Jimmy
What a behemoth of a book.
Expectations were high for this culimination of the first arc of The Stormlight Archive, but although finishing the book left me feeling as though I had experienced something momentous, ultimately it did not land as convincingly or as powerfully as some of the earlier entries in the series.
The structure of Wind and Truth was essentially set up by how Rhythm of War ended. The book would need to cover 10 days, and there would be a gradual build-up until the final showdown at the end of that period. However, it was difficult for me to come to terms with how much the characters do and go through in this book (the longest of the series so far) with it being the shortest overall time period. It didn't feel slow in the sense that not enough was happening, but rather the opposite, in that there was so much going on with the detail of each perspective throughout the 10 days, that the momentum of the ultimatum felt a bit lost. This was not helped by a number of the perspectives involved the characters going through somewhat repeated experiences.
As others have also pointed out, the ‘therapy' aspects of this book also felt a bit heavy handed to me. The way that Sanderson interweaves the realistic mental and emotional struggles of the characters with their personality development and their experiences in the plot is to me one of the most masterful aspects of the earlier books in the series. In Wind and Truth, this is a lot less organic, with a number of plotlines involving characters largely talking either others or themselves through psychological issues, and this more ‘tell' rather than ‘show' approach made the emotional breakthroughs less rewarding, as well as feeling more unrealistic given the short timeframe of the plot.
That is not to say the book as whole was not enjoyable - there are some spectacular moments for all of the main character perspectives, and I especially thought the Adolin storyline (which was probably the most grounded) was very engaging and provided a compelling viewpoint from a non-Radiant in a world where powers have become dominant. The continued worldbuilding through the visions in the Spiritual Realm were also engrossing, and I enjoyed learning more about this history of Roshar and what led to the present day state of affairs. The stakes feel appropriately high and there are momentous occurences across all the points of view with a lot of unexpected results leaving the fate of many of the main characters as well as the world as whole truly uncertain. I'll still definitely be coming back for the rest of The Stormlight Archive when Sanderson picks it up again, but hoping that he can recapture some of the more nuanced storytelling magic from the earlier books.
What a behemoth of a book.
Expectations were high for this culimination of the first arc of The Stormlight Archive, but although finishing the book left me feeling as though I had experienced something momentous, ultimately it did not land as convincingly or as powerfully as some of the earlier entries in the series.
The structure of Wind and Truth was essentially set up by how Rhythm of War ended. The book would need to cover 10 days, and there would be a gradual build-up until the final showdown at the end of that period. However, it was difficult for me to come to terms with how much the characters do and go through in this book (the longest of the series so far) with it being the shortest overall time period. It didn't feel slow in the sense that not enough was happening, but rather the opposite, in that there was so much going on with the detail of each perspective throughout the 10 days, that the momentum of the ultimatum felt a bit lost. This was not helped by a number of the perspectives involved the characters going through somewhat repeated experiences.
As others have also pointed out, the ‘therapy' aspects of this book also felt a bit heavy handed to me. The way that Sanderson interweaves the realistic mental and emotional struggles of the characters with their personality development and their experiences in the plot is to me one of the most masterful aspects of the earlier books in the series. In Wind and Truth, this is a lot less organic, with a number of plotlines involving characters largely talking either others or themselves through psychological issues, and this more ‘tell' rather than ‘show' approach made the emotional breakthroughs less rewarding, as well as feeling more unrealistic given the short timeframe of the plot.
That is not to say the book as whole was not enjoyable - there are some spectacular moments for all of the main character perspectives, and I especially thought the Adolin storyline (which was probably the most grounded) was very engaging and provided a compelling viewpoint from a non-Radiant in a world where powers have become dominant. The continued worldbuilding through the visions in the Spiritual Realm were also engrossing, and I enjoyed learning more about this history of Roshar and what led to the present day state of affairs. The stakes feel appropriately high and there are momentous occurences across all the points of view with a lot of unexpected results leaving the fate of many of the main characters as well as the world as whole truly uncertain. I'll still definitely be coming back for the rest of The Stormlight Archive when Sanderson picks it up again, but hoping that he can recapture some of the more nuanced storytelling magic from the earlier books.