Joe Martin
Dune was full of adventure. Dune Messiah is full of tortured helplessness. Paul Mua'dib is the emperor of the known universe but he spends pretty much the entire book being unable to really affect events at all. It's an odd position for a God Emperor to be in. But not entirely unrealistic. Cultural and religious forces are often larger and stronger than any one man.
The novel seems to revolve the idea of seeing. Who can see what? And, even if you can see something happening, can you alter or stop it? Frank Herbert would argue that you can't and this novel is his argument.
This book is eye-opening, about the history of American Christianity's support for slavery and White supremacy.
It's heavy on the narrative of what happened and the social science of what people still believe today. It's light on the background and details of the theological beliefs that make this history possible. I'd like to find a book that really examines where American Christianity has twisted the Bible. What is being glossed over, ignored, or suppressed in order to make it comfortable to be a White supremacist?
When you're writing science fiction, you get one free pass on impossible technology. Peter F. Hamilton uses his pass well, positing quantum-entanglement portals that make any destination “just one step away”. He uses this to build an entire future full of wonders, such as “apartment hubs” that have each room located on a different continent, as each door in the apartment is a portal to somewhere new.
The story is constructed as a series of interlocking short stories, each told as a flashback of an event that happened to a main character. The stories build into a cohesive whole, ending on a chilling note.
I'm looking forward to reading the next book in this series.
In my last review, I said “once you've hit upon a successful method, it'd be a crime to change it”. With Blood Rites, I consider myself corrected. Butcher changed up his formula and the result is an even better story. The previous five novels have each introduced a new big bad, fleshing out the magical world that Dresden lives in. This one takes that foundation and builds off of it.
Thomas, a White vampire, asks Harry to take a case, to help one of Thomas's “normal” friends. Harry, needing the money, agrees to do so. He finds himself acting as a gofer for a movie producer, as he tries to figure out who is sending killing curses against the leading ladies. For good measure, he also has to defend himself against a scourge of Black vampires looking for revenge.
This story was much more of a mystery story than the previous books were. Harry and the reader spent the majority of the story completely out to sea regarding the identity or motives of the magical attacker. The result was a very compelling read. To make things better, Harry grew over the course of the book, learning more about himself and his family. He learned some painful truths about people he thought he knew well and came out of everything with a much closer connection to the people around him. I'm eager to see where things go from here.
It's a YA novel and it reads like a YA novel. I managed to somehow never stumble over it during my read-everything phase when I was a YA. I probably would have really liked it back then. Now? It's okay, I guess. YA novels mostly fail to hold my interest these days, but I'll certainly recommend it to my children.
I was surprised by the amount of Christian theology and content in the book, given that I've primarily heard it praised in non-Christian circles. It's refreshing that a Christian actually managed to make Christian themed art that isn't cringe worthy.
Brandon Sanderson has made it abundantly clear that he is, first and foremost, a fan of the fantasy epic. This really shows through in Words of Radiance. I've been looking forward to reading this book ever since I finished [b:The Way of Kings 7235533 The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1) Brandon Sanderson https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507307887s/7235533.jpg 8134945]. I was even more interested after I read Brandon's explanation of what he wanted to do with the book.Words of Radiance and the Fantasy Epic. Words of Radiance is a trilogy.It's not part of a trilogy. (I've said that Stormlight is ten books, set in two five book arcs.) It is a trilogy. By that I mean I plotted it as I would three books, with smaller arcs for each part and a larger arc for the entire trilogy. (Those break points are, by the way, after part two and after part three, with each of the three “books” being roughly 115,000 words long, 330 pages, or roughly the length of my novel Steelheart, or Anne McCaffrey's Dragonquest.) When you read the novel, you're actually reading an entire trilogy of novels bound together into one volume to encourage you to see them as one whole, connected and intertwined, with a single powerful climax.Words of Radiance is also a short story collection.I've blogged about my goal for the interludes in these books. Between each section of Words of Radiance, you will find a handful of short stories from the viewpoints of side characters. “Lift,” one of these, has already been posted on Tor.com. There are many others of varying length. Each was plotted on its own, as a small piece of a whole, but also a stand-alone story. (The Eshonai interludes are the exception—like the Szeth interludes in the first book, they are intended as a novelette/novella that is parallel to the main novel.)Words of Radiance is also an art book.Many book series have beautiful “world of” books that include artwork from the world, with drawings and descriptions to add depth to the series. My original concept for the Stormlight Archive included sticking this into the novels themselves. Words of Radiance includes brand-new, full-color end pages, as well as around two dozen new pieces of interior art—all in-world drawings by characters or pieces of artwork from the setting itself.My dream, my vision, for this series is to have each book combine short form stories, several novels, artistic renditions, and the longer form of a series all into a single volume of awesomeness.I want to mix poetry, experimental shorts, classic fantasy archetypes, song, non-linear flashbacks, parallel stories, and depth of world-building. I want to push the idea of what it means to be an epic fantasy, even a novel, if I can.I think he nailed it. This book was long, but it never lost my interest. I loved the short story interludes. They added a ton of depth and breadth to his fantasy world. This world feels huge and it feels like it gets a little bit larger with each novel. He's setting the story up for world changing events and he's succeeding at making the world feel large enough that “world changing” actually means something.I was moved by the Eshonai interludes. Sanderson successfully wrote a novella, interspersed with the main narrative, that brought the Parshendi alive as something more than just the enemies of the Alethi. I started out feeling sympathy for what the Parshendi were doing. I finished by feeling grief for what they had become. I've gone from thinking of them as the “bad guys” of the story to thinking of them as some of the biggest victims of events.Moral ambiguity is another highlight of this story. There are multiple characters pursuing multiple goals, along divergent and parallel paths. At this point in the epic, I'm hard put to tell who is pursuing good goals with evil means, ultimately evil goals through good intentions, good goals from a pure heart, or evil goals from an evil heart. Right now, I think I know who the good guys are. But Sanderson has introduced enough ambiguity that I'm worried that that's just a trick of perspective and that I may ultimately end up sympathizing with one or more characters that I would despise right now.And then there's the character arcs. My appreciation for just about every character deepened. Shallan proved to have surprising depths and an even sadder than we expected back story. We already knew she was strong and determined but I'm even more impressed after learning her history.Kaladin. Wow. I thought I had his arc pegged after [b:The Way of Kings 7235533 The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1) Brandon Sanderson https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507307887s/7235533.jpg 8134945]. It looked like he'd survived adversity and turned into a hero of the story, on his way up. Then he spent almost the entire novel sliding right back down into the pit that he'd worked so hard to climb out of. He worked hard to alienate his friends and to betray the trust that he'd been given. He acted nothing like the hero that I had thought we were about to see.Kaladin's arc through Words of Radiance was entirely necessary. After everything he's been through, it would have been far too easy for him to have ended up on the top that quickly. He needed to face the inner demons that he did. He'd banked a lot of hatred and anger during his life. Gaining magical powers couldn't immediately erase that. His success at the end of the book was all the more exciting because of it. It would have been exciting in any case. But given what he went through, it was fist-pumping awesome. As much as Kaladin grew in this book, I don't think he's done changing and learning. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes next.Sanderson's world is large. Gigantic forces are in play. Many different people are doing many different things, for many varied and complex reasons. This book was a non-stop, white-knuckle ride and I'm ready to pre-order the next installment.
The world building is fantastic—exactly as I'd expect from Brandon Sanderson. It's vivid, rich, and very large. It has a large geographic size. Things feel far apart and the distances seem immense. It also has a large history. Sanderson has constructed a world that feels very old with a long and complex history. I enjoyed exploring this world and feel like I've barely scratched the surface of it. I'm looking forward to more books, to learn more about this world.The world building does have a downside. It takes a while for things to get moving. The first third of the book is spent introducing the initial viewpoint characters and locations. There are at least 4 viewpoint characters and the story feels like it has five separate beginnings. I was ready to scream in frustration by the time Dalinar Kholin was introduced. No more new characters! Get on with the story!Eventually it did get momentum and events started to move quicker. The last third of the book was very enjoyable and left me wanting more. On to the [b:Words of Radiance 11543195 Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) Brandon Sanderson /assets/nocover/60x80.png 16482835].
Still a favorite. Sure, it's libertarian wish fulfillment, but sometimes it's fun to imagine a world where all of your wishes come true. And there are a few good ideas in here too. With Trump as President, who doesn't wish that would-be politicians had to donate their entire fortunate before being eligible to enter politics?
