Words of Radiance - The Stormlight Archives (Book 2)

This book is the long-awaited sequel to Brandon Sanderson's highly-acclaimed The Way of Kings (reviewed earlier this year) and was on my "looking forward to" list for this year as well. Needless to say -- but I will say it anyway -- I loved it. For the sake of those yet to start the series, I will attempt to keep spoilers for Book 1 to a minimum, and for those who have read the first this should give you some idea of what to expect.

There are some books that are so good, so inspiring, that they make you want to be a better author -- and so you write. There are other books that are so bad, so bland, that they make you want to be an author -- to prove you can do better. Then there are some books so incredibly well-written that they intimidate the hell out of you and make you reconsider whether your own writing is even in the same league. For me, that was Words of Radiance.

It's a big book!

Book 2 of The Stormlight Archive (a name which makes more and more sense as you read the first two books) is set a little after the end of The Way of Kings. The concluding chapters of that book revealed many of the secrets which Sanderson had been hinting at throughout the entirety of the rest of the piece. The world of Roshar is no longer an unfamiliar, surreal experience for the reader -- highstorms are expected, spren are commonplace and the societal divisions of light-eyes and dark-eyes are taken for granted. This is all very dangerous for a series which was so successful in part due to its fantastical unfamiliarity. Indeed, one of my favourite moments of the first book was when Shallan thinks she is going mad, surrounded by creatures straight out of a Lovecraft-inspired horror story. That unknown gave me nightmares.

With Words of Radiance, Sanderson has continued that exploration of the unknown, but he does so in a very different manner. Secrets revealed to the reader in the first book just brought us into the world of the perspective characters, allowing us to feel their wonder as Book 2 reveals the unknown to them. The focus of this story is very much on personal growth: Shallan and Kaladin centrally, with Dalinar taking a reprieve from centre-stage, and Adolin stepping up to fill his shoes. The conspiracies and 'evil' people of the first book take on a grayer cast, as do many of the brightest characters. I hesitate to name Shallan the focal character of this book, as Kaladin himself is just as important as the plot plays out. However, Sanderson has filled in Shallan's backstory in the same manner as he did with Kaladin in Book 1, using flashbacks to explain where she came from and why she is as broken as she is. Yet he does not overshadow the other characters by doing so, and he sets up some serious dramatic tension between Kaladin and Shallan -- with Amaram returning as the glue to bind them together. I just hope he doesn't squish these two main characters into the spokes of some kind of love triangle.

Our first proper look at Shardblades,
Shardplates, and Adolin (note the
"Sigh" annotation in Shallan's sketch).

My mindset in reading this book was very different from the first. Perhaps due to my familiarity with the world. One of my biggest complaints about The Way of Kings was that the constant perspective shifts frustrated me, as they never have in any book before. This time, however, three things made the perspective shifts actually work. First, the first book provided a backdrop, so while in Book 1 the short chapters of unknown and unrelated characters felt like they were taking me away from the real 'meat' of the story, in Words of Radiance, I yearned for those little snippets to further flesh out the world. Second, Sanderson drops little bits of information from Book 1's snippets into Book 2. For instance, the scientists measuring flamespren are casually mentioned to -- and discounted by -- Navani, the King's mother. The full import of their discovery is made apparent to the reader and then ignored by the characters. Rather than feeling forced, these little cameos actually made the world feel more expansive, as tiny events interrelated into larger ones (even if in only the tiniest way). This also made me more excited to read the snippets of Book 2, perhaps under some expectation that they will eventually become important in Book 3 and onward. (Indeed, there is one in particular which I feel will have massive significance going forward.) Finally, the vast majority of the book is centred around the Shattered Plains. Various gossip and news reaches the armies there, of rebellion or wars elsewhere, but it is cushioned from the rest of Roshar, forming its own little world. Where a shift in perspective from Shallan to Kaladin in Book 1 felt jarring, as if I were reading two different books, but switching every chapter, in Words of Radiance every chapter featuring either Shallan or Kaladin necessarily pushed forward the greater tale of the Shattered Plains. As a result, the book's shifting perspectives felt natural and organic this time around.

Visually, this book is a feast. Sanderson makes mention in his foreword that he sought to turn the Stormlight Archive into more than a book series. Well he does so. One of the things I loved about The Way of Kings was the frequent use of sketched art to make the world more familiar. This is continued and expanded on in Words of Radiance, including some images of Shardplate and Kaladin (seen in the image up above), Shardblades, Bridge Four's tattoos, and other wonderful world-building artwork. And then I opened the book.

Beautiful, no? What a treat, to find something so incredible in the opening pages. The cover art is, as usual, spectacular, but this picture of Shallan just blew it out of the water. Better yet, seeing such an amazing piece of art put me in the perfect mood of wonder, to best enjoy the book. Flicking to the back sleeve of the book (and how could you not, after such an amazing opener) reveals a fully coloured map of Roshar, which is quite useful in the course of Words of Radiance's search for the mythical city of Urithiru. I hope the paperback manages somehow to do justice to these images, in the same way that the hardcover did for me.

This book was full of magic, science and explanation, secrets and lies, and incredible twists that had me reading chapters over again. Climactic scenes (such as Adolin's high-stakes duel for Shards) had me unable to stop reading. The only thing which lacking, compared to the first book, were the truly terrifying scenes such as what I previously mentioned Shallan experienced with the geometric-headed men. Sadly, this was a loss which could not be helped as the series transitioned from the unfamiliar into the ordinary. An expected loss, but one which I would have liked to see filled.

The Ups: Unique, amazing, unfamiliar and previously untouched world with characters that are fully-fleshed out and a world that keeps changing. Some truly epic moments (which you really want in such a large book) and finally the sense that this is going to be way more than just a trilogy (I think he said 11 books in all!)

The Downs: Sanderson has to work a lot harder to achieve the same sense of wonder and surreal-horror than he did in Book 1. It doesn't quite reach that first introductory peak of emotion.

The Verdict: 4.75 sequelspren out of 5

Overall, the book is a work of majestic art, that both inspires and terrifies the author in me, but excites the reader in me. It is an excellent continuation of the first book, and leaves a lot to go with in the rest of the series. It feels like the actual series is only just beginning.

Such a beautiful work of art.

MAJOR SPOILERS:

The book ends amazingly, returning what was lost early on in a spectacular manner. Wit remains a perfect Epilogous character. I did have a number of questions though. Such as: if Dalinar cannot have Shards, surely he could wear the -plate (which is not as cursed as the -blades). And secondly, what the heck is going to happen to Bridge Four's Shen when the Everstorm rolls around? How about, instead of killing your parshmen, you just keep them indoors? 

Wolves

Such a pretty cover.

Of the two January releases I mentioned in my New Years post, Wolves by Simon Ings was the one with the nicest cover, and the one which I expected to love most of all. (You can see the other review for Red Rising here.)

Wolves promotes itself as author Ings' return to science fiction: a dystopic world of Augmented Reality (AR), advertising, gaming and the end of the world. At its heart though, it is a story about two men. Everything else is merely background to their relationship, which develops in the reader's mind through use of occasional flashbacks to the main character, Conrad's traumatic youth.

The book itself is a little like Southland Tales meets Brave New World in terms of its construction and themes. A sense of dissatisfaction with the world permeates throughout. The ending of the book (and the world) is unsatisfying and confusing, and the characters' withdrawal from the doomed society is on par in depressing style with the suicide of John Savage.

Readers unfamiliar with Southland Tales should imagine a movie which places actors in roles we are not accustomed to seeing them in, adds time travel and characters who speak in riddles and are actually just too strange to be believable. Make that a cult hit along the lines of Donnie Darko and throw in some additional material to let hardcore fans actually understand the movie. Now how about we that and place it into a book setting where the narrator is not only set adrift in this confusing sea of weirdos, but he himself is discontented with (and dissociating from) society at large. What you would have is Wolves.

Baron Von Westphalen (Southland Tales, second from right)
is probably one of the weirder characters in this motley crew.

This could be reality...

The thing is, I am unsure whether it works. In fact, I am unsure about most things to do with this book. I keep thinking over what I have read to work out what point Ings is trying to make. I have discussed the book with others. Yet I cannot make sense of it. The best that I could come up with is that the book attempts to convey the narrator's sense of alienation by alienating its reader, showing the likely result of an Augmented Reality future. However, while it alienates the reader it simultaneously tries to draw us into its virtual world: whether the end of the world fantasy of Michel or the mind-altered reality which it invades. In the end, because reality is so subject to the whims of the AR's creator, I wasn't even sure if the flood 'end of the world' scenario was happening in reality. I hesitate to say the book has failed to make a point, because somebody smarter than me will inevitably find some meaning to it. I am, however, satisfied to say the book went over my head and will likely do so for the majority of casual readers.

In writing, it is gritty. Descriptions are uncertain or repetitive, emulating the manner in which their narrator experienced them. This serves to bring the reader into the mind of the narrator, but it also gets boring very quickly. The characters are the same unhappy, plain humans driven by the desire to fill their empty lives in whatever way they can. For most of them, that is connecting with others through sex, though for Conrad even a string of prostitutes is unfulfilling as they wear AR contact lenses during their encounters so that they can be anywhere but where they actually are. His need for human connection goes unsatisfied.

Speaking of sex, the book has quite a few surprising scenes. I say surprising because they come out of nowhere. Through the course of the book, Conrad has sex with every main character, with the exception of his co-worker and his family. This includes the villain (if he could be described thusly). For some this may add to the grittiness of the writing. For me it just seemed gratuitous.

Google Glass

I want to tell people to go and read this book, because Ings really delves into a potential future of Google Glass AR and its potential impacts on the world (particularly once they go beyond the glasses and to projected images, subvocalisations and other scarier things). Sadly, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this book to anybody. It has some excellent themes and at its heart contains enough material to amount to a good short story. However, the padding (the murder mystery, the relationship between Connie and Hanna) seems to fill it uselessly. It feels like two stories trying their hardest to stick together, but kept separated by uncommon themes. Perhaps that is what Ings intended. I really don't know.

The Ups: Incredible cover. Good depiction of what the post-Google Glass world might look like. Some excellent writing amongst the filler.

The Downs: Confusing, empty characters and a murder mystery in the past that just does very little for the book. It feels too long, like a short story stretched too far, or two stories mashed together. 

The Verdict: 1.5 pointless blow-jobs out of 5

I wouldn't recommend it for casual consumption. This book is nothing like it was advertised as. But if you are studying Brave New World or other depressing science fiction literature this is a nice modern rendition of alienation in a dystopic/utopic world. I just felt a little depressed by the end of the book, like it was well-written but I wasted my time and money on it (which made me feel guilty that I hadn't enjoyed it more).

Even this pimp might consider suicide by the end.