Book Review: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

Sisters Vivenna and Siri are princesses of Idris. Susebron is the God King one must marry. Lightsong is the reluctant minor god of bravery. Vasher is an immortal still trying to undo mistakes of centuries before. Magic from individual breath from everyday objects can perform all manner of miracles and mischief.

 

This is going to be a difficult review to write. The reason for this is that I Loved Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson to pieces and it made me feel and think many complicated, unexplainable things. But there was one thing I know for sure - this book was AWESOME and I just fell in love with it.

Before I talk about Warbreaker I need to take a side step and talk about Elantris. Trust me I need to talk about it to get my thoughts into some semblance of order in this post. I read Elantris recently in May/Late April. I was intrigued to learn that this was a stand alone. That in itself would not be interesting except for the fact that this was fantasy. There aren't many fantasy books that are stand alone, if not solely for the fact that it is difficult to portray a fantastical world without writing at least a couple of books to flesh out the world, the characters and the stories. So I picked this book up and was pleasantly surprised. It was a bit slow to pick up but boy did it get interesting very fast after the first 100 pages or so. What I loved was that there was not a lot of info dump that I would forget anyway a few chapters in. I learnt the history of this world as I read the book.

I loved Elantris. I did not think it could get any better. And then I started reading Warbreaker. You need to know something about the way I read. I am excited about reading books but I do not show it in outward appearance. It was difficult to keep my emotions in check with this book. I was squealing with delight at some parts and cringing with horror at others.

What I love best about Brandon Sanderson's writing is that he doesn't just write characters. I mean he does, but these characters somehow become people in the readers eyes. I can imagine someone like Siri and Lightsong as real people. But let me tell you what I did not like about this book - There wasn't much about the mysterious Vasher, at least till almost the end of the book. A byproduct of there not being enough pages dedicated t Vasher was that I did not get to see enough interaction between himself and the sentient sword Nightblood that he lugs around. 

Now onto the things I loved!! 

The Magic System - Sanderson always lives up to my expectations when it comes to the  building of a magic system. Actually he exceeds my expectations every time. In this one it is to do with BioChromatic Breath and Colors. Each person is born with one Breath. The more you accumulate the more powerful you become. Some equate Breath to a persons soul - mostly Idrians. In Hallandren the Breaths are used as wealth - people sell their breath for money. And then there are the Returned. The Returned are those who have died and come back to life. They are not zombies exactly as they are living but when a person is Returned he comes back with enhanced physical prowess and a powerful BioChromatic Breath. And the Hallandren worship the Returned whereas the Idrians consider them an abomination and worship Austre.

The Religion - I have noticed that in almost every Brandon Sanderson book religion and Gods are a central part of the story and world. His portrayal of religion in Elantris was rudimentary in comparison to the one in Warbreaker. The 2 religions had their origin in the same basic tenet. It was based on the divinity of Breath. On one side the Idrians believed in Austre a God you could not see and on the other there were the Hallandrens who worshiped the Returned. Though both cultures valued Breath - The Hallandrens gave it a monetary value and also sacrificed their breath so that their Gods lived another week where as the Idrians thought it blasphemy to make a business out of it. 

As as we delve in to the history of these lands and cultures we see that the 2 religions have the same origin. But they branched off from one another. This brought out a lot of questions on morality. There was a part where one of the characters, a mercenary, says - everyone thinks they are in the right and that they are doing good. This is something that we migh take as common sense but something that a lot of us ignore.

The Characters - I absolutely loved the main characters. There's Siri, the carefree sister who has made peace with being the unimportant one, Vivenna - the sister who has been betrothed to the God King of Hallandren, a monster and an abomination in her and her people's eyes, Vasher - a mysterious man with an even more mysterious quest & last but not the least, Lightsong a Returned.


I was a little skeptical about Vivenna at first. She was too much of a prude - and seemed to preach and hold herself above others even though according to the religion she was devoted said not to put oneself above others. She claimed to have come to Hallandren to save Siri but it seemed like she had come to Hallandren just because she was upset her place was taken by her younger sister. It took away her purpose in life. She did love Siri, but she was more worried about what this did to her than her younger sister. Then I realized that Sanderson wrote her character that way and her character arc is till the end of the book was well plotted out. She changed over the course of the book, not suddenly. She still was a bit like her old self. But in her case she came to see herself for what she truly was and decided to change what she could and live with the rest.

The 2 people I absolutely loved were Siri and Lightsong (I liked Lightsong a lot more). Siri was the youngest sister of 4 children. The eldest was betrothed to the God King, the 2nd eldest went on to become a monk and the son, the youngest, is heir to the throne. So Siri has been more or less let to run free. Though her religion calls for being modest, humble, not be ostentatious, she has difficulty doing so. But the king of Idris decides to send Siri in place of Vivenna to the God King to stall a war which he deems inevitable. And her world turns upside down. In case of Vivenna we see that there is a complete change in character in Siri it somehow felt that she was always true to herself. But in doing so she became more in control. Her interactions with the God King made me squeal with joy once or twice.

Lightsong, a Returned, is the awesomest character in this whole book. It was mostly through Lighsong that a lot of the dilemmas to do with divinity were brought across. He was a God who did not believe in his own divinity. He constantly strove to undermine himself but the people thought of him as a better God for it. I always loved the parts where he was in the story because he was the most fun characters. His internal conflict was written very well. My most favorite parts of the book is anything where there is a dialogue going on between Lightsong and his High Priest Llarimar and between Lightsong and Blushweaver, a Returned Goddess.

I would recommend this book to any fantasy lover. But I would also recommend it to people who think fantasy is not for them because of the size and length of a series, and what better way to experience fantasy through a stand alone for the first time. You just have to read this book. This will be one of those books that I'll recommend to everybody regardless of their tastes because it is such a good book and I want everyone to love it as much as I do and enjoy the story.

This has become a saga instead of a review but who cares. I love this book and I rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review : Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder

THEY DESTROYED HER WORLD. BUT SHE’S THEIR ONLY HOPE...

Avry’s power to heal the sick should earn her respect in the plague-torn land of Kazan. Instead she is feared. Her kind are blamed for the horrifying disease that has taken hold of the nation. When Avry uses her forbidden magic to save a dying child, she faces the guillotine. Until a dark, mysterious man rescues her from her prison cell. His people need Avry’s magic to save their dying prince. The very prince who first unleashed the plague on Kazan.

Saving the prince is certain to kill Avry – yet she already faces a violent death. Now she must choose – use her healing touch to show the ultimate mercy or die a martyr to a lost cause?


I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! Have you ever gone into a bookstore and just browsed through the books? And you think the synopsis looks great so you buy a book? And you completely forget about it once you take it home? That happened to me with this book. So I was just re arranging my book self when I realised I had this book. So I started reading it and it just sucked me in. I did not expect it from this book. I had heard of the other books written by Maria V. Snyder, like the Study series and the Storm glass series, and that they were good. But I fell in love with this book.

----------There might be Spoilers ahead---------

If you see a pattern in the books I usually rave about, they have really strong female characters, for example - Cinder from Cinder by Marissa Meyer, Vin from the Mistborn Trilogy (which I'm yet to finish). You get the idea. And this book has Avry. She is a healer on the run, because healers are considered outlaws. They are thought to be the reason the world is in shambles - that they are the reason the plague spread. So she has had to hide her true nature, till she heals a little girl and she gets outed. Then she gets sprung by a group of people who want her to heal Prince Ryne. Ryne who could be the key to saving the Fifteen Realms.

This is how she meets Kerrick and his merry band of men. There's Flea, Quain, Loren and Belen. Most of these characters are a bit of a cliche but Maria spins the story around them in such a way that you don't really notice. And the back story of each characters are told to us slowly. There is always something that we learn about all of them. The love between Avry and Kerrick isn't insta love, for which I am eternally grateful. She truly dislikes him at the start. But he kinda grows on her, and I guess he kinda grew on me too. But I still liked the parts where Avry interacted with the others in the gang than when she interacted with Kerrick.

And this book was a mix of genres of sorts. I mean it is fantasy, but it also had a bit of the medical genre, covert spy genre and ZOMBIES. Yeah, you heard me Zombies. I couldn't believe it when I read it. And I didn't think it would actually work in this book but it did.

Coming to the villain. Tohon was creepy. He was a good character, for a bad guy. He is a complete sociopath. Which keeps things interesting.

I would also like to see how Avry is going to reconcile with her sister Noelle. I understand why she is pissed off with Avry but going to the extreme that she did seems a bit much. Maybe I'm saying that because I've only heard this story from Avry's POV. Another thing I'm looking forward to in the next installment is a little more explanation on the Death and Peace Lilies and their involvement in the plague and the walking dead.

I am now waiting for the book to be shipped to me. I already put in an order for the Scent of Magic, and I cannot wait for the 3rd and final book Taste of Magic either. All in all I'd rate this book a 4.5+ out of 5.

Book Review : On a Pale Horse By Piers Anthony

I cannot believe I haven't read this book before. Or heard of it earlier. The other portrayal of death that I have read is from Sandman by Gaiman. The following is a blurb about the book-

"When Zane shot Death, he learned, too late, that he would have to assume his place, speeding over the world riding his pale horse, and ending the lives of others. Sooner than he would have thought possible, Zane found himself being drawn to Satan's plot. Already the Prince of Evil was forging a trap in which Zane must act to destroy Luna, the woman he loved...unless he could discover the only way out...."

It doesn't sound that exciting, but do not be deceived. This was a great read. It was unexpected. I loved the concept of death being an office that is held. Like any other job, except of course  for the impenetrable cloak, shoes that help you float on water, a gem that is a universal translator, and last but not the least, Mortis. The Death steed, that can turn in to a horse, car, plane, speedboat as the need arises. 

The world that Piers Anthony has built is a great blend of the world of science and magic. Of course the book focuses quite a bit on the magic part. It would have to, the book is from the fantasy genre and not Sci-fi. But in this world the laws of science and the laws of magic co-exist. There are supercomputers and also magical stones that heal and tell you when you might die. There are also cars and carpets that fly. In this world Satan advertises the "virtues" of going to hell. 

In this world there are 5 incarnation - Death, Time, Fate, Nature and War. Unlike Sandman where it is mostly the same person who does this function for eternity, here it is like a beaureaucratic office where different people hold either of these offices at any time. In Death's case the successor is the one who kills the previous person in the office of Death. And this is where our protagonist Zane comes in.

Zane kills Death while trying to commit suicide. And that is how he becomes death. Let me explain why Death came to personally take Zane (because as Zane puts it he is a nobody and did not understand at first why someone as important as death came to personally take him away). Death comes to take those people in whom Good and Evil are in balance, that is their soul is in balance. and it is one of his duties to sort these souls out to determine whether a soul goes to Heaven or to Hell. The one's that he cannot make a decision about are sent to Purgatory, where they become desk clerks and see to the running of Eternity. This means that Eternity is a beaureaucracy.

The definition of Good and Evil are so set in this world that even when someone deliberately tampers with the life support if their mum so that her suffering could finally end, it is considered a grave sin(This is what happened to Zane). The one's that are almost surely all Good are babies. But even babies sometimes are born with the blemish of sin on their souls if they were the result of rape or incest. It is this unfairness that Zane battles as Death. Why should the sins of the parents affect the children just because the rules set millennia ago says so? Zane has to face all this in a world where God is the only one who adheres to the rule of non-interference with the human world. 

Another dilemma faced by Zane is a little spin on sacrifice one/few to save the many. In this case he had to save one, sacrifice many and in the process save humankind. To me it was an example to tell us not to give up. It always gets tougher at the end before we succeed. 

My favorite part of the book was that Death once goes to collect the soul of a man who is an atheist. When he finally collects the soul the soul disintegrates into nothing. This is what the atheist wanted from the afterlife, to go into nothing. So in this world, the afterlife is what someones belief defines it to be. In the same way, Sin or Good are what we think they are. What might be considered a sin might not be so to someone else's perspective, or even to an entire culture. 

The hero and heroine in this book aren't perfect. Zane had a picture of a perfect woman who has never done wrong. But when he finds out that Luna was not perfect he was repulsed by her at first, just for a while, but later fell in love with her for what she was. 

I enjoyed reading this book a lot. Maybe I'm reading too much into the content of this book, but this was what I felt from this book and what I understood. This is my perspective. I give this book a 4.5/5.

Book Review : Mistborn The Final Empire

I have got to say this out loud (figuratively speaking of course). I am LOVING 'Mistborn : The Final Empire'. It has been a long time since I was genuinely excited about a book and I haven't even finished. I'm so glad this is not a stand alone book but a trilogy, a complete one at that. I don't have to wait for the books to come out. I can't believe I came to this book so late. But we have a saying in India - 'Der aye, Durust Aye'. It means - 'I might be late to the party but I'm here to enjoy the party now' :)

A lot of people ask me why I read so much. And a few of my friends look at me askance when I tell them I only read fiction. They think it is too childish and doesn't have any relevance to reality. In my opinion this is the wrong mind-set. And through this book Brandon Sanderson has proved that fiction - fantasy is not childish & that it can be intelligent and make you think. Really think.

Some people might just reject this book by reading the jacket cover or by hearing it's from the fantasy genre. They are doing themselves a disservice. If anyone reads this blog, I'd advise them to pick this book up. This book isn't just about a bunch of people using magic. Its a lot more.

The magic system in this book is great. Sanderson's done a great job with it. It seems simple enough at first glance. The Mistings or Mistborns "burn" metals, that they drink down, to attain powers like soothing or rioting other peoples emotions or to achieve superhuman strength or senses. But as you delve deeper into the magic system it gets more intricate. Not everyone can do this. This system is called Allomancy. There are 8 metals that they can use. Only the Mistborns can use all the metals. The Mistings can only use one metal. And Mistborns are always people with noble blood in them.

The magic system is not all there is to this book. Brandon Sanderson didn't stop at creating a magic system. He also created a social structure. There is the Lord Ruler, the Master of all things. Lord Ruler is said to be immortal, a "sliver of infinity'. He is said to have defeated some evil called the "Deepness". And after that he ascended and attained immortality. He favors the noblemen who supported him before ascension and their descendants. He has also enslaved a whole group of people called Skaa. So this story has political intrigue too.

There is also a thieving crew. This story has a grand heist!! This particular crew is made up of Mistings and 2 Mistborns. And what do you expect the Job these guys are pulling is? They are trying to start up a rebellion amongst the downtrodden Skaa people, to overthrow the tyrannical Lord Ruler.

So there's magic, political intrigue and a thieving crew. What more encouragement does a person need to read this book?

The story is not the only thing done well. If it were then it would not be as good. The characters are well written. Not just the protagonists (Vin & Kelsier) but the supporting characters too(the thieving crew). Sanderson lets the characters grow slowly, but not so slowly that we lose interest. He has paced the story well. We learn something new about the characters almost every page.

Sanderson knows how to keep you on edge. I want to know a lot more about Vin & Kelsier. What is the Deepness? Why is the sun red and why does ash fall from the sky? And why does the mist descend on the final Empire every night?

This is how a book should be. I haven't even finished reading it and I'm already looking forward to the next installment in the series. There will be another entry in my blog once I finish the book so that I can write about Vin, Kelsier and the rest of the crew.

Book Rant: The Parasol Protectorate Series

I haven't really finished the Parasol Protectorate series completely. I have read 4 out of 5 books in the series and am halfway through the 5th. I had not heard of this series at all. I was trying to search for good Steampunk novels and came across this series. The first Steampunk novel i read was Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. So i was expecting something gloomy and serious from Soulless. Then I realized this series was called the Parasol Protectorate. This series was very funny. It  was completely different from what i was expecting. In a good way.

SPOILERS AHEAD

What I am loving the most in the series is that the female protagonist has been very consistent. She comes off as a tough and opinionated woman. Except for how quickly she accepted her husband in the 3rd installment Changeless. The books have woven a very good world. It's funny to me how Alexia is a part of the supernatural world but is oblivious to most of its machinations. This always lands her in trouble. And what novel based in England in the 1800's is complete without a butler like Floote? He is one of my favorite characters in the series. The others being Biffy and Professor Lyall and of course Ivy Tunstell who isn't the airhead she seems to be.

I am fascinated with this alternate reality where the supernatural have been integrated in to polite society. But not all over the world. Only in England. The Italians abhor them, the Americans are scared of them. The way Queen Victoria is portrayed reminds me of how Cleopatra is portrayed in the Asterix series. In that case it was Cleopatra's nose and here Queen Victoria's Height. The relationship between Lord Maccon and Alexia was not portrayed as well as it could be. The relationship between her and almost every other character was written better.

I am looking forward to knowing about Alexia's father in the final installment of the series and to see how the author ties up most of the story lines in the series. This series has had its highs and lows but all in all this is a fun read. I would give it a 3.8 or 4 out of 5.