Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson is the second book in the Stormlight Archive series, where The Way of Kings built a great world, and a fantastic story, Words of Radiance (WoR) soared to new heights and depths in fantasy, and genre fiction.
Words of Radiance is NOT a stand alone, this is one where you do have to read the first book.
Read my review of the physical book and artwork: The Words of Radiance: A Work of Art.
Synopsis review of The Way of Kings Book one in The Stormlight Archive:
The Way of Kings (TWoK) is a brilliant start to a proposed ten book epic fantasy series. It has all the epic essentials and archtypes; a young boy, and a young girl, a Hero's Journey, and a Heroines Quest, A Fallen Hero, Good vs. Evil and the expected fantasy huge cast of characters.
But Sanderson doesn’t stop there like any fantasy there is detailed world-building. Sanderson's world is vibrant and teeming with; diverse flora and fauna, fantastical beasts, unique cultures, court intrigue and politics, history, mythology. Oh and he manages to expertly add in foreshadowing, red-herrings, Chekov's guns, plot twists (Well, more like twists, turns, twirls and flips).
What is missing from TWoK is much of the epic fantasy pitfalls. The story, characters and world have depth and are full, without tedious exposition. There is a lack of info-dumps, long descriptive 'journey' chapters, and no characters feel flat or there just for plot effect.
TWoK was full, it took all the tropes of epic fantasy and turned them upside down, pushed them to new levels, it was epic it was amazing.
Words of Radiance (WoR) is the second book in The Stormlight Archive where The Way of Kings (TWoK) built a great world, and a fantastic story, Words of Radiance soared to new heights and depths in fantasy, and genre fiction.
On to a No Spoilers Review of Words of Radiance:
WoR has everything mentioned above in the TWoK review synopsis, and then more times 10. WoR is an intense read. Sanderson has delivered with Words of Radiance. WoR goes above and beyond expectations, this is an action packed fast paced book(All 1088 pages of it!) with intensity and depth.
Where TWok was a book that hooks a reader to the story and the world, WoR is a character book. In the first book we are introduced too and learn to really like one, all or many of the characters. WoR immerses the reader in an emotional tension filled relationship with the main characters, and many of the non-POV characters. Sanderson takes the reader beyond the interest and standard fan-squeee for the story of his heroes and heroines, to the point where as the reader you are emotionally invested in their lives, struggles and successes.
I could write paragraphs on each of the different characters and how awesome and brilliantly they are written. It would probably take a research paper to describe all of the literary and fantasy tropes, that Sanderson has used brilliantly while completely changing them and making them new and exciting.
In addition to pushing epic fantasy into new and exciting directions,(including genre publishing) Sanderson has broken long held canon on fantasy character portrayals and world building. This is no orphan goes on a journey and saves the world fantasy, it is oh, so much more. The Stormlight Archive is an obvious must read for any epic fantasy fans, but I would recommend this book to anyone that likes an in-depth story with great characters.
Read Brandon's article, Words of Radiance and the Art of Creating Epic Fantasy
"Whether you've been hyped for Words of Radiance or not, you are not prepared for how fantastic it is." - Rob Bricken
Read more of this fantastic review over at io9.com: Words of Radiance puts the "epic" back in epic fantasy
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