Book #17: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
From Amazon:
According to mythology mankind used to live in The Tranquiline Halls. Heaven. But then the Voidbringers assaulted and captured heaven, casting out God and men. Men took root on Roshar, the world of storms. And the Voidbringers followed . . . They came against man ten thousand times. To help them cope, the Almighty gave men powerful suits of armor and mystical weapons, known as Shardblades. Led by ten angelic Heralds and ten orders of knights known as Radiants, mankind finally won. Or so the legends say. Today, the only remnants of those supposed battles are the Shardblades, the possession of which makes a man nearly invincible on the battlefield. The entire world is at war with itself - and has been for centuries since the Radiants turned against mankind. Kings strive to win more Shardblades, each secretly wishing to be the one who will finally unite all of mankind under a single throne. On a world scoured down to the rock by terrifying hurricanes that blow through every few day a young spearman forced into the army of a Shardbearer, led to war against an enemy he doesn't understand and doesn't really want to fight. What happened deep in mankind's past? Why did the Radiants turn against mankind, and what happened to the magic they used to wield?
Thoughts:
I'm not sure exactly what to say about this book, so I'm just going to wing it and try and avoid spoilers in the process. A couple of days ago I was more certain. I was on the verge of chucking it in for a lost cause, and giving it my lowest score so far this year in the process. It's very rare that a book actually annoys me, but this one did. The biggest problem with this book is the same accusation that could be levelled at practically every other multi-entry fantasy series out there, including my favourites: it's too long. It's way, way, way too long. Several rain forests have been wasted in the publishing of this book. Seriously, with some good editing it could have told the same story, much better, in about 500 pages. Instead, what we have is a 1,100 pages during which almost nothing of any consequence happens, split into two volumes so you have to pay twice for one novel. You could skip chapter after chapter and dive back in and not have missed anything. It is boring in the extreme.
As far as I can see, the only reason Sanderson's getting the attention he's getting is because he was chosen to finish The Wheel of Time. He's not the best writer. He seems to feel the need to explain everything, every thought, every action in the minutest detail. He refuses to leave anything to the reader's imagination. He wastes words like nobody's business. He let's language that doesn't sit well with the rest of the book slip through the filter (words such as 'wow', 'scoot' and 'gotten' cropped up regularly here). I enjoyed the first Mistborn book, but the second and third hung around far too long for my liking, and dragged beyond belief. Same here. It's not bad writing, as such, it's just . . . in need of refining. With the number of books he churns out, I think he's leaving himself too little time to do this.
But there is some nice invention here. The world building is decent if not particularly ground-breaking. The main three or four characters are cliched (conflicted warrior, wronged slave etc) but they are well developed and you do care for them. The magic system, again, is decent, although I expect it will be more fully explained in subsequent books. There are some original creatures and races on show, but he doesn't really delve too deeply at this stage and, weirdly, his overly-descriptive style doesn't really seem up to the task of conveying what these things really look like (the excellent artwork frequently has to come to the rescue in these cases). Speaking of the artwork, it adds to the immersion and is beautifully done.
I don't mind padding. As I say, practically every modern fantasy author is guilty of it (maybe excepting the likes of Abercrombie and Kay). But there has to be a pay-off somewhere along the line, and for 1,000 pages of this book there just isn't any. It starts out intriguingly enough, with hints at a vast history in true Erikson style, and I was really excited about it at that stage. But then it's only the last 100 pages that really come alive, with some nice twists, some laughable conveniences, and some good character developments. Everything else in between is filler. There just wasn't enough going on, not enough interesting characters, not enough invention or originality. In the end, it is generic High Fantasy, predictable in the extreme. You can guess exactly where the characters are going to end up. And, in making it so the female characters are only good for reading and writing, he's pretty much set equality back several decades. They don't tug their braids or smooth their skirts - they just sit around and don't do much at all. Meh.
I was really looking forward to reading this book. At last, I thought, a new fantasy series that I can get my teeth into. In the end, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it's nowhere near as good as I hoped. That makes scoring it pretty tricky. At the moment, I don't ever want to read another Sanderson book. He annoys me too much. By extension, that means that I can't finish WoT either, so I may as well pass on that now, before I go too much farther. I may change my mind, but that's how frustrated I am at the moment. There's just enough at the end of this book to make me curious, but the thought of slogging through another novel like this is almost making me lose the will to live. It's just my opinion, of course - I know I seem to be in the minority.
How's that for a stream of consciousness review?
5/10
