Book Review: Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson
Book two of the Stormlight Archive, with big reveals, big battles, and a big hump to finish.
Tor Books, 2014, 1087 pages
Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status "darkeyes". Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl.
The Assassin, Szeth, is active again, murdering rulers all over the world of Roshar, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin’s master has much deeper motives.
Brilliant but troubled Shallan strives along a parallel path. Despite being broken in ways she refuses to acknowledge, she bears a terrible burden: to somehow prevent the return of the legendary Voidbringers and the civilization-ending Desolation that will follow. The secrets she needs can be found at the Shattered Plains, but just arriving there proves more difficult than she could have imagined.
Meanwhile, at the heart of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi are making an epochal decision. Hard pressed by years of Alethi attacks, their numbers ever shrinking, they are convinced by their war leader, Eshonai, to risk everything on a desperate gamble with the very supernatural forces they once fled. The possible consequences for Parshendi and humans alike, indeed, for Roshar itself, are as dangerous as they are incalculable.
I approach huge epic fantasy series with caution. Those multivolume epics, each one a horse-choking tome full of a zillion characters and plot threads, and maybe years before you get to the finish line. I've started many more fantasy series than I've finished.
Brandon Sanderson I've always found to be reliably entertaining if rarely great, but when he announced his huge new series, The Stormlight Archive (projected to be 10 volumes eventually, and I'm guessing it will actually be more), I started with the first volume, thinking this might be one I'd follow along to the end. I mean, I mostly liked the Mistborn trilogy, though the second series was so bad I never got past the first book.
I really did like The Way of Kings. I read it eleven years ago. I bought Words of Radiance in hardcover when it came out...
And only this year got around to reading it. And I'll be honest, it was a slog.
It's not bad. It's standard Sanderson epic fantasy. Noble heroes struggling to Do The Right Thing, conniving villains conniving their way around in the shadows connivingly, and sixteen layers of Hidden Meanings, Clues, Puzzles, and Power-Ups for the characters to adventure through until they get to the next level. And needless to say, a detailed, carefully crafted highly gameable magic system and artifacts lying around as plot coupons.
The main viewpoint characters from Way of Kings return: Dalinar, the grizzled old veteran Highlord who's seeing visions he thinks are sent by the Almighty and is determined to unite mankind against... some big bad thing that's coming, though he's not sure what. Dalinar's son Adolin who's basically a cheerful knight-champion who likes to fight and kick bad guy ass. Kaladin, a "dark-eyed" former slave who has risen in Dalinar's ranks and has major trust issues and depression and a little Tinkerbell-like spirit who follows him around telling him he's supposed to do the right thing to fulfill his destiny. And finally, Shallan, a blushing, incessantly curious red-headed scholar, and Adolin's eventual betrothed, who blushes a lot, and whose cheerful blushing demeanor hides deep, dark secrets and trauma. Blushingly, she goes about trying to uncover other deep dark secrets, does a pretty good job of infiltrating various inner circles and conspiracies even while she's blushing, and eventually makes some of the great big discoveries in the climax. Also, she blushes a lot.
There are also a lot of interludes with minor characters, side characters, and Wit, who's a recurring multiversal narrator. Oh, hi, it's Wit again saying weird, vaguely profound and mysterious things and hinting at being some sort of herald of the apocalypse before making bathroom jokes.
So why did this book drag for me? Why did it take me literally months to finish it? Because it seemed like it took about 800 pages for anything to happen that wasn't set-up, and then in the last 200 pages suddenly shit happens, there are great big epic battles, and characters turn into literal superheroes flying around trying to whittle each other's hit points down.
I mean, it was fun, I guess? And the world is interesting. And Sanderson hints at Huge Happenings, some of which actually start happening towards the end (Knights Radiant! Heralds! Voidbringers!), but in the meantime he's still dropping clue after clue that we're supposed to be putting together for the next eight books.
All the things I like and dislike about Sanderson were here as usual. The magic and magic items are cool and all conform to Sanderson's Law, and all seem ready-made to be listed on a character sheet. Shardplate is basically Magical Starship Trooper armor.
The characterization and dialog is, well, usually engaging, sometimes funny, and sometimes as cringey as a dad joke.
Dalinar is okay: he ponders and frets and plays the contemplative alpha male.
Adolin is slightly more interesting, since he does more, and he's a little more light-hearted than his dad. He's the action hero alpha male.
Kaladin is... whiny and mopey and depressing. A lot of this book is about his personal Hero's Journey, climaxing with a cinematic boss battle in which I thought he should have been renamed Kal-El.
Finally, there is Shallan the Blusher. I have seen on the Internets that Shallan gets a lot of hate for being the least interesting and most blushing viewpoint character, but I actually thought she was fine, even though she blushes too much. You can't even complain that she doesn't get any action since she racks up a body count in this book between blushes. Her blushin- I mean, burgeoning romance with Adolin (with a little blushing at Kaladin on the side, really, Sanderson, are you going to do this?) is sweet in a fated-to-be-because-the-author-is-a-Mormon kind of way. She's the "smart" character who blushes and figures out the puzzles. And have I mentioned she blushes a lot?
JEEZUS EFFING BLUSHING CHRIST SANDERSON CAN YOU GO TWO PAGES WITHOUT SHALLAN BLUSHING???
So like that is actually one of my peeves about Sanderson. He is the tropiest of trope writers, and his characters, but especially his female characters, are all built on the same archetypes, and his female MCs come in two models: lethal badass who's Not Like Other Girls, and blushing clever nerd.
Okay, so Words of Radiance was okay. But it was a standard Sanderson product, and it was over a thousand pages, and two more books in the Stormlight Archive have already come out in the time it took me to finish book two, and I am... just not enthused.
I'm still kind of looking forward to Cytonic though.
Also by Brandon Sanderson: My reviews of Elantris, The Mistborn trilogy, The Alloy of Law, Steelheart, The Way of Kings, Warbreaker, Skyward, and Starsight.
My complete list of book reviews.
Tor Books, 2014, 1087 pages
Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status "darkeyes". Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl.
The Assassin, Szeth, is active again, murdering rulers all over the world of Roshar, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin’s master has much deeper motives.
Brilliant but troubled Shallan strives along a parallel path. Despite being broken in ways she refuses to acknowledge, she bears a terrible burden: to somehow prevent the return of the legendary Voidbringers and the civilization-ending Desolation that will follow. The secrets she needs can be found at the Shattered Plains, but just arriving there proves more difficult than she could have imagined.
Meanwhile, at the heart of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi are making an epochal decision. Hard pressed by years of Alethi attacks, their numbers ever shrinking, they are convinced by their war leader, Eshonai, to risk everything on a desperate gamble with the very supernatural forces they once fled. The possible consequences for Parshendi and humans alike, indeed, for Roshar itself, are as dangerous as they are incalculable.
I approach huge epic fantasy series with caution. Those multivolume epics, each one a horse-choking tome full of a zillion characters and plot threads, and maybe years before you get to the finish line. I've started many more fantasy series than I've finished.
Brandon Sanderson I've always found to be reliably entertaining if rarely great, but when he announced his huge new series, The Stormlight Archive (projected to be 10 volumes eventually, and I'm guessing it will actually be more), I started with the first volume, thinking this might be one I'd follow along to the end. I mean, I mostly liked the Mistborn trilogy, though the second series was so bad I never got past the first book.
I really did like The Way of Kings. I read it eleven years ago. I bought Words of Radiance in hardcover when it came out...
And only this year got around to reading it. And I'll be honest, it was a slog.
It's not bad. It's standard Sanderson epic fantasy. Noble heroes struggling to Do The Right Thing, conniving villains conniving their way around in the shadows connivingly, and sixteen layers of Hidden Meanings, Clues, Puzzles, and Power-Ups for the characters to adventure through until they get to the next level. And needless to say, a detailed, carefully crafted highly gameable magic system and artifacts lying around as plot coupons.
The main viewpoint characters from Way of Kings return: Dalinar, the grizzled old veteran Highlord who's seeing visions he thinks are sent by the Almighty and is determined to unite mankind against... some big bad thing that's coming, though he's not sure what. Dalinar's son Adolin who's basically a cheerful knight-champion who likes to fight and kick bad guy ass. Kaladin, a "dark-eyed" former slave who has risen in Dalinar's ranks and has major trust issues and depression and a little Tinkerbell-like spirit who follows him around telling him he's supposed to do the right thing to fulfill his destiny. And finally, Shallan, a blushing, incessantly curious red-headed scholar, and Adolin's eventual betrothed, who blushes a lot, and whose cheerful blushing demeanor hides deep, dark secrets and trauma. Blushingly, she goes about trying to uncover other deep dark secrets, does a pretty good job of infiltrating various inner circles and conspiracies even while she's blushing, and eventually makes some of the great big discoveries in the climax. Also, she blushes a lot.
There are also a lot of interludes with minor characters, side characters, and Wit, who's a recurring multiversal narrator. Oh, hi, it's Wit again saying weird, vaguely profound and mysterious things and hinting at being some sort of herald of the apocalypse before making bathroom jokes.
So why did this book drag for me? Why did it take me literally months to finish it? Because it seemed like it took about 800 pages for anything to happen that wasn't set-up, and then in the last 200 pages suddenly shit happens, there are great big epic battles, and characters turn into literal superheroes flying around trying to whittle each other's hit points down.
I mean, it was fun, I guess? And the world is interesting. And Sanderson hints at Huge Happenings, some of which actually start happening towards the end (Knights Radiant! Heralds! Voidbringers!), but in the meantime he's still dropping clue after clue that we're supposed to be putting together for the next eight books.
All the things I like and dislike about Sanderson were here as usual. The magic and magic items are cool and all conform to Sanderson's Law, and all seem ready-made to be listed on a character sheet. Shardplate is basically Magical Starship Trooper armor.
The characterization and dialog is, well, usually engaging, sometimes funny, and sometimes as cringey as a dad joke.
Dalinar is okay: he ponders and frets and plays the contemplative alpha male.
Adolin is slightly more interesting, since he does more, and he's a little more light-hearted than his dad. He's the action hero alpha male.
Kaladin is... whiny and mopey and depressing. A lot of this book is about his personal Hero's Journey, climaxing with a cinematic boss battle in which I thought he should have been renamed Kal-El.
Finally, there is Shallan the Blusher. I have seen on the Internets that Shallan gets a lot of hate for being the least interesting and most blushing viewpoint character, but I actually thought she was fine, even though she blushes too much. You can't even complain that she doesn't get any action since she racks up a body count in this book between blushes. Her blushin- I mean, burgeoning romance with Adolin (with a little blushing at Kaladin on the side, really, Sanderson, are you going to do this?) is sweet in a fated-to-be-because-the-author-is-a-Mormon kind of way. She's the "smart" character who blushes and figures out the puzzles. And have I mentioned she blushes a lot?
JEEZUS EFFING BLUSHING CHRIST SANDERSON CAN YOU GO TWO PAGES WITHOUT SHALLAN BLUSHING???
So like that is actually one of my peeves about Sanderson. He is the tropiest of trope writers, and his characters, but especially his female characters, are all built on the same archetypes, and his female MCs come in two models: lethal badass who's Not Like Other Girls, and blushing clever nerd.
Okay, so Words of Radiance was okay. But it was a standard Sanderson product, and it was over a thousand pages, and two more books in the Stormlight Archive have already come out in the time it took me to finish book two, and I am... just not enthused.
I'm still kind of looking forward to Cytonic though.
Also by Brandon Sanderson: My reviews of Elantris, The Mistborn trilogy, The Alloy of Law, Steelheart, The Way of Kings, Warbreaker, Skyward, and Starsight.
My complete list of book reviews.