat by not being afraid to have some major side characters die off. Even better is that the book sometimes spills off into very unpredictable directions. And the ending, though perhaps a bit abrupt, nicely closes off one story while greatly expanding the larger tale, much as happened in Mistborn.
The Mistborn series is one of the more original and enjoyable reads in fantasy I’ve had in some time. It’s original in its own fashion, turning away from the typical fantasy tropes but without simply following down the path of the earlier “rebellious” fantasies, the once-new but now familiar “gritty” epic fantasies such as Martin or Erikson. The series is highly recommended. —BillComments
The Well of Ascension on audio
The Well of Ascension begins about a year after the events that occurred at the end of Mistborn. The novel takes a while to get going and generally has less excitement to offer than its predecessor. After all, we're now mostly familiar with the world of The Final Empire and we understand the rules of the unique magic systems that rely on the burning of metals for powers and the storing of attributes such as strength, age, and eye-sight into metals. The loss of Kelsior, the most dynamic of Sanderson's characters, creates a void not only in the other characters' lives, but in this book as well.
The pace is slow in the beginning, but things finally take off when we're introduced to Zane, an unbalanced Mistborn who can't decide whose side he's on (and who may or may not be insane), and when we find out that there's an unknown kandra spy in the palace. I was fascinated by the kandra — creatures who can ingest a corpse and impersonate the person or animal whose body it has eaten. Not only was that really cool, but it gave the opportunity for some quirky humor. (The humor in this novel is very sparse but very funny.)
Besides the kandra, Mr. Sanderson has created some other intriguing creatures: the koloss who never stop growing even when their skin can no longer stretch and who think of themselves as human, the inquisitors who have metal spikes through their brains and bodies (we don't know the purpose of these spikes yet). This is my favorite aspect of this series — Mr. Sanderson's wonderful imagination.
The Well of Ascension is very well written (other than the constant "pausing" that I mentioned in my review of Mistborn) and the audiobook, read by Michael Kramer, is a treat to listen to.
The Well of Ascension answers a lot of questions which we were left wondering about after Mistborn, but there are just as many questions still left. I have no doubt that all will be made clear in The Hero of Ages (which I am already listening to). This is a well-planned trilogy and this middle book ends with the promise of plenty more surprises yet to come. —KatComments
The Hero of Ages on audio
I'm extremely impressed with Brandon Sanderson's first fantasy trilogy. The entire story was carefully thought out, well-plotted, and well-paced. What impresses me most is that in this last installment, The Hero of Ages, there are plenty of wonderful surprises left. But these surprises aren't little add-ons that Sanderson lately thought up and decided to throw in just to keep up the interest and excitement. These are major pieces of the puzzle that have purposely been left for the characters (and therefore the readers) to discover. Back in The Final Empire, the first book of the Mistborn trilogy, I thought Brandon Sanderson had created a unique and really cool magic system. That was nothin' — it gets even better!
Finally, we understand the origin and purpose of the koloss, kandra, and inquisitors. Now we know what the Lord Ruler has been about for his 1000 year reign, what the mists are doing, and how people get allomantic powers. All of our questions are answered in fact, and you probably will have guessed some of the answers, but others will surprise you, I think. The end of The Hero of Ages is bittersweet, just as I like my fantasy. We are left with hope and light, not in despair, but there was a high cost to what was achieved.
One thing I particularly liked about this series is the way that the "bad guys" are not universally and one-dimensionally evil (except for one, who is an evil "force"). Some of them aren't really "bad guys" at all. In addition, most of the characters are logical, no matter which "side" they're on. The "enemies" are just as reasonable, intelligent, and well-spoken as our heroes. Vin, Elend, Spook, Sazed (etc.) don't blow anyone away with superior plans, arguments, or bravery — they find that their antagonists are just as well prepared.
As usual, the audio version of this novel is high quality. The narrator, Michael Kramer, is excellent, though he was inconsistent with Spook's voice. Mr. Sanderson has drastically cut back on the number of times a character "paused," so that was no longer an irritation.
I heartily recommend the Mistborn series for anyone looking for an original, well constructed epic which is satisfyingly finished in three volumes. If you listen to audiobooks, that's a great format for this series. If you have not read Mistborn, put it at the top of your list. —KatComments
Alcatraz — (2007-2008) Ages 9-12. Publisher: A hero with an incredible talent... for breaking things. A life-or-death mission... to rescue a bag of sand. A fearsome threat from a powerful secret network... the evil Librarians. Alcatraz Smedry doesn't seem destined for anything but disaster. On his 13th birthday he receives a bag of sand, which is quickly stolen by the cult of evil Librarians plotting to take over the world. The sand will give the Librarians the edge they need to achieve world domination. Alcatraz must stop them!... by infiltrating the local library, armed with nothing but eyeglasses and a talent for klutziness. Alcatraz's ability to break things, he soon learns, is actually a Talent. Alcatraz must learn to use his Talent as he goes after the sands with a team of resistors, including Grandpa Smedry (Talent: "I have the ability to arrive late to things"... including arriving late to pain, or to his own death), Sing Smedry (Talent: "I can trip and fall to the ground"...avoiding injury in surprise attacks), Quentin Smedry (Talent: "I can say things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever"... if captured, he speaks nonsense instead of spilling secrets), and Bastille (a girl Alcatraz's age, who is a knight charged with protecting Grandpa Smedry. Bastille has no Talent, but she's got spunk, skill, and spark to spare). Together they must defeat a Dark Oculator and retrieve the magical lenses smelted from the sand, which allow Alcatraz to read The Forgotten Language, a previously indecipherable text — including a message from his long-lost father, who may not be dead after all...
Alcatraz versus The Knights of Crystallia is Brandon Sanderson’s third book in this YA series and I have several confessions to make. One is that I haven’t read the first two Alcatraz books. The second is that I am not Y. Not even close. Usually, I don’t feel that hinders my reviews of YA books. But as I read much of Alcatraz, I started to wonder if I’d become the old guy in a bathrobe yelling “Get off my lawn ya lousy kids!” while waving a hairy-knuckled fist in the offenders’ general direction. Maybe, gasp, I just didn’t get the “Y” in YA anymore.
What tipped me off? Maybe the occasional reference to farts or “potty breaks,” the character who thinks curses in the Hushworld (our world) are phrases like “farting barf-faced poop” or “explosive diarrhea.” Maybe the self-aware references to how “annoying” the main character knew he was being, or the self-aware references to being a story or the self-aware direct addresses to the reader. Maybe the constant breaks in narrative.
In any case, what I mostly felt like during all this wasn’t that I was reading a YA book but reading a book targeted at a YA audience, which somehow doesn’t seem quite the same to me. More specifically, a book targeted at a male YA audience or at least what an adult imagines a male YA audience is.
But, perhaps I am the old guy on the porch. Maybe this is what a YA audience wants. It is, after all, the third book in the series, so Brandon Sanderson must be doing something right. But to be honest, mostly the ADD nature of the story combined with the “potty” talk just wearied and annoyed me. The plot is a whirlwind made more chaotic by the narrator’s constant intrusions (“LOOK OVER THERE”, “Yes, this is foreshadowing”) and silly jokes. The humor, the breaks, and the whole persona of the main character felt forced and crafted.
Which is too bad because underneath all the noise meant to attract (I assume) young males were the fixings of a decent story and solid characters and some thoughtful looks at subjects such as fame and self-esteem. Even some of the jokes were funny, save that they were overshadowed by the three that had just occurred and the three that followed almost immediately after. By the end, when the adolescent fireworks were toned down, I felt myself actually becoming interested in the story and what happened to the characters, whereas earlier I mostly wanted him to stop yelling at me. I can’t recommend this book because I simply didn’t enjoy most of my time reading it, despite some good moments. But I also, for perhaps the first time, feel much less sure about not recommending it. I can’t imagine many people enjoying it, but the book also made me wonder if I can imagine anymore what a 12-yr-old boy does enjoy. After all, I also don’t get Twitter or The Farting Dog books. The list, I’m afraid, of things I don’t get is getting frighteningly long...
So: not recommended, but feel free to have your 12-yr-old take it for a spin. If he likes it, just think of me now and then on that porch. In my bathrobe. —BillComments
The Wheel of Time: A Memory of Light —
See the previous The Wheel of Time books, and our reviews of all of them in both print and audio, at our Robert Jordan page.
The Stormlight Archive — (2010- )Publisher: Widely acclaimed for his work completing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time saga, Brandon Sanderson now begins a grand cycle of his own, one every bit as ambitious and immersive.
Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.
It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.
One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.
Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.
Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar’s niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan’s motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.
The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.
Speak again the ancient oaths,
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before Destination.
and return to men the Shards they once bore.
The Knights Radiant must stand again.
Available for download at Audible.com Forthcoming: nine more volumes
The Way of Kings
The Way of Kings is the first book in Brandon Sanderson’s new series, The Stormlight Archive. By most accounts (including Sanderson’s), the series will be massive: ten books perhaps, and with The Way of Kings clocking in at right about 1000 pages, we aren’t talking a bunch of novellas. Add in that Sanderson is finishing up Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, has a YA series still going, and has mentioned a follow-up novel to Warbreaker, and a reader can figure on some few years before The Stormlight Archivewraps up. So you’ll need to decide which fantasy-reader camp you’re going to belong to on this one: the “read each book as it comes out and agonize during those long interludes” reader or the “wait until a few months before the final book is released and start digging in, assuming reviews have been kind and the author hasn’t died so the series is being finished by someone else” kind of reader. We reviewers, though, don’t have the choice of door number two, and thus here we are.
Sanderson has come to be known as the “cool magic system” guy, based on his earlier books. This reputation is certainly accurate in that his magical systems are assuredly original — and yes, cool. But it does him a disservice as a writer, as a cool magic system can really only hold up a short story (maybe a long one), not a full-length novel or series. To keep your readers with you for that long, you need to be good at two basic components: character and plot/pacing. Sanderson showed in the Mistborn trilogy and Warbreaker, and to a lesser extent, Elantris, that he can handle both with ease, and the same holds true in The Way of Kings, even if it does have its flaws (and yes, it does have some new magic systems).
The plot has multiple strands, told mostly by three point-of-view characters. One strand involves an ongoing war begun six years ago when the Parshendi assassinated the king of Alethkar at a celebration of their recently signed treaty. The war takes place in a huge area known as the Shattered Plains and is being led by the assassinated king’s son, aided by his Uncle Dalinar. Dalinar wears Shardplate and wields a Shardsword, rare armor and weaponry that make their bearers nearly invincible. But Dalinar is having strange visions and has begun to wonder about the war he’s fought for so long.
Also on the Shattered Plains is Kaladin. The lowest of the low, he is a slave sold to the army as a “bridgeman”— one of the highly expendable laborers whose bridges allow the knights to cross the many chasms that split the Shattered Plains. Though he endures the war from the opposite end of the spectrum from Dalinar, he shares with Dalinar the slow reshaping of himself into someone different from the man who first arrived at the Plains. He shares as well a bit of supernatural oddity, not dreams, but his association with a “spren,” a type of being that normally has little to no intelligence, memory, or long-lived interest in events. Yet somehow one has attached itself to him and appears to be growing ever more self-aware and intelligent.
The second strand of the plot takes place far away and follows a young woman, Shallan, as she desperately tries to apprentice herself to the famed scholar/heretic Jasnah (the current king’s sister), who is seeking (for unknown reasons) old texts buried deep in the famed library of Kharbranth.
As one might expect of a 1000-page book, there are many, many subplots as well: possible attempted assassinations on the current king; Shallan’s reasons for being so desperate to get near Jasnah; a rival of Dalinar who may be a traitor, brand Dalinar a traitor, or may just be an honest noble fighting for his king and country; what’s going on with the assassin who killed the old king; back-story about how Kaladin became a slave, and more.
With two of the major point-of-view characters being on the Shattered Plains, and with another of the interweaving plotlines being Kaladin’s back-story, I sometimes felt we spent too much time away from Shallan. Outside of that small sense of imbalance, though, Sanderson juggles the many plots and subplots pretty smoothly. Movement between them is smooth and effortless, and pacing within and among the various storylines is sharp, save perhaps for the first few chapters where a lot of names, places, world-facts, and so on get tossed at us and slow the reading a bit. But the book pretty much sped by, never feeling as long as it actually is, something I’ve found pretty typical with Sanderson’s work. In fact, The Way of Kings felt much shorter than the fantasy novel I finished just prior, despite Way of Kingsbeing 300 pages longer. (It’s no coincidence that it took me only two days to finish Way of Kingsbut nearly ten — an eternity for me — to finish the other.) Kaladin’s back-story and his time as a bridgeman is by far the strongest and most moving part of the plot, while Dalinar’s plotline offers up plenty of action and suspense. Shallan’s storyline isn’t as strong — mostly because there’s less sense of urgency, less danger, and the stakes aren’t as high — but it picks up quite a bit in its latter half (not that the first half is uninteresting, just not particularly gripping).
Characterization, another of Sanderson’s usual strengths, also shines in Way of Kings. Dalinar and Kaladin are especially complex, compelling characters. Shallan is less so, but some of that is probably due to the more narrow nature of her situation and the fewer number of pages we spend with her. She does develop and change somewhat, but in smaller and more predictable fashion than the other two. Many of the side characters are also sharply drawn, including a young Advent who debates Jasnah on religion and also courts Shallan; the assassin who killed the old king, the current king’s “Wit” (a character familiar to those who pay attention to the fact that Sanderson’s books all utilize the same universe and background story); Dalinar’s rival Shardknight, Kaladin’s father, and several of Kaladin’s fellow bridgemen.
The world-building is solid. With ten long books to work with, Sanderson can afford to take his time with the details, so he avoids major info-dumps and chooses to gradually reveal the workings of the world. For instance, regions are subject to fierce “highstorms” and so life has evolved to deal with them: for instance, there is no soil, only rock, and trees and plants can retract themselves into shells. We see more and more specific examples of this kind of life as we move through the book, as we do with the various types of “spren”: painspren or fearspren that appear when people are, well, in pain or feeling fear, and so on. We spend a lot of time with the Alethi, who form their ruling class solely from people with light eyes (nobles are known as lighteyes or brighteyes) and learn some things about the Parshendi, who fight them on the Plains (and who are seemingly related in unknown fashion to parshmen, the docile, nearly mute servants of the Alethi. Other nationalities and lands are mentioned to varying degrees. One assumes we’ll see more in other books, but the simple mentioning of them (along with their varied cultures, architectures, religions, etc.) gives the worldbuilding a sense of fullness and depth, as does the slow revealing of legend/myth/religion involving ten Heralds and ten orders of “Radiant” knights who fought with shardblades and armor against the Voidbringers, who came 100 times a 100 times to try and drive humanity out.
There are several magic systems in use or alluded to, as well as an interesting mix of technology and magic as “engineers” try to emulate the shardplate and shardswords and other magical items. The major system we see here involves gemstones. It’s nowhere near as delineated as the allomancy in Mistborn, but as with the world building, one assumes we’ll get more and more detail as the series continues. There is also the use of “stormlight,” which resides in gems, and three “lashings,” which seem to involve manipulation of gravity. The magic is pervasive in the story, but doesn’t feel as central to the storytelling as in Sanderson’s other works and not quite as concrete. And I do have questions about some of its use with regard to power, but as mentioned, I don’t consider these questions flaws so much as TBAs.
Writing style has been perhaps the area where Sanderson falls short of the very top echelon of fantasy writers. He is not by any stretch a bad writer; I never find myself pulled out of the story by a clunky line or horrible metaphor/simile and I’ve never really noticed those annoying tics you find in some authors (though here his focus on clothing — particularly women’s dress — becomes too noticeable and repetitive). And his writing has an ease and naturalness to it that helps speed you along, one of the reasons his books seem shorter than they are. So, not a bad writer (in fact, I believe his writing style was a clear and noticeable improvement over Robert Jordan’s when he picked up the Wheel of Time authorship), but I can’t call him a memorably good one either. I don’t get pulled out by terrible lines, but I also don’t find myself responding purely to the language/style either, as I do with China Mieville or Neil Gaiman, authors where one revels as much in the language as in the stories. But that’s a pretty high bar so I don’t fault Sanderson overmuch for failing to reach it, while hoping for some further movement toward it (the kind of movement one can see when comparing Warbreaker to Elantris).
One poor comparison between Way of Kingsand earlier Sanderson works, unfortunately, is a drop-off in humor. Mistborn has a good sense of humor woven throughout it and Warbreaker is filled with wonderfully written comedy. Here, though, the humor feels quite forced. It’s mostly centered on Shallan, who prides herself somewhat on her “wit.” Alas for us readers (as she employs it often), it isn’t really all that funny or clever. Much better is the camaraderie-type grunt humor found among Kaladin’s bridgemen, though it’s much more sparse due to their incredibly grim situation.
So, I can’t help you with that decision on whether to start The Stormlight Archive with book one or wait until he’s almost done, but I can say that The Way of Kings is well worth reading due to its strong characterization and plotting. Shallan’s storyline and character are the weakest areas, but take up the least amount of space and are mostly weak only in comparison: you’ll still be interested in what happens there. But mostly you’ll care about what happens to many of these characters and find yourself alternately thrilled, moved, or compelled to keep turning pages, especially in the scenes involving Kaladin and the bridgemen, which are especially strongly written. Highly recommended. —BillComments
The Way of Kings
Here we go, folks: The Way of Kings, at over 1000 pages, is the first volume of Brandon Sanderson’s projected ten-book series, THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE. At one book per year, we probably won’t see the end of this series before 2020, especially given that Sanderson is first planning to finish up Robert Jordan’s WHEEL OF TIME. So, if you’re looking for a new series to read, this one has some advantages and disadvantages: on the plus side, there will be a lot of reading material coming your way; on the other hand, it’ll take quite some time for all of it to get here. Luckily, The Way of Kings is a very promising start to the series. Unlike what seems to be most of the fantasy audience, I haven’t been a huge fan of all of Brandon Sanderson’s work so far, but The Way of Kings is easily his best work to date.
The book has three main characters (Kaladin, Shallan and Dalinar) and a host of side characters, who occasionally also have chapters or “interludes” written from their point of view. The main story focuses on Kaladin, a surgeon’s son forced to become a bridgeman — a form of military slavery that involves carrying siege bridges in Alethkar’s ongoing war with the Parshendi, who at the very start of the novel assassinate Alethkar’s king. Dalinar is the late king’s brother (and uncle of the current monarch), who along with nine other High Princes is running the war effort against the mysterious Parshendi. And finally, on the other end of the continent, there’s Shallan, a young noble girl who wants to become the apprentice of Jasnah, a princess and famed scholar — although Shallan’s motives for seeking this position are not what they initially seem...
Of these characters, Kaladin is the most fascinating and well-rounded one. Brandon Sanderson does a fantastic job building up his history and explaining his motivations in a series of flashback chapters that gradually ratchet up the dramatic tension and turn Kaladin into his most memorable character to date. On the other hand, the witty, independent Shallan was a bit too recognizable: add color-changing hair and you could almost confuse her for one of the sisters in Warbreaker. The heroic Dalinar falls somewhere in the middle: he’s the lone wolf warrior noble, the only High Prince to follow the ancient Alethi Codes of War, and someone you can admire — while at the same time being able to predict what’s going happen to him in the midst of nine other, less noble High Princes.
The book’s blurbs inevitably point out that there’s yet another main character, the world of Roshar — but in this case, there’s really something to this. It’s hard not to be excited about a brand new fantasy universe at the start of such a long series. Brandon Sanderson performs a fine balancing act here, showing enough hints of the vast history and depth of this new world without revealing all of it. From the mysterious “prelude”, showing events that happened 4,500 years before the start of the story, to the intriguing fauna and flora, to the nature and origin of the High Storms, to the question of what exactly a “spren” is... you’ll end up with more questions than answers by the time you turn the final page, but you’ll be intrigued and eager to read more. A testament to the quality of this book: it’s rare for me to read a book that’s more than 1000 pages long and still wish I could immediately read more.
Part of the reason for this is Brandon Sanderson’s completely transparent prose. Some authors write prose you need to savor slowly — Guy Gavriel Kay, Catherynne Valente, Janny Wurts. Their prose invites contemplation and appreciation of the rhythm, rhyme and sheer elegance of the words on the page. By contrast, Brandon Sanderson’s prose has very little artifice to it: it just exists to tell the story. It’s plain as can be, doesn’t draw any attention to itself, and rarely if ever stands in the way of the story. However, it would be a mistake to underestimate how difficult it is to write a novel in such a way that you sometimes completely forget that you are, in fact, reading. Sanderson’s prose never stands in the way of the reader’s complete immersion. As someone who is usually very aware of what I’m reading and how many pages I’ve read, I often was surprised to look up and realize that I’d just read 30 or 40 pages without even being aware that I’d been reading. There’s a real art to writing a compulsive page-turner like this, and Sanderson, who teaches Creative Writing at BYU, is becoming an expert at it.
Not that The Way of Kings doesn’t suffer from some of the same flaws as Sanderson’s other works. Characters are often still a bit one-dimensional, and some of the plot devices the author uses are too predictable and transparent. The start of the novel, describing the assassination of the Alethi king, reminded me strongly of some of the action scenes in the MISTBORN novels, with the assassin using his magic to perform gravity-defying stunts, but fortunately the rest of the novel doesn’t read like a video game’s magic system turned into a story. It’s also written more tightly and with less filler (which, again, comes as a surprise given the length of the book). The end is filled with rousing heroism and a moving, truly exciting climax, but after the Big Final Battle, there are a few big revelations crammed in a few short pages, and while those were fascinating and definitely sparked my interest to read more of the series, they also felt a bit rushed and anti-climactic. Still, The Way of Kings is, in almost every way, a better book than anything Brandon Sanderson has produced so far, and if the rest of THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE keeps up this level of quality, we may end up looking back on the MISTBORN trilogy as an early practice run leading up to a work with better balance, better writing, and a much larger scope.
Finally, The Way of Kings is also a lovely book in terms of artwork. From the stunning cover illustration by Michael Whelan to the interior artwork, this book simply does everything right. Every few chapters, you’ll find a full page of artwork, e.g. some pages from Shallan’s sketch book showing Roshar’s native animals and plants, or an illustrated page from the Alethi Codes of War. These aren’t just beautifully done, but also relevant to the story. I’ve never really seen an epic fantasy integrate art into the novel in quite this way.
The Way of Kings is an excellent start to a promising series that’s sure to dominate sales charts and bookstore shelves for many years to come. If you’re already a Brandon Sanderson fan, this book will blow you away — and if you’re new to the author, you now can get started with the author’s finest work to date. —StefanComments
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, Elantris 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).
Elantris 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.
Elantris 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. —BillComments
Elantris (on audio)
Upon arriving in Arelon to marry Prince Raoden, the competent and strong-willed Princess Sarene discovers that he has died. What she doesn’t know is that Prince Raoden has succumbed to the Shaod and been cast into Elantris, an uncivilized slum of undead zombie-like people who have no government and no resources. I won’t say anything more about the plot, since it’s been covered in Bill’s review (above).
I really enjoyed listening to Elantris on audio (nice production by Recorded Books) and I think it’s a great debut. Brandon Sanderson has created a couple of heroes I enjoyed spending time with, and a truly engaging story. But, Elantris had several elements that almost made me cringe:
1. Some of the “lessons” of Elantris (war is bad, zealots are dangerous, women are just as competent as men, political rank should not be determined by wealth but rather by ability, you can do anything if you try) are handled with all the subtlety of a brick to the forehead. For example, the men’s attitudes toward women, and the subsequent behavior of the women, are so ridiculously patriarchal as to be unbelievable. If a woman uses her brain, the men (and women) are intimidated by her. Therefore, Sarene hasn’t been able to find a husband. Obviously there’s a lesson here, but it loses its potency when we see that nearly all of the women actually are stupid and are just as intimidated by Sarene as the men are. Also, when Sarene mopes that she (a princess) hasn’t been able to attract a husband because she doesn’t act like they want her to, it makes me think that the men in this society are just as stupid as the women are (and why would she want to marry one of them?)...
2. …Except for Prince Raoden and Sarene, of course. They are perfect. Mary Sue and Gary Stu, actually. Though they have been dealt a bad hand, they are super-smart and super-competent. When they act, roads straighten and obstacles move out of the way. The reader has no doubt that everything will turn out right in the end, so there’s essentially no tension. However, Hrathen, the high priest who is trying to convert Arelon for his wrathful god and emperor, is a more complex character and saves this novel from feeling too simplistic.
3. I didn’t believe the political system in which people rise to, and fall from, power based on their income. How long could that kind of system work and what kind of people would go for that? Well, I guess the same sort who are intimidated by Princess Sarene… I also had trouble believing that the people who lived in Elantris never tried to better their lives before Prince Raoden showed up.
4. The writing is competent, but some of the dialogue is stilted and there are frequent uses of unnecessary explanatory narrative, such as telling the reader what something implies or when someone was “speaking for the first time,” or “declining to answer” or holding their questions or obviously unconvinced, etc. This made for some long passages (usually during meetings) where not much actually happened.
Even with all of this stuff that annoyed me all the way through, I have to say that I still loved Elantris. Mary and Gary — I mean Sarene and Raoden — are characters to care about, and that still-young-and-idealistic part of me enjoyed reading about the successes that Prince Raoden and Sarene accomplished in Elantris and Arelon. Brandon Sanderson’s greatest strength, though, is his creative magic systems. Just as in the Mistborn trilogy, the magic of Elantris is truly unique and one of the most fun parts of the book.
—KatComments
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. —KellyComments
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 possible 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 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.
—BillComments
Warbreaker (on audio): I’m blonde with excitement
My fellow reviewers have sufficiently covered all of the important elements of Warbreaker (indeed, Bill’s review was nearly as long as the book) so I will briefly report my own reaction and then mention Recorded Books' version.
I really enjoyed Warbreaker for all the reasons that Bill and Kelly (reviews above) did: Unique world and magic system, interesting twisty plot, agreeable humor, and great characters. Like Beth (review below), I was slightly annoyed with Vivenna’s use of the word “ostentatious” and her constant concern about modest clothing (this reminded me a lot of The Wheel of Time), but I looked forward to the transformation of her character that was obviously coming.
There are two things that I really like about Brandon Sanderson’s writing in general, and Warbreaker is no exception:
His magic systems. I’ve read all of his work now, and in each case he’s developed a wonderfully thoughtful, unique, and internally valid magic system.
He’s funny. So many authors try to be funny, but I find few of them to be actually funny. Brandon Sanderson is funny.
This brings me to the audiobook. (Listen to sample). At first I was put out by James Yaegashi’s slow pace which at times sounded like he was reading to first graders (I know how big this book is, so I thought “this is going to take forever!”), but it turns out that his reading really highlighted Sanderson’s humorous dialogue.
Yaegashi’s voices for the mercenaries Denth and Tonk Fah really brought out that “comic duo” feel and worked charmingly with their hilarious black humor. His voice for Nightblood (the sentient sword) was suitably creepy, demented, and naïvely zealous at the same time — perfect. The following scene is one I played back several times because Yaegashi’s rendition made me laugh (keep in mind that up to this point nearly all of Nightblood’s thoughts, speech, and actions have seemed remorselessly evil and unnecessarily bloody):
[Vasher] reached into a pouch at his belt, pulling out the object within: a dead squirrel. Yuck, Nightblood said with a sniff.
(This renders better on audio than print, I realize now, but I guess that’s my point.)
Also entertaining was Yaegashi’s voice for Lightsong, the god who doesn’t believe in himself (actually, his priest preaches to him!) and who strives to be as lazy and useless as possible. Yaegashi chose to use upspeak for Lightsong’s voice, and the effect is amusing because it reinforces the impression that even his stupid jokes are purposeful.
“Lightsong,” Lifeblesser said with his tactlessly honest voice, “You really need to take more of an interest in politics. It can be very diverting. Why, if you only knew the secrets to which I’m privy!”
“My dear Lifeblesser,” Lightsong replied, “Please trust me when I say that I have no desire to know any secrets which involve you and a privy.”
Yaegashi’s voices actually contributed to my surprise at a couple of the plot twists which involved characters doing uncharacteristic things.
Warbreaker is a terrific book and would be nearly flawless in my eyes if not for Sanderson’s just slightly superfluous writing style. For example, the “Yuck” quote above would work better this way:
[Vasher] reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a dead squirrel. Yuck, Nightblood sniffed.
I’m sure I’m unusual, but these things pop out at me — probably because of all of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, Omit Needless Words is the one I find myself constantly working on with students. So, I can’t help but notice needless words in all of Brandon Sanderson’s works (though they’re getting better!) and this is the main reason I can’t consider him to be the Perfect Fantasy Author. However, though style is slightly lacking, substance is not — Brandon Sanderson writes great worlds and great characters. He is a Nearly Perfect Fantasy Author and is near the top of my must-read list.
—KatComments
Warbreaker (Graphic Audio’s full-theatre production): Like a movie in your mind
I made a mistake a couple of weeks ago when I gave Graphic Audio the credit for the Recorded Books audiobook I was reviewing: Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker. I incorrectly assumed that the rights for production were given to only one audio publisher and I had downloaded the book from Audible, so when I did the research to find out which audio company to credit, I first saw Graphic Audio and looked no further. Within a couple of hours of putting up the review however, Graphic Audio contacted me to let me know of my mistake and to offer a copy of their version, and several other titles, for review. (Heh heh – turned out to be a clever mistake, eh?)
When I looked into Graphic Audio, I discovered that their books are abridged, so I was concerned about this (how can I properly review a book if I don’t read the whole thing?), but after learning more about these productions at Brent Weeks’ website, I decided to give it a try. It seems that all of the content is there, but because it’s performed as theatre, we hear the actors say the lines and we hear sound effects. Therefore, it’s not necessary for the narrator (there is a narrator) to read “he said,” “she replied,” and “the door slammed.” Thus, the listener may miss out on the structure of some of the author’s prose and dialogue, but won’t miss any of the plot. The Recorded Books version was over 24 hours long and the Graphic Audio version is about 18 hours long, but much of that difference is likely due to the speed of the narrator’s voice. In fact, I mentioned in my review of the Recorded Books version (above) that their narrator spoke painfully slowly.
I tested some areas of Graphic Audio’s production against the print book and could detect nothing missing. For example, the passage I quoted in my review above goes like this in Graphic Audio’s version:
Narrator: He reached into a pouch at his belt, pulling out the object within: a dead squirrel.
Nightblood: Ooh, Yuck.
Nightblood’s voice, by the way, was suitably creepy. A different actor does each voice (they have a large acting staff) and mostly I found the voices appropriate and at least as good as those in the Recorded Books version (though I have to admit that I hadn’t considered an Irish Brogue for Siri and Vivenna). There was quite a bit of background music (Celtic in this case, composed by their staff musicians specifically for Warbreaker). The music ramped up the drama while never getting in the way of the voices.
If anything, the theatre atmosphere draws the attention away from any defects in the actual writing style — it is, as their motto indicates, like "a movie in your mind," so the “reader” is focused on the story and not the mechanics of the writing. This makes it really fun to listen to, but gives a reviewer the difficulty of not being able to adequately critique some aspects of the author’s style. (Thus, if I listen to more of their audiobooks, I’ll be sure to indicate this in my review.)
If you’re picky about writing style and mechanics and feel the need to evaluate those in the literature you read, then it’d be best to stick with the print version or a traditionally narrated audiobook. If you’re the type of reader who just wants a fun fantasy story (which, I suspect, is most of you), then you will find these productions to be really entertaining and I confidently recommend Graphic Audio’s version of Warbreaker to you. —KatComments
Warbreaker
I’ll confess here and now: After reading the blurb on one of Brandon Sanderson’sMISTBORN 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.) —BethComments
To comment, login with Google, Twitter, Yahoo, Open ID, etc (bottom left or top right of your screen).
The Well of Ascension
The Hero of Ages
Alcatraz Versus The Knights of Crystallia
Warbreaker![Warbreaker on audio Brandon Sanderson](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765360039?ie=UTF8&tag=fantasylitera-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0765360039"><img border="0" src="51vwsMA%2Bm8L._SL160_.jpg)
links. Or donate.
