Apatt's Reviews > Words of Radiance

“For Oliver Sanderson, Who was born during the middle of the writing of this book, and was walking by the time it was done.”

Aww, I have never started a review with the book's dedication before, dedications are usually “read it and forget it” affairs, nice for the dedicatee, nothing to do with me. However, this one is charming and noteworthy in that I seldom consider how long it must take authors to write lengthy books. This dedication makes me appreciate the time and effort Brandon Sanderson puts into the creation of this book. The world building and attention to details in this book is mind boggling, the beautiful artworks scattered inside the book and the complex (but easy to follow) structure makes the book seems like a huge undertaking involving not just Sanderson but also the illustrator and probably a book designer, not to mention the publishing and marketing side of it. It seems almost unfair that I read this book in about three weeks but it took Sanderson over a year to write it. At 1328 pages for about 9 US Dollars the book is incredible value for money per page. That is if you place value in great epic fantasy books; I do, and this book is a bargain.

Words of Radiance is volume 2 of Sanderson’s ambitious Stormlight Archive series, which is projected to span ten similarly gigantic volumes. The main story arc concerns humanity’s struggle against a nonhuman* race called Parshendi who seek to destroy them for their own survival. The Parshendi are not evil per se, but there are forces at work which prevent the two races from living in peaceful coexistence.

As with most epics, the story is told from the perspective of several main characters in multiple plot strands. These main characters are the movers and shakers of Roshar, the world of this series. So we follow the adventures of Kaladin the Radiant knight with wind riding abilities, Shallan the scholar with eidetic memory and the ability to create illusions, High Prince Dalinar who receives visions from the gods and will do anything to save his people from destruction, and several others.

Shallan

In spite of being a very long book, the narrative just flows and flows, it never grinds to a halt. This is not to say that it is relentlessly fast-paced the pace varies according to the needs of the scene being depicted; discussions, battles, ruminations, romance, bantering etc. all require different pacing to make the scenes work. Each plot strand has something of interest going on, there are no long dry passages of expositions, yet the world is complex and richly imagined. I only have one very minor complaint in that Sanderson's jokes seldom land for me, they are just generally too bland, and too safe; but at least some of them make did make me smile, and I appreciate the author for including some humour (even if it is too tame) to balance the more intense parts of the book.

Characterization is very important for this kind of book because we have to spend such a long time with the main characters and be invested in what they are doing. Sanderson spends a lot of time developing the characters, their strengths, and foibles. We get to know them very well by the end of the book and look forward to seeing them again. Kaladin still spends a little too much time moping and doubting himself, but there is much less of this than in the previous book, The Way of Kings.


“Magic system” is now a popular term among the modern fantasy fans. Nowadays the old school “Abracadabra!” conjuring trope just does not cut it anymore for many readers. Magic should have some kind of logical basis, cause and effect, it is equally impossible regardless of whether it is systematic, but the internal logic has to make sense for its application to be believable. Sanderson is probably the king of magic systems, if you read his Mistborn series you will know exactly what I mean. For the Stormlight Archive series magic is fueled by stormlight from the “high storms” that infuses gems and is used almost like electricity, for lighting and various purposes. The word technology even appears a few times, unusual for books in this genre.

Roshar is full of numerous bizarre life forms, quite a few of which are beautifully illustrated in the book. My favorites are the “sprens” which are like elemental spirits. A few of them are also very entertaining as characters. One is a Tinker Bell-like creature called Syl that follows Kaladin, and the other is called Pattern and is literally a living pattern that acts as Shallan’s very strange sidekick.

There is so much depth and details in this book that it is hard to write a readable, comprehensive review. The best I can do is ramble on as I have and make a strong recommendation to fantasy fans not to miss this mighty series. The third volume of this series is scheduled to be published around November. I'm on board for all ten books, providing the author does not jump the shark somewhere down the line.



* They are not aliens because they are just as indigenous to the world of Roshar as the humans.

• Opinions differ on this issue but, the way I see it, there is no need to firmly commit to reading all ten volumes, especially as the series will probably not be finished for another decade at least. As readers, we should just enjoy the journey and not worry too much about the destination. Each book so far wraps up quite nicely at the end, some major questions are answered, leading to intriguing new ones to be explored in the next installment.

• The fight scenes in this book are extremely well done, vividly depicted and pulse pounding.

• The paintings in the book (two of them shown above) are by the great Michael Whelan, the gray scale art by Dan dos Santos, there are also some amazingly detailed drawings by Ben McSweeney (not shown here).


“On an individual basis, in most interactions, this thing we call power—authority—exists only as it is perceived.”

“It’s not that you aren’t witty, Shallan. I just feel like you try too hard. The world is not a sunny place, and frantically trying to turn everything into a joke is not going to change that.”

“Using a fetching face to make men do as you wish is no different from a man using muscle to force a woman to his will, she’d said. Both are base, and both will fail a person as they age.”

“I like to learn to use the local weapons,” Mraize said. “It is a quirk, though I feel it is justified. If you want to understand a people, learn their weapons. The way men kill one another says far more about a culture than any scholar’s ethnography.”


Kaladin vs. Szeth