Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson

Words of Radiance
Brandon Sanderson
Tor: 2014

Words of Radiance is epic. It is the second novel in a planned ten volume series and clocks in at nearly 1100 pages. I made a final push to finish the book last night and my wife looked over and said, "damn, that's a big book".  The scope of the overall series, The Stormlight Archive is nearly impossible to see this early on, despite being 2100 pages in.  We can see some of the shape, but with three volumes to go in the first set of five books, we don't quite know where this is going.  The novel itself is epic, spanning three primary viewpoint characters which helps ground and focus the novel, and a handful of minor viewpoint characters during the "interludes" between major sections of the novel.  Words of Radiance deals with world changing ideas and events and this is fantasy writ large with the rediscovery of lost powers and ancient enemies.  The novel is big and heavy and can probably be used as a weapon or a shield, depending on one's preference. 

Talking about the first book in a series is easy to do.  Everything is new.  The characters and the setting and the story have not been explored before, and touching on them can shape a review.  But when we get to the second book, and two of the three primary viewpoint characters are the same as from the first book, it's easy to talk about how those characters journeys have changed them and how they have developed, but that is only talking to those readers already familiar with Kaladin and Shallan.  If you haven't read The Way of Kings, those names and that development means nothing.  Those who have read The Way of Kings already know if they are going to read Words of Radiance or not.  Those who haven't are probably not going to start here.

Which raises an interesting point.  Despite being the second book in a ten volume sequence, Words of Radiance does stand on its own far more than I would have expected.  Readers won't appreciate Kaladin's journey nearly as much if they didn't read the first book, but I can see how the novel could potentially hold up for a reader new to the series. I'm not new, so I can't confirm that one way or the other, but Words of Radiance is a reasonably contained novel that builds off the first book and sets up the third.  But with that setup still comes a story that ends.  I wouldn't recommend Words of Radiance to be read on its own, but I think someone could pick up the novel and still appreciate it without being completely lost.   

On a completely different note, Sanderson is tying his books together and it is happening here.  If you know what to look for, you'll see it.  Or, in my case, if you see other people mention the connections, you'll see it.  It is completely unnecessary to know this or catch it to enjoy the books, but Sanderson has been very open about his larger "Cosmere" and that the majority of his original work (not counting Wheel of Time, or anything set on Earth) is part of this Cosmere. Right now most of the Cosmere action is taking place in the background. We can see the occasional character moving around, and I think it is going to be much more evident in The Stormlight Archive, but it's icing on the cake for the more devoted and careful readers. Or, again, for those who follow the connections others have pointed out.

So, what do you talk about when you talk about Words of Radiance?

Words of Radiance doesn't break new ground when it comes to epic fantasy. Brandon Sanderson is still a fairly traditional fantasy writer. He is very well aware of the genre and occasionally plays with some of its tropes (Mistborn), but he's really telling straight up epic fantasy with a variety of settings and magic systems. He's ambitious though. Think about his plans for the Cosmere, he's definitely ambitions.  The thing is, Words of Radiance doesn't need to break new ground. That's not the story Sanderson is telling (I think), and there is room in the genre for all kinds of storytelling and fantasy. Words of Radiance is a very good fantasy novel and, happily, Sanderson's reach does not exceed his grasp.  He's stretching and striving to tell a very, very big story and two novels into The Stormlight Archive, he's nailing the mark.

If you like a big fat fantasy novel in the vein of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince (the intrigue and the magic), or some of the earlier Terry Brooks (though without the echoes of Lord of the Rings), Brandon Sanderson is your guy.  He will give you exactly what you're looking for, and despite the heft of Words of Radiance, he'll still leave you wanting a couple hundred more pages to stay with these characters to see what happens next.

To Mr. Sanderson, I can only say, "More, please, and thank you."  Words of Radiance was a delightful journey.

Some Other Reviews
Tor.com (Non Spoiler)
Tor.com (Very Spoiler)
Neth Space
Staffer's Book Review
io9
Fantasy Book Review
Fantasy Faction
Ranting Dragon
The Wertzone

The Shallan Endpaper

Can I just say how much I love the endpaper that Michael Whelan produced for Brandon Sanderson's Words of Radiance?  Seriously, I absolutely adore it and I agree with Carl Anderson that I wish it were the actual cover for the book (which, like Carl, is not a knock for what was produced for the cover).  But, I can see that from a marketing perspective, the final cover is a bit more action orientated and might drive sales better than the Shallan endpapers...but the Shallan image is just pretty.

A Memory of Light Publication Date

If I had a 2013 calendar, it would be marked.  January 8, 2013.  A Memory of Light. 

I understand that there are individuals unhappy that the novel is being pushed back from Autumn 2012 to January 2013.  That’s right, people are complaining on the internet.  This is not one of those posts.  This is an expression of happiness and relief that I will be reading A Memory of Light in less than twelve months and that it will be given sufficient time to ensure that the novel is the best that it can possibly be.  Isn’t that what should be important*? 

January 15, 1990 – January 8, 2013

From start to finish, The Wheel of Time will have taken almost twenty three years to complete.  Longer, if you count the time Robert Jordan spent writing The Eye of the World before it was published.  But, let’s just go with 23 years based on publication date.

I started reading the series in 1993 when The Fires of Heaven was just being published.  I was fourteen years old.  I will be two months from my thirty fourth birthday when A Memory of Light is published.  Except for the most recent two novels, I have read and re-read each book in the series multiple times, more than that if we’re just talking about the first four.  I have shook my fist wondering who really did kill Asmodean and I have joked that Bela is actually the Creator.  I have marveled at The Cleansing, and been awestruck in wonder at the scenes of Rand going through the arches at Rhuidean.  I’ve dreamed of new trips through the Portal Stones and grew to appreciate Egwene’s handling of her captivity as one of the strongest storylines in the entire series. 

There is no pretending that I am at all neutral in how I feel about The Wheel of Time.  I am an unabashed fan.  Though I may have grumbled at the pacing in some of those middle / late novels, I was still right there on publication day picking up my copy and reading the book a second and third time.  Robert Jordan’s passing was heartbreaking and given my love of the series, I was okay if the last novels were never published if the man himself wasn’t around to write them.  I was apprehensive about how Brandon would do in finishing the series and relieved when I saw how good of a job Sanderson did. 

So the publication date has been bounced a couple of months from an expected October / November publication date?  I’ve been invested in this world for twenty years.  What’s two more months to get the book right, to nail the ending and ensure that we get the conclusion we’ve hoped for and that Robert Jordan’s series deserves? 

I want to be able to turn that last page, exhale, and whisper a thank you to Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, Harriet, and everyone involved in making The Wheel of Time happen for those twenty three years.  Not just for ending it well, but for that first introduction to Lews Therin and Dragonmount to that last coda to A Memory of Light.  For the twenty years of enjoyment those books have given me.  But to do that, I think it matters that sufficient time is given to getting that last book right.  Two more months?  Take four. 


*Yes, I know that we can apply this argument to a wide variety of much delayed novels that readers have been anticipating for years.  I’m not going there right now.  We’ve blown the original expected publication date by maybe four months?  (Well, maybe a year and four months when it was announced we weren’t getting a 2011 release of AMOL) Brandon has done one hell of a job pushing out these three novels in a four year span and he’s kept a high level of quality.  Brandon and I?  We’re totally cool. 

The Way of Kings excerpt

Folks, you're going to see this all over the place and normally I don't post a lot of promotional stuff, but I've been digging on Brandon Sanderson since Elantris and it isn't a stretch to say that Sanderson is THE breakout writer of high fantasy today. Where Sanderson is reaching a much wider audience than anyone (including Sanderson himself) could have ever imagined is through picking up the torch from Robert Jordan and finishing The Wheel of Time. His own work, though, continues to improve and impress.

The Way of Kings is the first volume in a proposed ten volume series titled The Stormlight Archive.

There are novels I am as excited about coming out in the next two years, but The Way of Kings certainly is up near the top of the list.

I'm writing this last night (time travel!), but go to Tor.com right now.

Now.

Go.

If that link works, what you are looking at is a three chapter excerpt from The Way of Kings.

If the link doesn't work, it's because I messed up and you will want to use this link and I expect you'll be able to find the excerpt on your own. I believe in you.

Meanwhile, and this is the other thing you will find on a host of other blogs, Tor has graciously allowed blog type folks to post the prelude to The Way of Kings.

So, enjoy. I'm really freaking excited about this book.

(click on the post title to expand and get the prelude)

The Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

The Gathering Storm
Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Tor: 2009


Let’s just get one thing cleared up before we start here. If it wasn’t obvious by the last eleven posts of the series re-read, I’m a bit of a Wheel of Time fanboy. There’s nothing I can do about that and I’m quite happy with it. This is a seminal series of my fantasy reading life and Robert Jordan has stuck with me over the last fifteen years when other authors failed me. So, please understand that while I may recognize flaws in the novel (and the series), I can easily gloss over them because this is a series I love dearly. Never is anything so egregious that it will hamper my enjoyment of the series.

That’s my admission of bias.

I will attempt to be very light on revealing spoilers since the novel has only been on the market for a week, but some events that happen early on in the novel may be touched on more than some would like to know. So, if you don’t want to know any details, please step away and come back when you’re done with the book. I’ll be gentle with the spoilers, though.


This has been pointed out elsewhere, but a major focus of The Gathering Storm is the dueling stories of Egwene and Rand. Continuing on her story of defiance from Knife of Dreams, Egwene is strong at heart, firm in her need to both do what is right for the White Tower as well as her need to heal the Tower the right way. The way she behaves and acts is as important as the result she is looking to achieve. Egwene demonstrates leadership through example. She does not permit the rebel Aes Sedai besieging Tar Valon to rescue her because she knows that her example of moral defiance and the small conversations she has with the Tower Aes Sedai will do far more good than she ever could as the head of a besieging army. In this way she is setting herself up as a viable alternative to Elaida. In this way she is also shown as something of a mirror to Rand.

Early on in The Gathering Storm, after another attack by a Forsaken almost causes Rand to mirror the actions of Lews Therin and kill Min, Rand decides that being hard as stone is no longer hard enough. He must be as hard as cuendillar. For several novels now Rand has been holding on tightly to his humanity, with only a small soft core he leaves for the women in his life. Rand realizes, or simply believes, that to make it to Tarmon Gai'don he must strip even that away. Between shutting Min away, exiling Cadsuane, and changing his attitude about what he is willing to do to defeat the Dark One, Rand is on a very fast decent into darkness. Others have talked about Rand’s behavior in terms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and his journey from being a decent man from a small village to a man who has to be a killer.

I am so very fortunate to not have experience with PTSD, but this is an excellent explanation as to the entire direction of Rand’s behavior throughout the series. It also demonstrates part of the difference between Rand and Egwene. Egwene has been taught by the Aiel on how one with honor behaves, how to be better and stronger, and what it means to live towards an ideal. This has given her the strength to make her decisions, to stand on her own as the Amyrlin Seat, and to take all the beatings she has been given as “penance” as a prisoner of the White Tower and still hold to her duty. Rand, on the other hand, had to deal with becoming a killer of men and knowing that in the potentially short time he had left to live, he would have to kill again and again and do so without compunction.

To use the analogies of being hard like stone and being able to bend, Egwene is the one who is strong but able to bend and survive. Rand is making himself so hard that he will eventually crack and break. It’s clear very early on that he is in a very bad place. This is only worse when he has to use the True Power to free himself from an impossible situation. The True Power, if you don’t remember, is the one that is provided via a link to the Dark One and it is drawing on his own essence. It’s what Moridin uses to have the black lines of saa cross his eyes and what the other Forsaken use sparingly because of the risks. Rand taps into that early on in the novel and even the voice of Lews Therin is absolutely horrified by what Rand just did. Like I said, Rand is in an exceptionally bad place.

The two storylines of Egwene and Rand are exceptionally well done. Egwene, in particular, should be singled out as a character done well and one of the best storylines in the last half dozen volumes of the Wheel of Time. The various events which take place as part of Egwene’s storyline will be pivotal for the next two volumes (and beyond). Egwene’s storyline is at times thrilling, heartbreaking, and when some of the early reviews say that they wanted to stand up and cheer during The Gathering Storm, they were probably talking about something to do with Egwene late in this novel. Folks, if you’re a long time fan of The Wheel of Time (and you should be if you’re reading this twelfth volume), some of this stuff is as good as anything you’ve gotten earlier in the series. Seriously. This could be Joe the Fanboy talking, but Egwene in the late stages of this novel is just spectacular.

Rand, obviously, has a very different journey and as well done as Rand’s chapters are, they are somewhat difficult to read as we see Rand going into dark places indeed. There are two reunion scenes which readers have looked forward to for a while and neither one goes well. There is also the things Cuendillar-Hard Rand says to Nynaeve, and an action which Rand does which Nynaeve is both horrified about and also finds herself wondering if it was perhaps truly necessary if he is to defeat the Dark One. It’s interesting and brutal and is not at all pleasant.

Those are the two primary aspects of The Gathering Storm and combined, is by far the strongest aspect of the novel. Everything else is secondary to those storylines.

This does mean that Mat and Perrin are given much smaller roles and Elayne is completely absent from this volume. Readers are given short glimpses of Perrin and the fallout from the battle of Malden and the rescue of Faile. We don’t see a whole lot of what’s going on there, except that Perrin and Faile are relearning who they are together after being given a chance to grow while separated. Mat gets a bit more to do in The Gathering Storm, but his is likely to be the most controversial aspect of the novel.

There were concerns going into this novel about how well Brandon Sanderson was going to be able to step into the world that Robert Jordan created. Most fans of the series felt good about the decision Harriet (Robert Jordan’s wife and editor) made to hire Brandon to finish the series, but even the most positive couldn’t help but wonder if Sanderson would really be able to pull it off, that he would be able to write the characters in such a way that they feel the same. That he would somehow make the characters feel “right”.

Mat is perhaps the only character who feels “off” (and perhaps Perrin, to a lesser extent). Here Mat talks a bit too much, his jokes feel flat, and some indefinable bit of “Mat-ness” isn’t quite there.

Here’s the thing, though. Brandon stopped in Minneapolis on his tour for The Gathering Storm and he talked a little bit about Mat, though not in regards to the character feeling “off”. Thankfully, nobody was so gauche to actually bring it up directly. What Brandon had to say about Mat was that he had just experienced the most surreal and absolutely weird situation he had ever had in his life, which is Tuon herself. Mat had never been in love with a woman before and when he did fall in love with Tuon it changed his worldview. After finally declaring herself married to Mat; she leaves and returns to Ebou Dar to take up the Seanchan Empire. Mat is usually the one doing the leaving and here he is left, this time by the woman he loves. Worse, he may be about to find himself on opposite sides if it comes to war. He is out of sorts, not sure how to behave or deal with what just happened. He’s not sure what to do in the future.

Now, I can’t say if this played in to how Brandon wrote Mat (assuming that those chapters / sections were written by Sanderson and not Jordan), if this was the plan all along, or if Mat just feels “off” because he feels “off”, but it was interesting to hear Brandon talk about what was going on in Mat’s world. It’s clear from the Minneapolis signing that he did think a lot about Mat. It’s questionable if he pulled off the character or if the change was intentional.

On the other hand, Mat did ask Verin if she "saidared" something, and that was just priceless.

Taking a look at The Gathering Storm as a complete novel, Sanderson did an excellent job of pulling together storylines, answering a good deal of questions, and telling as complete a story as possible given that this is volume twelve of fourteen. There is no resolution, as such, because Tarmon Gai'don is still coming, but Sanderson told complete story arcs for both Egwene and Rand and did a hell of a job with it. Others characters received short shrift, but it seems necessary and appropriate for Sanderson to have done so in order to do justice to Egwene and Rand. Brandon was capable of handling some seriously emotional sequences (Verin, anyone?) and he did so with great skill.

The Gathering Storm is a richer and more fully satisfying Wheel of Time novel than we have seen in a good many years. It is difficult to compare the first experience of reading The Gathering Storm to reading those first five novels of the series all those years ago, but this novel holds up well compared to anything that came after the fifth book.

The Gathering Storm shows that Harriet’s judgment in choosing Brandon Sanderson was sound, that he was the right writer for the job. For fans, there is a sense of relief that Brandon was up to the task and that he delivered the book we hoped for.

Call me a fanboy for believing this, and perhaps this is more than a little presumptuous to say, but I think Robert Jordan would be proud of this one. Folks, Brandon did well, and he should be proud of himself, too. He wrote a novel that “feels” like it is part of The Wheel of Time. It was worth the wait.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Tor.


Previous Reviews
The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winter's Heart
Crossroads of Twilight
Knife of Dreams

Wheel of Time info from Worldcon

Wotmania has a recap of what Brandon Sanderson revealed about The Wheel of Time during a signing at Worldcon (at or nearby, I'm not sure which).

There isn't anything spoilerific as Sanderson is being very tightlipped with details about A Memory of Light. As he should be.

The two biggest pieces of information that came out is that Sanderson has requested that Harriet NOT attempt to publish the outrigger trilogy that Jordan previously discussed (it would resolve the Seanchan plotline and be very Mat-centric) and a little bit more about the Asmodean-killer reveal.

Regarding the Mat / Seanchan trilogy:

About the prequels/sequels, there were no big news. Sanderson 'strongly advised' Harriet not to have them written - but if she thinks otherwise, he wants to write them . . . According to Brandon, it's the three outriggers Doherty is trying very hard to convince Harriet to have written, and the motive is quite personal: RJ sold him hard on the ideas for this trilogy and Doherty is apparently the biggest Mat Cauthon fan on the planet, so he wants these books written very very badly. Brandon would still prefer they were not. Harriet doesn't want to think about them for the moment.

Regarding Asmodean:

About Asmodean, he gave a few more details but no huge news. When he decided that after all he would reveal the killer in the books (which he originally didn't intend) then got sick, Jim took no chance and took time to write down an extensive note about the murder, explaining very precisely and in many details what happened and what lead to it. He had not decided where this could go (or even if it really would be in the book or he would publish the note after the paperback of AMOL was out), so it was left up to Brandon and Harriet to decide on the character who could reveal some of this, and how and where in the book.

Go check out the full article.

Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson

Warbreaker
Brandon Sanderson
Tor: 2009

Brandon Sanderson has received a good deal of attention over the last couple of years. Most of the attention stemmed from the announcement that Sanderson was tapped to write the concluding volume of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and conversation branched out from there. Sanderson is the author of four previous fantasy novels for adults: Elantris (a standalone fantasy) and the Mistborn Trilogy (The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages). If one was so inclined to look at it like this, Warbreaker is Sanderson’s final chance to win Robert Jordan fans over before The Gathering Storm comes out later this year.

Despite that I chose to open the review this way, I think that would be an unfair way to view Sanderson and Warbreaker. I just wasn’t sure how to avoid the elephant in the room. Brandon Sanderson and Warbreaker should be judged on their own merits, and ultimately they will be.

Years ago the King of Idris signed a treaty with the Kingdom of Hallandren. The Idrian King would send his eldest daughter, Vivenna, to wed Susebron, the God King of Hallandren. Vivenne trained her entire life to be a suitable bride for Susebron and thus do her duty for Idris and help forge a stable peace between Hallandren and Idris. That was the plan. That was the plan until the Idrian King sent his willful and disobedient daughter Siri in Vivenna’s place.

Thus begins two of the three major storylines of Warbreaker. Siri attempts to find her way in court of Susebron and discovers the hidden truth about the God King. Thinking Siri wholly unsuited for her new life, Vivenna journeys to Hallandren and meets with the Idris operative working in the Hallandren capital and begins a new life of undercover espionage and sabotage. Vivenna’s plan is to rescue Siri. The reader quickly learns that Siri needs no rescuing.

The third major storyline features one of Sanderson’s more entertaining characters, a being named Lightsong. I use the word “being” because the court of Susebron is made up of the Returned. The Returned are viewed as Gods because they were once humans who died doing something heroic and were resurrected from death into a being more powerful. Lightsong, however, does not believe he is a god. Or that any of the Returned are gods. Lightsong’s does not take himself or the other Gods seriously and it is this questioning unbelief in his own divinity which will push him into the larger story.

I don’t know how well these brief overviews do in describing what Warbreaker is about. Getting a sense of character and plot is well and good, and I think it is important, but it is not the most important thing. The most important thing is something that reviews struggle to get a handle on: How well does Sanderson tell the story? How well does Sanderson execute these ideas?

The answer is that he does a very good job in telling the story and in using his creativity in worldbuilding to provide the reader with a well thought out world that comes across as a place that could be real. Brandson Sanderson does a consistently excellent job in writing compelling characters who are more than just a set of attributes. He also does an outstanding job at looking at the tropes of fantasy and coming up with fairly fresh and original magic systems to build a world around.

This time Sanderson uses color and Breath. Here’s the idea: every person is born with one Breath in their body. It is the spark that gives them life, though not exactly. Anyone with Breath can, willingly, give up their Breath to another. They will continue to live, but as one considered a Drab. Drabs do not see colors as crisply and do not appear as distinct to others with Breath. Breath becomes a commodity with a high value. Breath is also the basis of the magic system, because adepts can, at great cost, gather a larger number of Breaths to them and at certain numbers, they will reach a Heightening. They see colors more distinctly, and various heightenings give different powers (if you want to use that word) to the adept. Breath also allows the user to bestow a breath (or more) onto an inanimate object, bring it to a semblance of life, and command it to perform some simple task. The more complicated the task, the more Breaths required. The adept can (and should) reclaim those breaths when the task is complete.

Color is an offshoot of breath in that those with more Breath lend their clothing sharper and more defined colors (and thus can be identified easier) and can also perceive greater variations in shading. Breath is more important, but color provides definition and richness to the world.

This is an aspect of worldbuilding and of storytelling which Brandon Sanderson succeeds at. He builds this rich, vibrant world with a distinct and fresh magic system. Then he populates the world with a cast of characters who are shades of grey, generally neither all good nor all bad, but are people acting in the best interests of themselves or their nation. They do the best they can and make mistakes. The characters are people the reader wants to know more about.

This is a long winded way to say that Warbreaker is Sanderson’s best and strongest novel yet. It shows Sanderson trying new things and trying to continue to improve with each book. He has. There is a richness of imagination and strong storytelling in Warbreaker that should please any and all fans of high fantasy.

This is also a long way to address the original paragraph, which is to say that if Warbreaker doesn’t convince Robert Jordan’s fans that Sanderson is up to the task of completing The Wheel of Time in as satisfying a manner as possible, nothing will.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Tor Books.

Previous Reviews
Elantris
Mistborn: The Final Empire (I know, I barely said anything)
Mistborn: The Well of Ascension
Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (no review, apparently)

Brandon Sanderson is a busy, busy man

This is why.

Holy crap.

And, this also goes to show that while writing A Memory of Light is a privilege and an opportunity for Brandon, it's also put a lot of stuff on the backburner and that he does still have some contractual obligations to fulfill.

Seriously, I admire his work ethic and also the fairly lengthy disclosure of what's going on and why. I know this level of communication isn't for everyone and that not every author can or should be expected to do so, but it's really cool of him to do so.

Plus, I do like his books. I've got an ARC Warbreaker on my shelf which I want to get to before June.

Oh - and do go find those faux-reviews of The Way of Kings on Amazon. They're a hoot.

A Memory of Light - and then there was three

Press Release

Brandon's Response.

An Interview with Harriet.

Joe Says: When I first read the rumors of A Memory of Light being split into three volumes I thought "bullshit, that'll never happen". I mean Mr. Jordan promised us one volume, no matter how large. Now, I fully understand that right now there are limits to the thickness of the volume, so I expected two. No biggie.

Reading through Bloglines yesterday morning I noticed a post about three volumes and I sighed.

But before I ever got to Brandon's response I came to acceptance. If it is being split into three volumes it is just that damn big. And I said, out loud, "okay".

Then I read Brandon's reasoned and measured explanation. I've actually moved beyond anything where I like the idea or don't like the idea of three volumes. I'm at the point where I understand why from a publishing perspective and trust the integrity of everyone involved and I think it's the right call.

And we're still getting some 800,000 words of fiction in the next two years.

It'll be good. It'll be worth the wait and worth the split.

Brandon Sanderson to finish Wheel of Time

If anything can be old news in a couple of days, this is it. Tor announced on friday that Brandon Sanderson (Elantris, Mistborn) has been tapped to finish the final novel of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. The news has been making the rounds of the SFF blogs and message boards and while I don't have a sense of what the consensus is about the news, assuming there can be one, I think Sanderson's selection is a good move.

My initial wish was for George Martin to write A Memory of Light, and if I'm being honest, he is still my first choice.

But Sanderson has the love of Wheel of Time and a knowledge of epic fantasy and his styling in both Elantris and Mistborn seems that he might be able to pull it off. Plus, he is working from extensive notes, both written and recorded, as well as the fact that Jordan's wife Harriet will edit the novel (as she has done the rest of the series).

Sanderson has been interviewed over at Dragonmount where he reveals that he has every intention of writing in exactly who killed Asmodean. He better!!! I want a chapter written in first person perspective from the killer and the chapter should be titled "I Killed Asmodean". The chapter should begin, "I, Bela, the Creator, killed Asmodean..."

The first thought I had when I read about the announcement: Good for Brandon! He seems like a nice guy and is open with his readers and this is a great opportunity for him. It should be a huge boost to his career.

Quick Takes: Nancy Crampton, Brandon Sanderson, Cory Doctorow

Writers, by Nancy Crampton: This is a collection of photographs taken by Nancy Crampton over the years. As can be presumed from the title the subject of the pictures is writers. Crampton profiles writers such as Philip Roth, John Updike, Margaret Atwood, Spuds Turkel, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Sexton, Norman Mailer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Truman Capote, and many, many others. On the page opposite of the photograph is a paragraph from the writer about writing. The text is from various articles or interviews over the past thirty years. In the sense that the collection gives us little glimpses into the lives of all of these writers it is fine, but I have a difficult time getting excited about a book of photography. The fact that I had heard of less than half of the writers, and read fewer than that, might play into my opinion, but even a book of beautiful and haunting images still does not linger like a good novel or story does for me. Generally.



Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson: Sanderson enters the world of YA fiction with Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. I have enjoyed Sanderson’s adult novels, so why not give this a shot? The novel is narrated by a man (young man? Old? Doesn’t say, but I’m going with young) looking back on his life and how he became involved in the struggle between the Hushlanders (America) and The Free Kingdoms and the conspiracy of Librarians everywhere to keep secret the knowledge of the Free Kingdoms. Apparently there are three additional continents that do not show up on any map or survey because the Librarians are keeping that existence secret. To the Free Kingdoms, we are backwards, low tech people even though they use swords rather than “low tech” guns. Anyway, Alcatraz (our narrator and hero) tells of how he, a boy raised as a Hushlander...or as an American, became this great hero and well known celebrity in the Free Kingdoms...though repeatedly tells us that he isn’t very nice or trustworthy. I think Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians might be a lot of fun for a 10 to 14 year old to read. It features a snarky narrator, it pokes fun at our world and what we know, has silly action, takes itself both seriously and not seriously at the same time, and a moderately clever concept. It probably would work for a pre-teen, but as an adult this is not a YA work that can reach both an adult audience and a YA audience...and that’s fine. I’m not the target audience. There were little jabs that I appreciated, particularly near the end of the book where Sanderson starts to pull a Jo Rowling to send Alcatraz back to the Hushlanders before letting fly a light backhand about how nonsensical it would be to send a boy to exactly where the bad guys know to look, in a land where he has to pretend to be someone he is not, where he has no friends, and to know that there is a world of magic out there he must be in a world of boredom for him...Sanderson teases it, and then pulls back...because as an author and reader Sanderson is aware of the conventions and what Rowling did, and he wants us to know that he is aware and that his readers are likewise aware. The book is entertaining and short enough, I suppose, but I would much rather read the next Mistborn, Warbreaker, or whatever adult Fantasy novel Sanderson writes than the new Alcatraz book. I’ll give it a respectful pass, but if I had a ten year old I would definitely give him the book.



Overclocked, by Cory Doctorow: Even though all of the stories are available online, Overclocked works very well as its own collection of acclaimed and anthologized stories. Overclocked is the second collection of Cory Doctorow’s short fiction, and they are Doctorow’s look at possible futures and some experiments with genre. He has his Asimov robot tale “I, Robot” and a follow up, of sorts, “I, Row Boat”, a virtual reality story “Anda’s Game” (which similar to the Asimov referenced titles is a play on Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game), a post apocalyptic “When Sysadmins Ruled the World” which features the geeky system administrators trying to keep the computers running and preserve civilization during some unknown cataclysm. “Printcrime” and “After the Siege” were less successful for me. “Printcrime” did not work because of the brevity of the story, and “After the Siege” just didn’t. Overall, this is a solid collection of frequently anthologized stories (“Anda’s Game” was in Best American Short Stories, “Sysadmins” has been well collected, as have “I, Robot” and “I, Row-Boat”, possibly in some of Gardner Dozois Best Science Fiction anthologies). Doctorow is well worth reading. There is some good stuff in this collection.

The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson

The Well of Ascension
Brandon Sanderson
Tor: 2007



In the opening novel of the Mistborn series (trilogy?) Brandon Sanderson asked the question: What if the hero of prophecy fought the Dark Lord and lost? That is what the initial premise seemed to be. But, as the novel progressed the question turned out to be: What if the hero of prophecy prevailed, but then turned into a tyrant himself? By the end of the novel the question had shifted once again: What if the hero of prophecy was about to achieve the ultimate goal (whatever it was) and was killed by the guy who carried his bags, and that bagman became a tyrant and ruled for a thousand years of oppression and villainy? The actual question changed and shifted as we (and the characters) learned more about what really happened one thousand years prior.

Mistborn: The Final Empire was a starkly original novel which turned the standard hero’s quest on its head because one thousand years before the novel began the hero of prophecy did arise, he was killed by his bagman, and the bagman ruled for a thousand years. That’s where we opened Mistborn. Brandon Sanderson introduced a well thought out system of magic called Allomancery, which is predicated on those with the talent to somehow utilize specific metals to achieve certain results. Burning different metals allows one to have great strength, speed, the ability to pull a metal towards you or push off something metal. Seems simple, but Brandon Sanderson imagines how this could and would be used in a fantasy setting. There were fight sequences and solid description of the skillsets of Allomancers.

The Dark Lord of Mistborn was defeated at the end of the novel, so the trilogy is setting up for something much different than what might have initially been guessed. The initial guess on what Sanderson was doing would have been a three volume set of overthrowing the Dark Lord. But with that accomplished in one hell of a first novel (of the series, Sanderson’s second published novel after Elantris), Sanderson asks another question which is frequently ignored in fantasy: What happens after you defeat the Dark Lord? How do you hold on to what you’ve won? What happens when you are free of the Dark Lord’s taint? Okay, that’s three question, but it boils down to: So you’ve defeated the Dark Lord...now what?

The Well of Ascension opens with our band of heroes trying to pull a government together out of a squabbling collection of nobles and previously repressed common citizens called Skaa. Elend, a noble son who befriended our Mistborn hero Vin, is King, but almost in name only. The survivors of Kelsier’s band have prominent positions in the government but Elend is not leading the Assembly very well. To make things worse, Elend’s father, the Lord Venture, has an army camped outside the gates of the city and is preparing to invade to claim the throne and dispose of his son. Some of the nobles are willing to open the gates and give up their freedom rather than have bloodshed. To make matters worse, there is another warlord marching on Luthadel with the same purpose. People are free, but they are hungry. The money is running out.

This is where we are thrust into the story. Vin is out patrolling the city attempting to protect Elend, her love, from Allomancer assassins. The political situation continues to deteriorate as threats to Luthadel mount. The political / patrolling aspect of The Well of Ascension takes up at least the first half of the book. The best aspects of this first half (or more) of the novel is Vin’s patrols because we have action sequences where Vin fights off enemies using allomancery. Sanderson has thought out how to make these powers make sense, have a physical cost, make them costly to use, and be exciting to read about all at the same time. If Vin runs out of a particular metal mid-battle that skill is lost until she can get more of that metal. The fights are fast paced and fun to read. The political aspect mildly interesting, but stretched over hundreds of pages it begins to drag.

A complaint that could be (and has been - though I would not go nearly as far as Pat did in his criticism) levied against The Well of Ascension is that there is simply not enough story to fit into the nearly 600 pages of novel that we are given. The complaint is valid and, I’m afraid, accurate. Sanderson only put in what he felt was necessary, I am quite sure, but outside of the sections with Vin (and the also the Kandra), there isn’t enough story to go around. Filler abounds. Sanderson’s filler is still readable, but the novel could have been much tighter with much the same effect, unless the effect intended was to allow the reader to feel the weight of the siege and political upheaval and feel nearly every minute of it. But, even that effect likely could have been accomplished in fifty to one hundred fewer pages. Just one reader’s opinion.

So – Vin, fight sequences, allomancery, history = the best aspects of the novel. Political maneuvering and waiting and almost scheming = slowing the novel down a bit too much.

The Well of Ascension is still a good read, but overall it was not as exciting or successful in telling a story than Mistborn was. The novel did set up a third volume (Hero of Ages?), but little more than that.

Aha! That’s it! The Well of Ascension is, surprisingly enough, a victim of Middle Book Syndrome. It fills in some gaps, resolves certain situations, and sets up the third volume, but does not stand well on its own. I did appreciate that Sanderson is brutal with his characters, that there is nobody safe from being killed off and those deaths will have repercussions down the line with those particular talents and skillsets no longer available to the heroes.

With that said – fans of Mistborn should still read The Well of Ascension, and Sanderson is still an exciting new author, but the novel will not meet the expectations raised by Elantris and Mistborn. It is what it is: The Middle Book of a trilogy.

Books 97 - 101

I delayed a few reviews and the books started piling up, so I'm just going to give a little overview of the last several books I've read. I reached my goal of 100 books in 2006 so we'll just see what I end up with.

97: Matriarch - Karen Traviss. The fourth entry in her Wess'har Wars is another satisfying one. When we left off we found out that Shan Frankland was alive, that even being left in the vacuum of space was not enough to kill off the c'naatat parasite that has made Shan nearly immortal. At the very end of the previous volume we discovered that the two who were responsible for the nuclear attack with the attempt of destroying all c'naatat but resulted in the genocide of the bezeri were handed over to the remaining bezeri for punishment. Since the bezeri are aquatic creatures Shan's two mates, the human Abe and the Wess'har Aras, both infected with c'naatat, decide to deliberately infect Rayat and Lindsay Neville. I cannot express how shocking this event was knowing what we know of these two characters and knowing what we know of c'naatat. Matriarch continues the storyline where Traviss shows us the culture of the bezeri and unloads one heck of a twist, and the Eqbas Vhori (a much more militant Wess'har culture) is preparing to send a ship to Earth to rehabilitate the ecological damage humanity has done to the planet.

Still better than most science fiction I have read, Karen Traviss continues to astonish as she runs her storylines in different directions that one would expect. She is harder on her characters than most authors would be willing to be. This is how you write science fiction, folks.

98: The Nuetronium Alchemist: Conflict - Peter F. Hamilton. Hamilton finishes the second volume (or fourth if you're reading the paperbacks, each volume has been split due to length) of his Night's Dawn Trilogy and at this point Hamilton defies description. Truly. He's expanded his story so much that I could mention that somehow most of the people who have died have had their souls stuck in this in between place and now they are able to return and "possess" the living. This has resulted in a plague upon humanity and humanity needs to learn how to solve this issue or face extinction. Others races have succeeded, others failed. There are numerous storylines going around this issue, some of the possessed, others not, and some just touch upon the possessed but is really about something else and it is hard to say how this all fits together. It's a decent read, but it has begun to become overwhelming.

99: Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson. I thought Elantris was one of the more exciting fantasy novels to be written recently and happily that one was a standalone, a rare feat in fantasy these days. Mistborn is the first volume of a trilogy, but I'll forgive Sanderson for that. The reason I am in such a forgiving mood is that the book is damn good and he takes a fascinating focus for the novel.

So much of epic fantasy has the same basic storyline: unknown farm boy/kitchen boy is pulled into a quest to save the world. Turns out farm boy is the prophecied hero and has noble lineage which is is not aware of. Farm boy saves the world and defeats Dark Lord.

Sanderson asks: What if the Dark Lord doesn't lose? What if the Dark Lord wins? In Mistborn this is exactly what happens and there is a thousand years of subjugation before the beginnings of an uprising begin.

It's good. It's very good.

100: Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld. It's almost chick-lit, the story of the four years at Ault Prepratory School for Lee, a freshman girl who we follow as she matures and doesn't mature and lives her life at a prep school. Lee is a scholarship kid among kids with very wealthy families and she is insecure because she is no longer one of the smartest kids...all of them are smart. This could be chick-lit, but Sittenfeld is a very good writer and tells a strong story and this is just a good book.

101: Kitty and the Midnight Hour - Carrie Vaughn. I won this book (and Vaughn's second book) in an online contest and I didn't really want to. I was just entering all of the contests run by this guy and hoping I'd win the good fantasy contests, but I won a couple of werewolf novels. Great... The books sat on my shelf for several months and I finally started the first one last week. Two days later I was done. Turns out Carrie Vaughn tells a good story of a werewolf who is a late night radio DJ and one night she unintentionally spends the entire show not playing music and taking supernatural type calls from the listeners, dispensing advice. She thinks it'll get her fired, but the show is a hit and her producer wants her to do this all the time. At first she plays the show as if she knows a lot, but doesn't reveal her true nature, but things change. What Vaughn does a great job of is describing the pack structure of werewolves and behavior and Vaughn has written a solid novel and I am actually going to read book 2 Kitty Goes to Washington. I'm not even interested in vampire and werewolf books, but Vaughn has changed my mind. I'll read her work.

Elantris

“Elantris” is the debut novel from Brandon Sanderson. Blurbs on the cover from Orson Scott Card and David Farland say this book is “the finest novel of fantasy to be written in many years” and “one of the finest debuts I’ve seen in years.” When I read a novel I generally do not pay attention to when it was written and I know that I haven’t read all of the debut fantasy novels which have come out in the past several years. I do know when I’ve read a very good book, however, and “Elantris” is certainly that.

The prologue to the novel was all of five paragraphs but it gave all of the information needed to understand the background of what the story would be. It tells of a beautiful city named Elantris which glowed like magic and where amazing magics were possible and commonplace. Elantris was populated by godlike beings who could wield these powers as I might use a pen. But these beings were once regular humans, soldiers and serfs, princes and beggers and merchants. When something called the Shaod came upon them they were transformed into Elantrians and into a newer, greater existence. But ten years ago something happened.

That something is that the blessing turned into a curse and Elantris and its population started to rot away. The city now abandoned except for the poor souls still called by the Shaod is covered in slime and muck and the Elantrians are the cursed, neither dead nor truly alive.

This was a beautiful set up and pulled me right in from the start. Sanderson introduces Raoden, a prince and heir to the throne of Arelon. The city of Kae lies in the shadow of Elantris and the glory of Arelon has fallen with Elantris. Raoden is a man who gives his people hope, but when he is called by the Shaod he is doomed. His father, the king, does not reveal what happened to Raoden, but rather holds a funeral for his not beloved son. Meanwhile, Sarene, a princess from another country has arrived to marry Raoden not knowing what has happened. Her marriage contract considers her married upon the betrothal and even continues after Raoden’s death, so she remains in Kae. But Raoden must find a way to survive, such as it is, in Elantris. Sarene is the only one who sees the coming doom from the religion of Darethi and an invasion from Fjordell.

Brandon Sanderson has done something remarkable here. He has created an incredibly original work and unlike so many other works of fantasy this novel is complete in itself. It is not, as I understand it, the first volume of a trilogy or larger series. It is an epic work of fantasy in one self contained novel. It’s one of the better fantasies that I have read. Sanderson does a good job in making all of the primary characters understandable, and sympathetic…even the “bad guys”. The motivations are explained well and the characters are well developed and revealed. Simply put, with one novel Sanderson has made a fan of me. I was surprised by just how good this book was. If Sanderson writes another, I will definitely read it.