It’s been some time since I’ve commented on books that I had read. In fact, I haven’t done this since Mr Monster.

There’s a couple of reasons for that :

 

  • I intend to review the Shadow series from Orson Scott Card as a whole
  • The other books I have read were too complex to review in a short time

 

So, I’ll try to give here short reviews of the two Brandon Sanderson books I’ve read since september. Beware, the review of TOM is very spoilerish!

 

Way of kings cover The Way of Kings is Brandon Sanderson’s first book in the new “Stormlight Archive” series that Tor commissioned partly in order to have a big series running once Wheel of Time is done.

First impressions about this book (as an object) : it’s gorgeous. The cover in itself (by Michael Whelan himself) is amazing and really conveys he atmosphere of the book; that alone should convince anyone to buy, but it’s not the only thing this book has to offer besides reading it. If you remove the dust jacket, you find engravings on the cover, and there is the interior art also. You get two full color maps inside the covers, and tons of interior art, with additional maps, sketches of animals and plants, parchments reproductions, … . All this is done to give you a feeling of the world : the animals sketches are even done by one of the book’s characters, so you can’t deny that those drawings have their place in there.

Now to the writing. This book is huge (over 1000 pages), so be prepared to be plunged inside this world for a while.

The thing I really liked about that book was the total immersion you experience while reading it. The premise told you that this world was constantly assaulted by storms, and you can see that everywhere in the book, from architecture (cities are built in holes), plant life, language (the swearing !), and culture. All this world is very cohesive and I couldn’t find any glitch of anything that wouldn’t make sense on the world building part. In a sense, you can literally feel the weight of the world as you read this. You can feel millenia of history and culture development at work here : this is a real world you’re experiencing.

The magic system (or magic systems as I understand this series has about 30 of them) is also very interesting, with clear rules (there might be some confusion with the three types of “lashings”, but I suspect we’ll be more comfortable with this terminology once we’ve had one more book to read). The main magic objects here are “shard blades” and “shard plates”, so you have basically men with power armor battling one another : how cool can that be?

The characters are well rounded as always. I loved Shallan (and Jasnah of course). Though she doesn’t have nearly as much screen time as Kaladin, I liked her story, and am waiting to see her plot line in the next books (especially the part about her father’s death). The main character Kaladin is also a good character, with his constant doubts about his capacities as a leader. You get to understand him very well with the numerous flashbacks into his past showing you how a man trained to be a surgeon can become a soldier. I’m not forgetting Dalinar, a leader afflicted with visions that he doesn’t know if he should believe in them or if he’s mad.

The overall story was really satisfying, full of treachery and such : everything that I like.

But I said this would be a short review, so I’m going to stop there. The Way of Kings marks the debut of a brilliant series on par with what Wheel of Time had done. I’m so going to buy the next one as soon as it’s out (late 2012 probably).

 

Towers of Midnight Cover I’ll be shorter in my review of this book, since a larger number of people know of it. I had really loved “The Gathering Storm” (despite it’s title) : the entire Egwene story line was brilliant, and contrasted very well with the darker Rand story line. In fact, TGS has been my favorite WOT book since Lord of Chaos came out in 1994.

Being the reasonable person I am, I never expected TOM to be that good (though I hope that A Memory of Light will be) : it’s rather a book where you put all the pieces at the right place for the final showdown.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised to be shown that even in a book at that place, you could have exciting resolutions.

One thing you should know is that I’m not a big Perrin fan (far from that), and that in the later books, Jordan had written for him large chunks of each book, with a story line that didn’t seem to go anywhere. I was relieved in Knife of Dreams when he retrieved his wife, because I believed that with that resolved, I would get much less Perrin screen time. I was proved right in TGS, which focused mainly on Rand and Egwene.

Yes, I’m partial to some characters : Mat, Egwene, Elayne, Aviendha, Nynaeve, Siuan, Tuon, and Moiraine, I love; Rand, Lan, and Min, I don’t care about that much; and Perrin and Co, I outright don’t like.

So, I was sold on the cover a book that was supposed to be all about Mat and Moiraine; the title indicated that Tuon might be present (since the Towers of Midnight are in Seanchan); on the other hand, Egwene and Rand had been very present in TGS, and I didn’t expect to see them a lot.

What did-I get then?

Well, lots of Perrin, of course. I can see some of you wincing with me. Yes, we see him a lot, but not in the large chunks we had in COT and POD (where a full third of a book might be talking about him). Here, the Perrin chapters are small, and with alternating viewpoints, so these scenes are much easier to eat.

To tell you the truth, one of the best scenes in the book involves two different battles taking place at the same time (and same place), one of them involving Perrin. Of course, the other battle involves Egwene, so I was very much interested. In that chapter, the viewpoints were short, and the pacing ultra-fast. This was at about two thirds of the book, so yes, you can still have a climax mid-book that’s working beautifully.

For the Mat story line, though we see him through the book, he didn’t get to start going to the tower of Ghengei until about 700 pages. This had me on edge : the more I read, the less pages remained for what was supposed to be the highpoint of the book. I was outright worried that the subject would be either taken care of in 10 pages, or not finished by the end of the book. Well, I was wrong : 80 pages were more than enough to treat this well, and the fact that no other story line was standing in the middle made for a continuous and fascinating read, so I’m entirely satisfied.

Some low points :

  • Tam’s story line is somewhat crooked. At some point, you are before events in TGS, then he’s back, then he’s not there anymore. Brandon has acknowledged this fact and said that nothing he tried had worked there.
  • I don’t entirely buy Moiraine’s explanations of her captivity : if her power was slowly drained, why was her bond to Lan suddenly cut off?
  • Graendal. I loved the way she escaped death, and she’s presented as the one Forsaken with the most ongoing plots. Sure, her failures were many, but these were not her fault. I hope we see her again.
  • Asmodean’s killer : This is revealed in the glossary, and there is one mention by Shaidar Haran of Graendal being responsible for the loss of 3 forsaken (Aran’gar and Meesana are certain, it leaves Asmodean). I asked Brandon in Nantes why had it not been put into the book in full, and he replied that they didn’t find a scene where this was really working, so all we get now is a wink acknowledging that our suspicions of Graendal were right, and nothing else. Kind of disappointing.

And I said these would be short reviews. Understand now why I can’t write in short form?

Ok, to wrap it up, TOM was a really good book, though I still prefer TGS for a more flashy finish, I really enjoyed this one.

The next promises to be really something, so keep up the good work, Brandon. Next WOT review in march 2012 probably.

Recommended Posts

Update on books read

It’s been some time since I’ve commented on books that I had read. In fact, I haven’t done this since Mr Monster. There’s a couple of reasons for that :   I intend to review the Shadow series from Orson Scott Card […]

arnaud