What?? A “mid-book” review?  What does that even mean?

It means that I’m midway through the book and felt like making some brief comments.  Because I can.

So let’s just get this out of the way first:

It’s good.

Quite good.

Only once or twice have I stopped to wonder if a passage was Jordan’s or Sanderson’s – and in the end I didn’t care anyway.

I found myself going back and re-reading passages to soak in details – something  I almost never do.  But – this is a book I’ve waited four years for – a book most thought would never come, thanks to Mr. Jordan’s horribly unfortunate passing.  This is a book to be savored!

There were one or two points where I wondered at a character’s actions, thought briefly would they do that?, but then realize that DUH, the series has to end, so they have to suck it up and change eventually.  And besides, they both did things I actually wanted them to do – so wins were everywhere.

I’d forgotten how skillfully crafted the characters here are.  I understand each person’s perspective.  I know why they do the things they do, even if I really wish they wouldn’t.  Each one is a living, breathing thing to me – which I suppose they should be after 12 books in 19 years.

Halfway through the book feels like I just read a whole book too -  there was a point where it felt a little like one book ending, and another beginning.  The first half contained in itself  the standard Jordanian progression of things, leading up to a battle with a Forsaken and another terribly Pyrrhic victory.  There were several shifts in allegiances, and two big reveals – one about a darkfriends identity (I’m pretty sure this was news, but I might have forgotten it) – and one about the identity of Moridin.  Rand did something he really shouldn’t have done with the power (and I know it will come back and bite him – but how?!).

Oh, and there’s the requisite AWFUL cover.  Seriously what the hell is up with the proportions on this thing?  Still, they’ve grown on me over the decades (!), so it wouldn’t be a WoT book without one.  Seriously though, that cover artist….*shakes head*.

Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in the last 300 pages tonight.  Fingers crossed.  If it’s as good as the first half… hell of a book.

His latest, although evidently it was written a while ago, or something.  He also released early drafts of it on the web for free.  I probably should have checked them out, to see more about how his process went but I hate reading books on computer.

So. Yeah this was good, it took me a while to get into it – 15 chapters or so, so that makes it probably his “least” good book, but it was still quite enjoyable.  The whole magic system came off kind of goofy to me BUT with the caveat that if he has a good explanation for it in a later book I may change my mind.  Only having certain phrases invoke the magic just seems silly.  I suspect that’s not the case, and it’s just that certain things are simpler than others, but we’ll see.  The whole color thing is rather strange too, but I suppose there is energy of some sort stored in colors sooo…ok, sure.

My only real complaint is that we didn’t get enough info about the magic system.

The story itself was entertaining though – a really rather classic multiple bait-and-switch setup – probably the most “normal” of his 5 books so far.  I think it was the shortest too.  Still, none of these things are real negatives – I recommend it for any high fantasy fan.

3.85 STARS out of 5

Elantris
also by: Brandon Sanderson

Wow, what a debut.  I’m not even going to bother shooting this high.  Definitely stronger than Warbreaker (I know, I read the new one before the old one but they are only microscopically related, so it doesn’t matter, nyah!).

There were very few parts I skimmed – just some annoying banter about food.  People talking about food…yeah that’s pretty much something I’m not going to waste more than half a second on.

The rest of the novel (you know, the other 99.9%) was excellent, especially for a debut.  He created a fascinating world – almost as interesting as the Mistborne world, and more so than the Warbreaker one (so far) – and populated it with some good characters.  That being said, the story was definitely not as unpredictable as his other books.  Even though I said Warbreaker followed more of a formula, that formula included lots of twists and turns – this one had very few.  The ones it did have were great though.

I wish he’d explained a little more thoroughly what they had to do to fix the magic, but I’m sure it’s out there on an internet discussion board somewhere, waiting for me.

Highly recommended for fantasy lovers.

4.1 STARS out of 5

Having finished all his (published) books, I’m definitely seeing a reoccurring theme of religion: examining it, its strength and roles in society, and its relationship with various forms of resurrection.

Good thing I wasn’t particularly motivated to read any of his new books anyway – although I did see Ender in Exile on the shelf recently and at least made a mental note to wiki it.

I prefer Brandon Sanderson’s “moderate Mormonism” to Orson’s somewhat more militant stance.  Even though they agree on the issue at hand, Brandon comes off looking much more rational & personable.

Oh my god – an epic fantasy series that actually finished not only in a timely manner, but within the bounds of my lifetime!  But let’s not congratulate the author only for that small feat – he also deserves praise for writing an awesome book & series.  The quality of writing in this book is just as high as the previous ones, the stakes are even higher and the twists are pretty decent (and work!).

He hit on a couple of points – picking up some things from the first book that you didn’t even realize were plot related and making them huge – in a completely organic way that felt like the opposite of him pulling them out of his ass.  In sense, I got a real sense of respect for the reader, and a desire to make the pay-offs really matter for characters and reader alike.

I wasn’t particularly excited about all the religious angles in the book – but it turns out my fears of Mormon proselytizing were unfounded (Mr. Sanderson is Mormon – see here for an interesting look at his theology interacting with his personality and the rest of the world: ) – yay!  I’m always weary when a book deals with religion and I know the writers personal religion because the clashing of bias (my trying to read into what they write vs. are they actually putting anything in there to read into) is annoying.  However, the way he dealt with the religious questions was somewhat surprising, and happily moved me out of my place of paranoia.

The ending itself…made perfect sense, was laced with sadness and triumph, and moved the world on in a new and interesting direction.  I think I would have been happier in some ways if certain characters had not met their ends BUT I see why it happened for the story, and it is better for their doing so.

Random summary: Well written, entertaining, rewarding on multiple levels.

He may come back to this world later in his career – it’s been mentioned on his message board and in interviews – and that would be awesome.  I love where he left things, and the things he mentioned as potential future elements seem like crazy fun – Feruchemical mistings, the other metals, and folks with 1 feruchemical & 1 allomantic misting ability.  And steampunk.  I think that came up too.  Good times.

FOUR AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE STARS

GOOD SHIT.

Interestingly, I couldn’t find an image of the cover I have (the paperback), this one is from the hardcover.

This is probably the best new fantasy book I’ve read in a while.  Not that that says much, because I don’t read much new fantasy.  It’s at least as good as George R.R. Martin’s stuff, but very different.

I love how he takes common fantasy cliches and tips them upside down (he’s pretty upfront about this being intentional too).  The first book’s thing was basically that evil had already won.  Sure, good “won” in the end, sort of, BUT there was this overwhelming sense of dread inherent in the win in that it didn’t actually make things “good”.  Also, to a lesser extent the hero/catalyst was actually killed, and there’s the fallout from that too – how do you live under his shadow?

So in this book we have a great, awesome continuance of this “upside down” effect that comes into play (hah mtg term…funny) only near the very end of the book but when it does..wow!  I think you’ll be very pleased, unless you just want to read the typical tropes.  In that case, steer clear.

Before the ending though, the upside-downness continues in the sense that this book is “after the good guys win, how the hell do they manage a kingdom?”. I haven’t seen that done before, at least in such a realistic and depressing way (depressing in a good way).  The one good thing (for the characters) that comes out of the final ending is so overshadowed by the continuing foreboding that it almost seems like an afterthought.  Vin gets the entirety of what she thought she wanted in a man, and Elend can finally feel less of an inferior, but neither of them even really gives it a moment’s thought…they can’t, because what’s coming will be even worse than what’s come before.

(I know, my writing is horrible today.  That’s ok though, I’m ok with it.)

I was left with a lot of things to think about as I went to sleep last night, lots of comments I wanted to make, but I can’t remember most of them.  I know I’m glad I waited for the paperback, as the final book is only right around the corner now (October?)!

Without giving any spoilers, I’m very curious about what was in the pill at the end…it seems like if it had pewter in it as well as whatever caused the “big” effect, it should have had many, if not all, of the other allomantic metals as well – potentially even the ones they haven’t rediscovered yet.  I was frustrated that he didn’t go into that at all, the final chapter was way too short.  I have no idea what’s coming in the final book …hell they could even “lose” for real.  I doubt it, but it seems possible.   The characters are left with almost zero clues about what’s actually going on.  The only lead I can see is the “helpful” mist spirit thing…other than that, all Sazed’s massive discovery does is remind them that they got royally fucked.

His character arc is also particularly interesting and unsuspected…it seems like he’s being set up to lead the Terrismen, but lead them to what?

Brandon has an excellent section on his website with notes on each and every chapter in the book.  I love how open he is about the writing process.  You can see that a) he really loves his work and b) he is very confident in his skills as a story teller.

FOUR AND A HALF STARS