Words of Radiance: Book Two of the Stormlight Archive (The Stormlight Archive, 2)

Sometime later on in Words of Radiance, during one of the many Interludes that appear between each of the behemoth novel's five sprawling parts, a character named Lift ambles up the side of a castle wall using powers we'll leave here unspecified on her way to steal. Soon thereafter, a boy joins her side and asks her how she managed to scale the wall, as there was no ladder for her to do so, and he himself needed a rope that she lowered down to him. "Gumption and spit," Lift replies, before traipsing onwards towards her destiny. Gumption and spit, indeed. Here is a marvelous combination of things that can result in magical things - even if the final product is a bit messy.

Over one year ago, I wrote up my thoughts concerning Brandon Sanderson's entry volume to the Stormlight Archive, "The Way of Kings" and had a blast lauding the book, not to mention infuriating fans of Dune everywhere. The Way of Kings was (and is, upon re-reading) one of the best fantasy novels I have ever read - heck, one of the most best books I've ever read, period - and I gave it a 9.5/10 (a 5/5 by Amazon's star system) after desperately pruning it down from the 10/10 I initially wanted to give it by taking off half a point for Kaladin Stormblessed's face palm worthy emo moments and Shallan Davar being...well, herself. In short, The Way of Kings was one of my favorite books of all time, in large part because of the series it promised.

So, the question I needed Words of Radiance to answer was, "Is the series still promising?" And the answer is "Yes." And that's a good, good thing - a relief, even. Following my tradition, the first paragraph of this review is about as closer to a spoiler as I'm going to get - fear not, wary reader. No spoilers follow for Words of Radiance...but if you haven't read the Way of Kings, I'd recommend not going any further than this. I will address subject matter you probably don't want to know. Come on back after you've read the first book and the series, and we'll talk.

For the rest of you, we'll go ahead and get the brass tax out of the way up front here - Words of Radiance is a good book. I'd give it an 8.8/10 on my scale, or about a 4.5/5 on Amazon's star scale. Amazon doesn't seem to see the need for half stars in their options, so in an effort to not under-represent this book, I'm marking it as a 5/5. Technically, it's closer to a 4/5, but that 4 star rating just looks bad, doesn't it? Frankly, I don't have the heart to mark Words of Radiance down that far. It is, by all accounts, a better book than its predecessor, and Sanderson has clearly grown as an author, his prose and descriptive power reaching very good levels. So why the negative hullabaloo from the Way of Kings' self-professed biggest fan?

Well, I guess it's just because I didn't like this book as much as the first one. Not by a long shot, actually. In fact, so long as we're being honest, I thought parts one and two of Words of Radiance were two of the bleakest, most "oh my God not Song of Ice and Fire syndrome please Sanderson no" pages I've ever trudged through. It was, for lack of a better word, a frightening time in my life, having been excited for this book since I first left Roshar so long ago. I had recently returned from a deployment to Afghanistan, and I had more wrapped up in the Stormlight Archive than a simple thirst for entertainment. It was the first book I read upon returning to the States, and there's something...special, maybe, about that. That, and this book series is going to be ten books long. I will grow up with it, in many ways, as will we all. I was pretty frightened that the Way of Kings might have been a fluke, and the nine books that followed it were destined to be more like the middle of the Wheel of Time or the last two iterations of Ice and Fire.

Be at peace, readers. Parts 3, 4 and 5 of Words of Radiance are all truly wonderful, and Sanderson seemed to get his mojo back by the time I hit them. The book earns the five star rating I've awarded it, and its because of its moments of sheer brilliance that I find myself disappointed and genuinely baffled by the unnecessary moments of tedium that drag the book as whole down away from its predecessor. Ultimately, the Stormlight Archive is, at the end of Words of Radiance, in very good shape. There are places for it to go, questions for it to answer, battles to be fought and mysteries to be unraveled. That's all that matters, really. This was Shallan's book, and thus the book most of us were most wary of to begin with. She was a frustrating character in the Way of Kings, and in some ways she's even more frustrating here, but for very different reasons. I didn't particularly like her in the first book, and I liked her even less by the end of this one. I can't help but wonder if my relationship with the book was in large part due to my relationship with her.

My biggest complaint about Words of Radiance is actually directly connected with its biggest strength. It is a massive tome - a sprawling behemoth of a book, and as a result we get to see more of Roshar than ever before. More of its politics, its mysteries, its religions, its cultures, its landscapes, its magic. Thank God for that, since I love this world and I never want to leave. But Sanderon's pacing here is...well, off. (The witty banter is also painful to read, at times, but it adds to the charm of the characters, in its own weird way.)

What I mean about the pacing is this - parts one and two trudge along at a snail's pace, getting bogged down by high prince politicking (that ends up being unimportant come book's end), Shallan lying to herself and to the world, and Kaladin returning to his fantastically emo roots, and Adolin channeling a G-rated Jaime Lannister minus Cersei. Dalinar recedes into the background a bit here, but I don't mind this as much as I thought I would, Jasnah continues to be a great character, Lopen gets funnier, and Shen proves to be more elaborate than he originally seemed. Rock remains a good cook.

We see much more of Parshendi culture, learn more about the lost city of Urithuru, and of Taravengian's evil plan to save the world. We learn about the nature of spren early on, and about the nature of shard blades late in the book. Part five of Words of Radiance is arguably the best part of the bunch, and is also the shortest - by a LONG shot - and could have easily been a hundred pages longer. Should have been, I'd venture to say, as the first 90% of the book leads up to the climactic final 10% - but when the revelations finally emerge, they're given maybe a page or two of attention. It startled me. The twists you came to find out - predictable or not - should have been given much, much more space to breathe. I would have loved that. In an effort to counterbalance this paragraph of nay saying, I will say that there are a couple of duels / battles in Words of Radiance that had me smiling like a blithering idiot. Sanderson still knows how to write a fight. Man oh man oh man.

So does Words of Radiance reveal too much or too little? Both, I think - Sanderson shows us so much in this book, yet it feels like he's trying to fit in as MUCH as humanly possible into a tiny space, which baffles me, since he just spent a thousand pages building up to those reveals. It was like he lost a little faith in the fact that his world is interesting enough as it is without having to try and elaborate what makes it interesting, and as a result he worked and worked and worked on parts of little consequence, exposing the clues too neatly, and when it came to the parts that really, actually mattered, he was out of both time and space.

There was no need to try and recreate the mind breaking ending of the Way of Kings, but I do appreciate the effort to do so. Maybe it'll be something we can expect in every book, a final hundred pages of twists and twists and twists. At best, this could set the Stormlight Archive aside from its contemporaries in wonderful fashion. At worst, Sanderson could...lowers voice to a conspiratorial whisper go the way of the Shyamalan. I know, blasphemy. Honestly, though, the Shyamalan effect is the deadliest enemy facing the Stormlight Archive on the whole right now. Hopefully the twists we find in book three of the Stormlight Archive are more satisfying.

I wonder, honestly, if Sanderson himself is very aware of the book he has wrought. He's a very perceptive man, and being a professor at Brigham Young University has allowed him to organize his thoughts on writing with the clear efficiency only someone who teaches writing could muster. I cannot help but assume that, post publication, he looks at Words of Radiance the way a professor might. The world of Roshar is still here, still full of surprises, still full of characters who will do things that surprise you. The characters are still (thankfully) themselves, and the magic is still really, really cool.

Yet something is lost when we come into this book expecting twists around every corner. It makes the moment when they finally come so much less remarkable - indeed, I actually predicted almost every twist before I ever cracked the book open, and I'm not always very good at that. I wonder, therefore, if part of the reason I didn't enjoy Words of Radiance as much as I had hoped I would is simply because I spent the whole book reading between the lines, searching for assassins in every shadow, for twists in every ambiguous statement. If it's possible for the quality of the book to lie in the reader, then that has been exemplified here. This brings me, at last, to the part of the book that astonished me most.

The character of Wit - who I am of the opinion acts almost as an avatar for Sanderson himself in the world of Roshar and Shadesmar - comments on the flaws and nature of the book surrounding him at the end of both the Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. He usually reveals the best twists in the midst of leaning on the fourth wall, and comments on what he perceives to be injustices in the world of art. In the Way of Kings, Wit argues that originality is what humanity values most, and in Words of Radiance, he argues that all art is subject to perspective.

"Give me an audience who have come to be entertained," Wit says in the epilogue, "but who expect nothing special. To them, I will be a god. That is the best truth I know."

Fellow readers, my advice is simple. Go into Words of Radiance looking to be entertained. Don't look for the twists. Looking for the twists is like sneaking a peek at presents the month before Christmas. Just wait, let the day come, and then tear the paper to pieces and scatter it all around, feeling the rush of not knowing what lies within. Sanderson is crafting for us a master series, and has eight more books to present. I for one am breathless for the continuation of the series, and have full faith in the author to turn this series into something very, very special. I'll see you all at the end of book three, which I am already hungry for. And, finally, to Mr. Sanderson himself.


Thank you, sir, for welcoming me home.

8.8/10

Book 2

Pros:

• Amazingly eve better than the first book due to more plot and multiple story line's tie-ups that make for several tight endings.

• Doesn't seem like an installment. It could stand on it's own.

• Overall Plot is tight, well ordered, timing is metronomic.

• Writing is super clear. Reading is a total breeze.

• Creativity is in spades. Branderson is a certain master at imagining something new to you that he can describe easily as a picture, understandable the first time you read it.

• This book is revealing the magic organization in deeper detail, but hints at more.

• This book took the plot of god-metaphysics and created what had seemed contained into a subset. The universe just got larger.

• There are multiple parallel plots going on, each switch making you crave and long for a return to the character you just read about. Most writers do this by chapter as he did in the first book, but this book increases the pace by having some chapters of 3 distinct narratives playing round-robin to keep interest and pace. This keeps your interest, but also helps you not lose your place with characters. A comparison is with Martin in that his last book entirely omitted characters, so that someone you read about in Book 4 you won't get to until Book 6 making re-reading necessary for anyone who don'ts have a perfect memory. Maybe that helps him sell more books to be re-read or that cool Apple App, but it's actually quite annoying to the reader.

Cons:

• Some characters are too cutesy. The personality of the main Spren is too Tinker Bell for my taste. I think it takes what could be a serious and heavy pall over the entire work, giving this fiction a feeling of reality, that is dispelled by such frivolity.

• I find some of the characters still 2 dimensional. Some character dialogue are too similar to each other, and example being that I noticed 2 distinct characters having the same exact syntax and verbiage to their sense of humor. This is the only flaw I can find in his writing that can still develop to perfection. Namely, verbal identity to character dialogue that effortlessly makes them seem distinct and real. It's still in some places too stiff and formulaic. It's still his Achille's Heel.

• He promises a timely delivery on books, but gets side-tracked by other projects and pushes the dates back. So we are going to be waiting for a loooong, time. Hopefully not Robert Jordan time cause I don't think there is anyone capable of finishing Branderson's books as well or better.

Branderson's style is also classical in the sense that it's clean. There isn't modern cable channel gore or sexuality or shock plot for shock's sake to glue the interest of readers. He is a master of plot and doesn't let anything get in the way of keeping the plot moving exactly as he orders it. It's as if he believes good writing and great plot will keep the readers without the cheap literary gimmicks.

The timing of his unfolding plot is metronomic and the plot is of such quality, it appears that we not only have a breathtaking masterpiece in the works, but a rare generations output even by his own standards of work. I like some of his other books very much, but this undertaking's internal history is deep and somewhere below Tolkien and above R.R. Martin. Read my first book's review for a comparison between him and Martin and why they are only similar in that they are contemporaries.

The first book piqued my curiosity. This book has my interest, ha ha. So he is now my current favorite living fiction author.

Bottom line: Superb next step in the series & leaves you pining for Book 3.

"Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do."

I stand in awe of fantasy writers that can make an entire new world, magic systems, cultures, history, lands and everything else that goes into making a great fantasy and fill it with so many details that while you are reading the story you can get so drawn in that you feel like you are there or that it is a real place. Brandon Sanderson is one such writer. I enjoyed The Way of Kings (WoK) and gave it a 4.5 rating Words of Radiance is even better and 5 stars just doesn't seem like enough. The world is richer and we hit the ground running in this installment since the world has already been set forth. Sanderson still built up on the foundation he already created in WoK and everything he added to it made if all the richer.

Sanderson is maybe the best writer I have read at giving a lot of ups and downs throughout the story but saving up and building steam for that last 15-20% where the s*** hits the fan and the intensity just skyrockets all the way to the end. I was on the edge of my seat, reminding myself to read all the words and take my time but I was so excited to see what happened next that I found myself reading faster and faster as everything in the story was unfolding.

Told from multiple POVs throughout the story gives the reader an all-encompassing understanding of the world and the various interests and plots of gods and men. Every new layer and character added something to the story. The end of each part of the book had me struggling to take my time through the interludes as I couldn't wait to see what was happening with our characters. A few of the interludes were from the Parshendi POV and gave an interesting understanding of the war, and the Parshendi's goals. Some of the interludes revisited a few of the characters from WoK and made more sense to me in how they fit into this story while I imagine others importance will make more sense later.

While WoK's was very much Kaladins story WoR is more Shallan's. I was a little worried about this as I didn't really like Shallan very much in WoKs. She was naïve and came to steal for Jasnah for that very reason she was less likeable. But she totally grew on me in this book as she really comes into her own and we have a chance to learn of her past. She has been hiding from it for so long that it is hard for her to face.

"I seek the truth," Shallan said. "Wherever it may be, whoever may hold it. That's who I am."

I grew to really love her character. She is full of banter and wit and gets herself in just as much trouble as she gets herself out of. I had so much fun following her story as she travelled to the shattered plains and it was even more fun once she met both Kaladin and Adolin. I see the hint of a possible love triangle in there somewhere but thank god it hasn't hit yet. I really enjoyed the time she spent with each of the men but her first meeting and later banter with Kaladin was some of the funniest dialogue in the book.

"The only time you seem honest is when you're insulting someone!" "The only honest things I can say to you are insults."

Oh Shallon does have a sharp tongue and it seems that she is unlike anyone else Adolin has tried to date before. She has the princeling a little twisted up with what he should do. The way that Shallon is able to affect the lives of those around her and change them for the better was amazing as well. She was able to change the lives a few people extraordinarily and her new found abilities are extremely intriguing. She does seem in a little over her head though.

Adolin was also a character from the last book that I wasn't a huge fan of. Compared to his father Dalinar and Kaladin he just wasn't that interesting to me. Well that has totally changed in this book. Adolin is more than he seems for sure and as a few of the chapters are told from his perspective I really started to enjoy his character. The lengths he goes to for the people in his family and for what he feels is right are fantastic. But he still has the privileged air about him so he does it in the most comfortable manor possible.

"Kaladin frowned. "Wait. Are you wearing cologne? In prison?" "Well, there was no need to be barbaric, just because I was incarcerated." "Storms, you're spoiled," Kaladin said, smiling. "I'm refined, you insolent farmer," Adolin said. Then he grinned. "Besides, I'll have you know that I had to use cold water for my baths while here." "Poor boy."

Kaladin's arc is a journey of right and wrong, honor and betrayal, past and present. He has a big boulder on his shoulder against all lighteyes based on is past. Some warrant it and others do not. But it is a journey a true hero must take if he is to be a hero. I was happy I liked Shallan so much otherwise I might have got lost in Kaladin being a little bit of a downer through some of this. He was lost in his hate at times, although warranted it was hard to journey that with him. It was nice when a few people were able to drag him out of it.

"I trust you. It's a very strange sensation." "Yeah, well, I'll try to hold myself back from going skipping across the plateau in joy." Adolin grinned. "I'd pay to see that." "Me skipping?" "You happy," Adolin said, laughing. "You've got a face like a storm! I half think you could frighten off a storm."

Kaladin really struggles with his vows and his relationship with Syl. Did I mention that I really hope somehow someway that Syl and Kaladin a destined to be together. That as their bond grows she will become more corporeal in our world and they can have a romance, which is totally the girl in me talking. I ship them so hard though. It is my dream and it is farfetched but I want it anyway.

DALINAR was my favorite character from the last book and he had a few moments in this one where I wasn't sure what to expect from him. It seemed that he might not be up to the task at hand and then he would pull something unbelievable out. I loved his pose and calm. He is everything that a leader should be, that a king should be. I always still seem to underestimate him and I am surprised by how he reacts to situations.

"What you did tonight was clever," Wit said. "You turned an attack into a promise. The wisest of men know that to render an insult powerless, you often need only to embrace it."

Sometimes he is played the fool but he recovers quickly and always moves in a positive direction no matter the cost to himself. He is truly a good man doing the best he can for his kingdom and with so much stacked against him that can't be hard.

He is the character that I worried for the most because that is who Szeth was sent to kill in WoK. Any meeting they had was intense and the conclusions to both their arcs in this book were unexpected and left my jaw on the floor.

"He fought as he wished he had all those years ago, for the chance he had missed. In that moment between storms--when the rain stilled and the winds drew in their breaths to blow--he danced with the slayer of kings, and somehow held his own."

There are so many other characters that played great roles in this. Rock, Teft, Lopen, Wit, Jasnah, Sadeas (I hate that dude), Sebarial and Palona as well so many others, I couldn't possibly name them all. There are so many reveals that will play a big part in other books and some that were shocking in this one. I was on a rollercoaster almost the entire book and so many characters had surprises in their arcs. The epilogue had me jumping out of my seat with excitement. What a fantastic way to end the story.

All I know for sure at the end of this book is The Desolation Comes and it will be an epic journey that I can't wait to participate in.