I just finished reading War and Peace. No, sorry, wrong book, I meant to say Wind and Truth. (Or Knights of Wind and Truth if you want to go for the ketek.) I enjoyed it. Words of Radiance is still the best though of the five current books in the Stormlight Archive.
One thing that kind of bugged me though is that at the ending there's NO MORE STORMLIGHT. What the heck? You just spent these last five books establishing these super awesome powers and then at the end of the fifth book you're like, haha nope sorry that's not a thing anymore? Excuse me? It's like saying at the end of Hero of Ages, whelp, sorry guys no more burning metal. Okay but I guess they'll have 10 years to figure it out because that's about how big the time jump will be to book 6.
Bad things: Not enough Moash. Not enough El. Not enough Rock. Ok, that last one was a joke I knew he wouldn't appear in this book but will hopefully get his own novella. Also, I felt the climax of this one was a lot weaker than the others. In Oathbringer we had this epic battle in the city (whose name escapes me), in Ryhtm of War this epic battle for the control of Urithiru. In WaT we get a duel which, uh, isn't really a duel. Although I loved the Adolin and unoathed parts at the end, so that was good.
Good things: Adolin kicks butt. His parts were cool, especially at the end with the unoathed. I loved the Shallan vs the Ghostbloods, especially at the end when she gets Iylitwhatshername and Mraize. I liked seeing where the Heralds came from. The book really swept by quickly. It never felt like it was over 1,300 pages. I loved the Kaladin parts, mainly because I also have depression. I liked how all the Szeth fights were all unique. Sigzil parts were alright. I guess I wished I cared more about him as a character.
Random thoughts: If Lift hadn't have told Gav to disobey and crawl in vents none of this would have happened, storm it! One of my favorite parts of RoW was the spy espionage part of Shallan's story. You think you have it figured out in the end just to have a twist. For some reason I felt that here, with the Seon being the spy, it felt like it retcons some of that stuff, which is sad. Shallan's mom being a herald was a cool revelation. So really Shallan started the next desolation by killing her mom, who broke and came back, so really this is all Shallan's doing.
Taln never broke! Branderson kept saying that in the Words of Brandon but it was cool to have it cannonized. I think I know where the 9 Unmade come from, but I can write about that later. It's a good thing I read Dawnshard before this book or else I would have been like, what's up with Rysn? I was surprised when Odium, no sorry, Retribution, just flat out obliterates Wit. I was thinking, Branderson can't get rid of Hoid, can he? Ha, nope, he had cell cultures that he grew from on another planet. Nice strategy.
And as for Shallan and Adolin, WHY did Branderson have to separate them? So not cool. They're in love. And either they'll spend the next ten years apart or else get back together somehow off screen. Oh, maybe an Adolin flashback will tell the story. What were the future flashback characters going to be? Jashnah, Adolin, Lift, Renarian, and... someone else.
And RIP Dalinar and kinda Kaladin. And Drehy, but I didn't know him that well.
You know what I would have done in Dalinar's place? With the power of Honor? Pulled a Jashnah/Renarian trick and killed Gav then brought him right back to life, thus winning the duel and still having an alive grandson. Of course, that would have just kicked the Odium problem down the road another thousand years, but whatever.
Anyway, this is a long post. Time to go back a d put pictures in here and there so it's not as boring looking as just a huge block of text.
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