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Written Review
There is nothing better than a Brandon Sanderson book, four books deep in a series. LOVE IT. The Fused are everywhere. Dalinar is incredible. I love this story, I love this series. I love this book!
The world building has BLOWN UP this book. The magic system is matured and incredibly intelligent. Our characters are going through A LOT. This is the darkest we’ve ever seen some of our characters, yet there is so much redemption in this story. There is also terrible betrayals this book.
The Heralds are real! From the beginning of The Way of Kings, the Heralds have been these mythical figures that have been talked about and hinted at and now, they’re everywhere.
This is an incredible story, 1260 pages and I couldn’t be happier after finishing it. I’m constantly impressed by Brandon Sanderson and his storytelling. The Stormlight Archive, if it continues at this caliber of storytelling and worldbuilding (universe building), I can’t even fathom how this will end. Not just the in-world physics level, because this book goes deep on physics on an atomic level and it is breathtaking. Oh, it’s so good.
There are a lot of Cosmere Connections and Implications in this book. I’ve, at this point, only read Mistborn 1, Elantris, Warbreaker, Tress of the Emerald Sea, and now the entirety of the currently published Stormlight Archive and I can say… WOW. The Cosmere is real and it is highly implicated throughout this book. We are going off world soon!
I don’t want to spoil what makes this story great, but I will say I was surprised by some characters that I’d not particularly paid attention to before: Navani, Venli, Taravangian, Dabbid, Jasnah. These characters are smart, and I mean wicked smart, and they go deep emotionally and physically. I just love this book.
The flashback characters for this book are Venli and Eshoni. And whoa, does this book really make you care about these characters if you haven’t before. Whoa! I got answers to questions I didn’t even know I had while reading these flashback chapters.
Our main three, I’d call them - Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar - are here and wow, they’re even more impressive this book. These characters, anytime they’re on the page, I am glued. I want to know everything about them, their history, their state of mind. Everything. They do not disappoint this book.
We get more Surges and more Orders of Knights Radiant acknowledged this book and holy crap, I love the Willshaper Order.
There is an incredible about of information given to us about the different Light in the world… that’s all I’ll say.
Navani, the Mother of Machines, good gracious does she go into so much detail about every little microscopic inner working of Stormlight and more this book. I COULD NOT GET ENOUGH. Brandon Sanderson, I feel, is a lot like myself - he finds something that is interesting and dives so deep into researching the topic that he becomes an expert in it. This book has music theory, physics, mathematics, cymatics, and so much more. My goodness. This is a HARD magic system with limits and the world is built with the sense that this all could possibly exist. Whoa!
Spoilers
Be cautious when reading these next bits! COSMERE!
Review Scores
Emotional Impact 5 This series, in general, has the "on your left" feel in every book. This book brings out tears, cheers, and jeers. My goodness, this was absolutely beautiful and spectacular and amazing.
Characters 5 This book is a STEP UP from anything before, Words of Radiance not withstanding... The characters this book have such an arc that you feel every emotion the characters are feeling. You want who you want to win, and they make you happy when they win and absolutely destroy you when things are happening. Wow.
Plot 5 The Plot of this story is EPIC and HUGE, and I tie this directly into the Worldbuilding section as well, because this is something that IS CONNECTED now. The story takes you places and you are on the Sanderlanch that there is... perfect.
Prose 5 Book after book, Brandon Sanderson's prose get better and better.
Worldbuilding 5 WE ARE IN THE COSMERE HERE! There are references and characters and planets and so much discussion of the Cosmere. I love this story so much. SO GOOD.
Spoiler Story Breakdown
Book Four There is nothing better than a Brandon Sanderson book, four books deep in a series. LOVE IT. I said that earlier and now I get to say why - this story starts (the Stormlight Archive) simple, without much power revealed and now, four books in, we have built out this world like no other. We now have flying bridges, Radiants everywhere, bad guys everywhere, Shallan's mental state is breaking down, Kaladin's mental state is breaking down. Moash keeps killing people! The Fused are everywhere. Dalinar is incredible. I love this story, I love this series. I love this book!
The Sanderlanch in this book made me cry, it made me jump up and down, it made my mouth gape open.. I also took so many pictures of page after page that was so incredible I wanted to remember them. So, so good.
Wit Now, I know Hoid is something special in the Cosmere, and now we get a relationship between Wit and Jasnah and that is something I wasn't expecting to really enjoy this. I love the mechanics of the Cosmere and I love the explanations of Hoid and who he is and the little tidbits that Hoid gives us. We got a lot of that in this book. We also get Hoid losing his Breaths, oh man we also get mentions of seons (from Elantris!). Hoid lost his Third Heightening, at least I believe that's where perfect pitch occurs when Taravangian as Odium takes Hoid's memories and Breaths away. I love Hoid.
Jasnah Another person I didn't realize I was going to enjoy this book, I want to know so much more about Jasnah. She even swore her Ideals off-screen, and I wish we could've seen that. It was a little conversation between Dalinar and Jasnah, he asked if she swore the Fourth Ideal and she said yes. Ah, still awesome. Jasnah is awesome.
Navani Holy cow, I absolutely didn't think I was going to enjoy the physics and mechanics of Stormlight and Voidlight and Anti-Voidlight. So much. I was blown away by how deep this book got on everything. I was blown away by Navani and her arc this book. She is awesome and epic and so so smart! The Mother of Machines, love that. Also, she now can hum and sing the Rhythms?! Let's go. I'm excited to see the rest of Navani's arc.
Venli oh, Venli. You are deep and interesting and awesome and helpful and wonderful. She is great. Willshaper too.... oh now this is awesome, give me more!
Teft TEFT! Wow, what a powerful death scene.
Moash Oh wow, the more we get Moash being this horrible horrible person, will we get a redemption arc?! I don't know, but he is now blinded.
Dalinar Dalinar has continued to be one of my favorite characters and I am incredibly excited to learn more about Bondsmith powers, and I'm really interested in this Ishar storyline. I think Dalinar is amazing and powerful and I think he is one of the best characters in fantasy right now!
Kaladin What an arc. Kaladin saving his father, swearing the Fourth Ideal (I believe this was Dalinar accepting his Oaths), losing his slave brands, getting to talk with Tien (was that a Cognative Shadow?!), and gaining his Syl-Shardplate. Oh, I love this. Kaladin's storyline is so incredibly epic. He is so awesome. I can't wait for he and Szeth together, buddy-cop!
Szeth Oh, Ishar has his father's blade... uh oh! I am so interested in Szeth.
Taravangian Oh, Taravangian. Someone who has been around since nearly chapter 2 of The Way of Kings is now Ascended (CAPTIAL A - I lost my mind when that was on the page) to godhood. Holy smokes, this was something I'd heard about before, but seeing it on the page.... oh my my my. Taravangian is now Odium. That is not something that I expecting and what could this mean?! I am interested in the fact that Cultivation is here trying to help Taravangian. There is something going on there.
Currently Reading
#currentlyreading Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson!