Reflection on Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive #2) by Brandon Sanderson

     I am moving pretty quickly through the Stormlight Archive books. I just love Brandon Sanderson's worldbuilding. In Words of Radiance (WOR), we reach the culmination of the long storyline of the war on the Shattered Plains as all our main characters unite there. Luckily, to break up all the Shattered Plains stories we get really interesting interludes, one of which is now a novella of its own that I am reading next. I would say the main strengths of this installment in the series are the exploration of Parshendi characters (we finally get the perspective of one of them in some interludes), the development of Shallan's backstory, and the greater involvement of the Heralds, who are like Greek demigods. It was frustrating to see how Kaladin transformed into an annoying and grumpy guy, but it was honestly good character development in this book. He was honestly even lower at some points in this book than he was in the first because at this point his life should have been better, but he still felt depressed.

    I guess I am officially hooked on this series. I think I'm going to read everything in the Stormlight Archive that is out before taking a break from Sanderson. This has really been scratching my fantasy/adventure itch.

Reflection on The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson

    This book completely consumed my week. I really struggled to put it down and read all 1000 pages as quick as I could. This is the intro to The Stormlight Archive series. It is high fantasy, and probably not everyone's cup of tea. It starts out with the end of a great battle and a greater deception and cuts forward 4,500 years to the assassination of a king by a mysterious man in white who was commanded by an even more mysterious group- the Parshendi. Parshendi are a humanoid race only just discovered in Roshar, the world of The Stormlight Archive. They love music and can communicate telepathically, and they also are nearly identical to the mute slaves called Parshmen, who live throughout Roshar, completing tasks for their masters. This is a world of spren, little spirits that surround change. There are painspren, creationspren, gloryspren, waterspren, windspren, flamespren, inkspren, and literally any iteration you can think of. There are also precious stones that hold stormlight inside them. Recharged by each highstorm passing over Roshar, certain individuals can use them as the source of their magical powers, and others use them as currency. Additionally, each chapter begins with the dying words of some individual, the meaning and context of which is not revealed until the final chapters. 

    The main reason that I loved this book was the worldbuilding. Sanderson is obviously so meticulous in what he writes and creative in what he plans that you just can't wait to learn the next thing about his universe. I couldn't resist and did a lot of extra research on the internet. Here are some minor spoilers that blew me away and had me wanting more:

• Sanderson's books are all taking place in the same universe, called the Cosmere
• Sanderson writes other books set not in the more medieval, high fantasy setting, but in the age of industry and information
• Certain characters, like Hoid/Wit travel between
• The book's prologue tells us that Talanel, one of the Ten Heralds (basically gods) is stuck being tortured by Odium until the next Desolation comes. In the epilogue, Talanel arrives on Roshar, and falls dead. The Desolation is coming.