Hello, friends!
I’m going to be real with you, I’m somewhat baffled by the activity and eyes that my last blog post has received. Mind you, I’m grateful—also, I’m still a little blog, these aren’t numbers that would make anyone blush—but, I mean, just look at the title. Uninclusive, Uninviting, Insensitive, Unkind (is the Ideal). Isn’t that so obviously a title designed to get you a little annoyed, so you click; or you know that this title is intentionally designed to frustrate, but maybe you click anyway, curious to read what it’s actually about? I tend to ignore titles that give me those vibes, and I’d assumed most other people would be numb to them as well.
Apparently not. The risk was worth it. I should come up with more inflammatory titles. Send me some of your ideas and maybe I’ll attach them to semi-relevant blog posts. (I still want to make the posts themselves meaningful, though, so don’t worry about that.)
Anyway, if you’re here because of my ramblings on TTRPGs two weeks ago, welcome! I’m glad I captured your interest.
And as a quick follow-up on last week, while I still fully stand by the foolishness of inserting politicized messages in escapist fantasy, I also want to emphasize that I don’t blame Brotherwise Games, Dragonsteel, or anyone else mentioned in that blog post, or tangential to it. The issue can’t be blamed on any one person (although activists as a group deserve a lot of scorn); a modern cultural inability to leave politics out of anything contributes a lot, for sure.
I’m still quite excited for the final game when it releases, and I’ve been interacting with the game designers where I can:
(As a final aside, I really need to hurry up and finish Theft of Fire, Blindsight, and Echopraxia so I can have something to talk about other than Sanderson miscellanea…)
Bloggyness Review—Words of Radiance
Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson, is one of the highest-reviewed books of all time. On GoodReads, it’s rated even better than Lord of the Rings and other anchors in the fantasy genre, and other rating sites follow a similar trend. It might not be hyperbole to say that the book was received legendarily well back when it was first released, and that favor has only grown since then.
I really didn’t like Words of Radiance the first time I read it. But now that I’ve read it a second time—this time aloud to my wife—things have changed.
Way of Kings is still my favorite book in the Stormlight Archives (although Rhythm of War challenged it really well): reading about Kaladin overcoming his prejudices and shortcomings time and again, growing as a person, saving Dalinar and his army at the last moment, while overlapping that with his progress as a Knight Radiant, thrills my heart and takes my breath away. Way of Kings does almost everything that I love about epic fantasy perfectly, and minimizes the pain points of the genre pretty well, too. Every character seemed to be riding a high at the end of the book, so I was really excited to surf that wave going into Words of Radiance when I first read it.
Instead, I felt like the wave crashed immediately.
Shallan has a really good arc in Words of Radiance. Her backstory is a hard (but well-done) read. I didn’t have issues with her. Similarly, Dalinar is steady and reliable. Renarin, though not a viewpoint character, began to come into his own as a promising force still largely in embryo, and Adolin blossomed, becoming my hands-down favorite character possibly in the entire Cosmere canon. His moment with Sadeas right at the end of the book…
Violent, well-intentioned, extremely grey in practice. I really hope Adolin doesn’t have a fall from grace—I don’t think he will—but he’s an amazing contrast with Dalinar’s perfect rigidity.
And that scene with Szeth. If you’ve read Words of Radiance—and Warbreaker—you know exactly what I’m talking about. I squealed aloud.
Anyway, with a second read, in hindsight, all of these things were pretty good, and they got even better on a second read. So why did I not like Words of Radiance on my first read—what needed to change for me to appreciate it on my second?
Kaladin.
Well, me. My perspective on Kaladin. Kaladin is really racist.
He is a significantly more nuanced character than that, with way more going on than just racism (although, long parenthetical warning, Kaladin’s racism is fascinating: he comes from the perspective of someone often oppressed, who has been lifted to an unusual position of authority going against the societal grain, creating tensions between his many biases and actual reality; Dalinar serving as evidence that Kaladin’s racism is just plain wrong is so well-done; essays could probably be written about this one aspect of Kaladin, and Words of Radiance, alone, a total rejection of needing to reverse racism in order to bring justice for historical wrongs): trauma, aggressive self-criticism, over-competitiveness, fish-out-of-water, and more. He’s an extraordinarily well-written character with a ludicrous amount of cracks: he’s just trying to hold himself together, man!
Well, that didn’t click with me the first time I read this book. I prefer exaggeration, heightened realism, stylization—meanwhile, Sanderson puts a lot of effort into being extremely realistic with his mental and emotional portrayals of characters, including studying mental illnesses, bringing in consultants, etc. That is a strategy when writing a book (one that, I would argue, is no better or worse than heightened realism and exaggeration in other books, at least assuming the strategy is well-executed), but I guess it wasn’t one I appreciated the first time around. I wanted Kaladin to emerge from Way of Kings as a hero in Words of Radiance and, instead, I got a man. A good man. A struggling man. A hurt, broken, angry man.
And that was better, at least in the context of Stormlight Archives. I just didn’t realize it at the time. Because Kaladin needed a significant amount of growth that I didn’t fully see in Way of Kings, growth which took really hard and painful work, that wasn’t always comfortable to read; but the results of that work are amazing.
Integrity and lofty ideals are at the core of Stormlight Archives. Quite literally—to become a Knight Radiant, one must somehow embody an ideal in their own life, then they literally progress in power by changing to live that ideal more fully, swearing more oaths or vows to be better (in different, nuanced ways) in the process. It’s so full of hope. It’s so inspiring. It’s utterly unlike anything else you’ll read in the fantasy genre, and somehow it’s not preachy, perhaps because every character feels extremely grounded (while also managing to be larger-than-life, in Dalinar’s case).
As well, going into Oathbringer right after Words of Radiance this time (rather than having to wait a year or two) really emphasizes the amazing work Sanderson has done with Kaladin, while giving a glimpse of just how long this road is going to be. Reading about Kaladin overcoming his petty hates because he is sincerely committed to the ideal of protecting people—even those he doesn’t like, even those he has reason to despise—makes me want to become a better person.
In short, read The Stormlight Archives. Truly top-tier fantasy. They are long, they have many viewpoint characters, they, by necessity, have a lot of exposition; it’s epic fantasy, which scares some people, but it’s worth it. You might not even like some of it at first—I didn’t—but it will stick in your mind, work on you, and when you come back you’ll be amazed, inspired, and wonder why you ever had any issues with it in the first place. All artistic works have their flaws, but I think the sum is truly greater than the whole in Words of Radiance.
I really hope I have a similar experience with Oathbringer, because I remember not being particularly enthused about that book’s political intrigue—but liking everything else. We’ll see!
Bloggyness Review—Warbreaker
Warbreaker might be my favorite novel of all time. Depending on how you define such things. I love the characters, world, and magic so much—it just feels like ur-fantasy to me, in a good way. But it’s not my most-read book of all time, which honor goes to The Hobbit. So take that as you will.
I don’t say this to hype up the book, though. I especially don’t say this to try and directly compare it to Words of Radiance. Warbreaker is not Sanderson’s highest-rated novel—but it’s also not his lowest. In my experience, the book has a pretty niche following among Sanderson’s fans, although there are many elements within the book that go on to become critical in other Sanderson worlds; it’s a fantastic standalone novel, but you don’t need it to appreciate the wider Cosmere. It’s also one of Sanderson’s earlier novels, and some argue that makes it a bit rougher than the majority of his body of work, but I disagree.
So many caveats. Why all the caveats? Well, Warbreaker has a specific taste. It works well for some people, and it doesn’t for others. The magic system (Awakening) is bizarre, using slivers of human souls and literal color to function, allowing “Awakeners” to create limited automatons out of natural materials or practice, in effect, necromancy using human bodies. (Other things are possible as well, but we won’t get into those.) The book also has three primary viewpoints that don’t intersect much and have wildly different tones, but which have major effects on each other nonetheless. Finally, despite having one of Sanderson’s more out-there magic systems, you spend the majority of the book mostly in the dark about how Awakening works—sure, you get some quick ideas early on, but not necessarily from authoritative sources. Warbreaker is bizarre, it flips tropes and expectations on its head, its a very slow burn with multiple twists that will completely redefine how you see the book, and its setting is relatively mundane compared to the usual Sanderson fare, making it unusual among “standard” fantasy books and Sanderson’s unique crop.
But it just works for me. It’s hard to describe. I like the blending of very different tones; for me, it emphasizes and enhances each, rather than distracts. I like the setting that feels much more traditional than most Sanderson settings, yet is still not quite standard fantasy fare; it walks the line really well. I like having big plot twists fairly regularly throughout the story; it doesn’t stop the slow burn, but helps keep me going. I even like the slow burn; it builds up to an absolutely exhilarating final few chapters while letting me really immerse myself in the world.
One thing that I think is particularly notable about Warbreaker is, as mentioned, that Sanderson takes a long time to teach you his magic system. As a result, there’s an air of mystery, wonder, and even a little horror around Awakening that you just don’t get with magic systems that are described in scientific detail early on. I get a lot of good emotions reading Sanderson books, but wonder isn’t often one of them, at least in part because of how well-explained things usually are. But that Sanderson trope of explaining everything actually works really well in his favor in this book that doesn’t do that (at least, not until much later), if you have read enough of his other books to have that expectation, because you trust that all of this weird, bizarre stuff happening is internally consistent, you just don’t know how yet. Once again, you get a little of the best of both worlds.
Anyway. This comes up because, once again, I read the book to my wife recently, and being so busy with two kids, a full-time job, writing doorstoppers, etc, sometimes my only reading time is re-reading books that I’d like to talk with her about, and the only away to make that happen is to read to her. And it’s worth it. The best books deserve to be re-read.
Totally Random
I walk into the bedroom. I open the closet door.
There she is, bound in the dark on the floor.
She struggles and grunts, crying and can’t stop it.
I notice near her head some vomit.
I kneel down and reach out, hands open wide.
I lift, hold her to my side.
Then I take her to her mother on a bed of silk.
She eagerly, finally, gets her milk.
(Out of context, swaddling a baby and having her sleep in the closet sounds pretty sketchy. But that’s the only space we have for her at the moment, and she seems to like it, most of the time.)
Writing Updates
Hazel Halfwhisker is at almost 123,000 words. Since I think it will be around 200,000 words when finished, I’m a little over 50% for the first draft.
Once that is done, I will begin work on the final stages of publishing Inner Demon, including recording the audiobook. My goal is to have that finished December at the latest. Considering I’m waiting to work on it until I finish the first draft of Hazel Halfwhisker, the timing might be tight…
Send-Off
What are you reading right now? Besides this, of course. Is it any good?
Boo Ludlow 
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