The Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson)

The Way of Kings
(The Stormlight Archive, Book 1)
Brandon Sanderson
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***** (Great)

DESCRIPTION: In ages past, the storm-swept world of Roshar trembled as great battles raged across its many lands, consumed by wave after wave of chaos known as Desolations. The Knights Radiant were humanity's greatest champions in these wars... until the day they betrayed the very people they served, walking away from their oaths and leaving behind their Shardplate armor and weapons. Today, stories of the Desolation and the foul Voidbringers are little more than myths and bedside tales, the Knights Radiant cursed. The people have fragmented into warring races and kingdoms, forgetting the old Codes. But danger still waits, and soon the Final Desolation will fall upon an unprepared world. A hero must come, to throw back to darkness, but who? And from where?
Shallan left the family estate on a mission to save her family. Her late father left them drowning in debt - if his death were known, the creditors would strip her family to the bone. Her plan is dangerous, but she's desperate... as she must be, to contemplate stealing from one of the most powerful women in the kingdom. But even as she works to gain the trust of the eccentric heretic Jasnah, she discovers more temptations and dangers than she bargained for.
Son of a surgeon, Kalidan once dreamed of becoming a soldier, of finding true honor on the battlefield instead of the corruption and pettiness if the lighteye lords his father served. He learned the hard way that battle brings no glory and little honor, especially for a lowly darkeyes like himself. Now a branded slave, his bitterness knows no bounds. People all around him seem to die, no matter what he does. Why can't he die with them?
Dalinar is a highprince, brother of the slain King Gavilar and uncle to the current regent. He, alone of all his fellow highprinces, still follows the ancient Codes that the late king embraced, codes that ask a ruler to display honor, integrity, and concern for his underlings. His ways make him an outcast among his peers... and, in the political maneuverings of the Alethki courts, that makes him vulnerable. Worse, he is plagued by recurrent visions of a world in chaos, warned by a voice to unite his peers. Is this a message from the Almighty Stormfather, or are his sons right that he's simply going mad?
Szeth-son-son-Vallano was cast out from his people as Truthless, a slave to a succession of brutal masters. It was his hand that killed King Gavilar, triggering a massive war that rages to this day across the Shattered Plains... a murder he hated committing, like every other time he was forced to use his deadly gifts. Some dark game is being played, a game whose shape terrifies him. But he is Truthless. If he cannot change his own worthless fate, how can he possibly change that of Roshar?

REVIEW: Fantasy, especially epic fantasy, has a way of feeling familiar, even in the hands of the best authors; characters may stand out, and there may be a few twists on the genre conventions, but there's usually a familiar world beneath it. Sanderson manages to create something entirely new, an alien world full of strange magic and stranger races, all bound up in a tale so large that "epic" is truly the only word for it. Having invented a unique world and several distinct populations, he goes on to stock it with a host of fascinating characters. Their paths rarely cross, save toward the end, but each of them has a unique and important perspective on events as they unfold. It's rare that I find both the setting and the characters equally fascinating. I was constantly torn between wanting to know what happens next and wanting to linger over the pages, extending my stay in Roshar. My only complaint is that it's Book 1 of a series, and I've yet to see a sign of Book 2. I haven't had a chance to hand out a five-star rating in a while, but this book deserves no less.

You Might Also Enjoy:
Rhapsody (Elizabeth Haydon) - My Review
Mistborn: The Final Empire (Brandon Sanderson) - My Review
Shadowmarch (Tad Williams) - My Review

BEAT to a PULP: A Rip Through Time (Garnett Elliot, Chad Eagleton, Chris F. Holm, Charles A. Gramlich, authors; David Cranmer, editor)

BEAT to a PULP: A Rip Through Time
(The Rip Through Time series, Book 1)
Garnett Elliot, Chad Eagleton, Chris F. Holm, Charles A. Gramlich, authors; David Cranmer, editor
BEAT to a PULP
Fiction, Sci-Fi
** (Bad)

DESCRIPTION: It should have been Mankind's greatest achievement since it first crawled from the primordial ooze: the Baryon Core. In theory, it can allow one to peer into any moment of any time, laying bare the secrets of the Universe. Then the core's inventor, Doctor Berlin, goes rogue, smashing his way into the Company's labs and stealing his own device before disappearing into the timestream. Simon Rip, the Company's top time agent, and the seductive Doctor Serena Ludwig set out after him, but Berlin may not be the madman everyone thinks he is. The more Rip uncovers, the less certain he becomes... and the more danger he discovers, not just to himself but to the whole of human existence.
A Kindle-exclusive title.

REVIEW: Written as an homage to old-school pulp sci-fi adventures, A Rip Through Time succeeds in capturing the flavor of a bygone fictional era... not always for the best. The action comes thick and fast, almost managing to obscure the fact that the plot makes no sense whatsoever. Paradoxes, aliens, treachery, sapient computers, steampunk Aztecs, Ernest Hemingway, King Arthur... all these and more are thrown into the blender and spattered across the pages. Simon Rip excels at beating people up and being beaten up - and, of course, ogling Doctor Ludwig's ample curves. (I'd like to believe this was a deliberate wink at the sexism of older sci-fi, but unfortunately I can't be certain.) His associates quickly diverge into Good and Evil camps, and stay there for most of the story. The final chapter tries to set up tension for future installments, but makes such a change in mood and style that it threw me long before the hook was set. Then the last ten-odd percent of the book talks about time travel in popular fiction, with a peculiar emphasis on the production values of various movies. Why? I don't know, and by that point I no longer cared.

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Sky Coyote (Kage Baker) - My Review
Timeline (Michael Crichton) - My Review

The Book of Dragons (Edith Nesbit)

The Book of Dragons
Edith Nesbit
Public Domain Books
Fiction, YA Collection/Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Small as a gnat or as large as a mountain, dwelling at the ends of the Earth or within the pages of a magical book, dragons always bring trouble no matter where or when they turn up. In this collection, the author Edith Nesbit recounts tales of many remarkable dragons and the people who must deal with them.

REVIEW: With vivid imagination and clever turns of phrase, Nesbit spins a number of charming fairy tales. The characters tend to be flat stereotypes, especially the girls - which is strange, given that Nesbit herself seemed to be anything but the helpless damsel in distress. For fairy tales, however, they work just fine; they didn't have a chance to outstay their welcome, unlike those in her longer works. Also, for all the imagination on display here, the author clearly writes for a very specific audience, that being white English schoolchildren of some wealth. (That was the world she knew, though. I don't suppose it occurred to her that anyone else would be reading these stories, let alone grown-ups in another country more than a century in the future... reading them on an electronic device that would've seemed nearly as fantastic to her as the storybook that births live monsters. But I digress.) Wild adventures are had, and if nobody ever really came to harm, even after being eaten by a dragon, well, these were written for schoolchildren... and parents, who would've objected to unhappy endings for their blessed little darlings. All things considered, I gave it the benefit of the doubt with a Good rating.

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The Dragonslayers (Bruce Coville) - My Review
The Book of Enchantments (Patricia Wrede) - My Review
Here, There be Dragons (Jane Yolen) - My Review

June Site Update

The previous 14 reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main site, Brightdreamer Books.

Enjoy!

Easy eBook Publishing (Barney Schwartz)

Easy eBook Publishing
Barney Schwartz
B.E.N. Publishing
Nonfiction, Writing
**+ (Bad/Okay)

DESCRIPTION: Learn how to format and publish an eBook with this quick guide.
An eBook-exclusive title.

REVIEW: On the plus side, this book does exactly what it says, walking the reader step by step through eBook software and websites. On the minus side, it does almost nothing else. It doesn't explain any of the options one is presented with. It only touches on pros and cons of different places and methods of e-publishing. Indeed, I'm not entirely sure that this sort of walkthrough isn't covered under any given software's FAQ or help section. The illustrations are also difficult to read on an eInk screen. Being free, I didn't expect too much out of it, but it still feels unnecessary.

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Secrets to Writing Your First eBook and Getting It Online (Haphiza Baboolal) - My Review
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