Sections
Despite being part of the Cosmere, Brandon Sanderson’s shared universe, Tress of the Emerald Sea is not a typical Sanderson book: instead of an epic fantasy boasting a huge cast of characters and told in a didactic voice, we have a whimsical fairy tale with a playful narrator that focuses on the story of a single figure.
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock,” the novel starts, immediately framing its narrative in the realm of fairy tales. This is the story of Tress, a girl who lives in a world with talking rats, cunning dragons, cruel sorcerers, and ships that sail over clouds of spores that burst in contact with water. One day, Tress’ loved one [...]
The first novel of The Stormlight Archive series, The Way of Kings, offers a compelling “underdog” story with memorable set-pieces and a world brimming with mystery – even if it fails to fully justify its length and the focus on some of its characters.
The Way of Kings opens with the death of a king and follows the resulting conflict. After the Parshendi people agrees to form an alliance with the Alethi king Gavilar, they send an assassin to dispatch him during the night, leading Alethkar to a long, drawn-out war. The battles are being waged in the aptly named Shattered Plains, a barren and vast labyrinth of rent plateaus, filled with deadly chasms and crevasses. Due to the [...]
– The following review contains spoilers for the entire trilogy.
Written by Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages marks the conclusion of the first Mistborn trilogy by repeating the same achievements and failures of the previous volumes. The novel is uneven when it comes to developing its characters and presenting its many twists and turns, showing consistency only in its ability to contradict itself all the time.
The story begins a few years after the events of The Well of Ascension, with the deity Vin freed, called Ruin, loose in the world to wreak – as his name suggests – destruction. With the help of her husband, Emperor Elend, Vin’s plan is to seek out the [...]
The review contains spoilers for the first book, The Final Empire.
The second volume of its trilogy, The Well of Ascension is a much more flawed book than its predecessor. Still repetitive and occasionally inconsistent, the novel is also full of genre tropes and problematic characterization, and even the titular MacGuffin is not used well, feeling much more like an afterthought than a force or goal that drives the characters.
The story begins months after the climax of the previous volume: the Skaa are now free workers, Elend Venture is king, and Kelsier’s troupe has become his advisors, but the city of Luthadel is besieged by enemy armies, with the main one being [...]
The first book of a trilogy, Mistborn: The Final Empire is a competent introduction to one of the biggest fantasy worlds created by Brandon Sanderson. With The Final Empire, the author is successful at creating a compelling cast of characters, which helps to save a narrative marred by repetitive prose and problematic symbolisms.
The setting is the great city of Luthadel, the center of a feudal empire that has in its foundations the constant exploration of the poor, the peasant class called Skaa. It frequently rains ash over the city, which is commanded by a man goes by the name “Lord Ruler” and, being immortal, is considered a fearsome god by his subjects, ruling [...]
Brandon Sanderson’s first published novel, Elantris, fares better when handling the twists and turns of the story than when it comes to developing its characters, social discussions, and a consistent narrative.
The book’s main setting is the city of Elantris, a place wrapped in an aura of mysticism. Its inhabitants, once powerful, shining, and immortal, now find themselves cursed, living abandoned in muddy streets with rotten skin, always hungry and in pain. It is not known what led to the change, but if it was celebrated in the past when someone became an Elantrian – a random event that could occur with anyone in the vicinity of Elantris – now the conversion is [...]