Warbreaker, Part 3 of 3

My favorite part about this book is the fact that I bought the annotated ebook version of it. Reading Sanderson's notes after each chapter was very revealing about his methods, thoughts, and techniques, and as an aspiring writer, I was inspired by them. Brandon Sanderson inspires me to write, to find passion in the stories that I write, and I think that is why I love his books so much. I learn from each and every one of them!

I keep picking up Sanderson's books and hoping they'll blow my mind as much as the Mistborn trilogy did. So far, none of his other books have topped Mistborn for me, but I'll keep trying :P

Warbreaker is told from the perspective of 4 different characters: Siri, Vivenna, Lightsong, and Vasher. The story takes place in a city called T'Telir, the city of the gods, in the country of Hallendren. Vivenna has been raised for the sole purpose of being married to the God King to fulfill a treaty between her country and Hallendren. Susebron, the God King, is the deity of Hallendren's religion, and the most powerful man in existence. However, when the time to honor the treaty has finally come, Vivenna's father can't bear to send her to T'Telir -- he doesn't believe fulfilling the treaty will avert a war, and if a war came about, Vivenna would be killed. So he sends his other daughter, Siri. Siri is the youngest. She has grown up without any responsibility, and enjoys the fact that she is essentially the useless child.

The backdrop of this story is the war that everyone believes is inevitable. Some characters support it, some characters fight it. It carries the tension of the story, and is the main driving force for many of the events, especially the endgame.

Imagine being able to take a piece of your soul and use it to manipulate the fabric of the world around you; from augmenting your strength, to animating the inanimate to creating an army of 40,000 lifeless zombies.

Such is the magical system of Sanderson’s Warbreaker . A tale of two exiled royal sisters Vivenna and Siri, one of whom must marry the Returned (resurrected) God King.

It’s a tale of two cultures, one austere the other flamboyant, one that delights in the ability to use BioChromatic magic, one that see’s it as an abomination.

These two cultures are set on a path to war, the sisters must stop it. Help as well as hindrance will come from strange quarters, and if you thought the politics of humans was internecine, they have nothing on the gods.

Thumbs Up?

Sanderson is to be applauded for giving us, once again a detailed and unique magic system that is entwined into the very fabric of the story, rather than a tacked on after thought.

The concept of BioChromatic magic- a magic that comes from the Breath, a transference of a soul like power into inanimate or dead objects, is brilliant. The way that it manifests, draining the colour from objects it’s stored in, or enhancing the vision, taste and feel of those that hold more than one Breath, makes for some stunning imagery.

The depiction of two strong female protagonists in Siri and Vivenna was also a welcome inclusion, even better though was that their strength was for the most part displayed through non violent means. Not all strong female heroes need to be Xena.

The use of Breath as currency, or a commodity to be bought and sold, the symbiotic relationship between Gods and their followers was, dare I say it a breath of fresh air.

The world of Warbreaker is definitely not your traditional fantasy setting.

Thumbs down?

And that for me was part of its undoing. Front loaded with gorgeous world building and detailed description of the workings and logic of the magic system, the pace of Warbreaker doesn’t pick up until about page 400.

There is enough information within the book to easily background a trilogy, but the end of Warbreaker sees a fairly solid resolution that doesn’t require another book. I can’t but feel that the book should have been shorter and more succinct or spread out over two or three books.

The theological banter and witty repartee between the god Lightsong and whoever he chose to inflict his wit on, also began to grate on me. The dialogue in the later began to feel overdone, while my irritation with the former might just be my increasing impatience with theological waffle in reality.

Verdict

The last third of the novel saves it. Sanderson creates a wonderfully intricate society and magic system, slowly moving the plot forward for 400 pages and then bam it’s all over. If you have the stamina it’s worth hanging in until the last third of the book.

This book was provided by the publisher at no cost to myself

Re-read:
I've re-read this book, this time listening to the "Graphic Audio" version of the book. And boy, does that make a difference.
Maybe it is because I have already once read the book and the resulting dramatic irony involved. Because at the first read, I really had no idea what to make of Lightsong.
But the graphic audio version really makes the story come to life. I love the Irish brogue of the two princesses, I love the characterization, especially Lightsong and Nightblood.
The story came to life in my head and felt fresh and wonderful and... colorful :-)
What possibly also helped was that I hadn't previously binged on all Brandon Sanderson's other books.

So, I'm updating this book to a 3.5 star and I'm actually looking forward to a sequel.

Oh and the last remark in my previous review, about The Way of Kings... well, we all know how that book turned out for me :-) My favorite!

I really liked Brandon Sanderson's [b:Mistborn Trilogy|6604209|Mistborn Trilogy Boxed Set (Mistborn, #1-3)|Brandon Sanderson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1257442247s/6604209.jpg|6798109]. So I wanted to read all his books. And, boy am I disappointed.
He is really good at worldbuilding. Interesting and quite original world and sublime and hugely original magic-systems. That's refreshing. However, storytelling is not his strong point. All his books seems to be about revolution. Common people vs nobles. That gets old after a few books. He highlights different aspect of a revolution, but there is not enough variation.

Back to Warbreaker itself.
The story reminded me of [b:Lord of Light|13821|Lord of Light|Roger Zelazny|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1285715051s/13821.jpg|1011388] by Roger Zelazny. I loved that book. But where that book feels fresh and poignant, Warbreaker was a chore to read. Dialog felt stunted, forced. Really, still to much "he said" "she said". That's not a naturally flowing dialog. I notice that his dialogs are getting worse instead of improving with every book. Please take some writing lessons!
Another gripe was the 'internal monologues'. I like books about people who doubt. My favorite books are about doubting and despairing people. What I don't like is reading hundreds of pages of dry internal monologues that lack a connection to me, the reader.

I just couldn't really care for the two sisters in this story. The remained 1 dimensional to me. The writer told me about their problems, their feelings, but I couldn't féél it. Lightsong was nice, and his part in the story was, though predictable, interesting. But dear mr. Sanderson: please stop repeating over and over the 'clues' for developments later in the story! We readers are not stupid. Most of us are capable of putting 1+1 together. Unnecessary repetition the mercenary's 'humor' and the fullfilling of petitions by returned is really annoying. It tells me that the writer doesn't take his audience serious. I like subtlety in a story, not being smacked in the face over and over with the same fish.

The ending is satisfying, but predictable and leaves room for a sequel. In a way, the ending is more satisfying than the ending of Elantris.

Another thought, but this is only an issue when you listen to the audiobook version. The audioquality was not very good. The curious thing is that "Hallandren" sounded like "Elantris", and this was slightly confusing at times. But maybe it was because of the narrators horrible drawl.

I give this book 2 stars, one for the magic and one for the world. Both are very interesting and could have been so much more. I am going to read the last Sanderson book on my list (The way of kings), but I do this with apprehension. I really hope he gets his spark back.

I enjoyed Warbreaker, but not as much as I had hoped to. Sanderson sets a high standard for his work with the Mistborn trilogy, which this novel does not quite reach.

However, the world he has built here is compelling, with a mythos and history of conflict that one cannot help but get caught up in. As one expects with Sanderson, the characters are vividly drawn and fully realized, although oddly it is Vasher, the title character of the piece, that is perhaps the least fleshed out in the prose. Then again, the mystery of Vasher is an essential element to the story, and thus a limited knowledge of his nature is most likely a necessary evil.

Also problematic is that the magical system he has created for this world feels a bit too formulaic to me. Sanderson is known for his belief that magic systems must have rules, but unlike the Allomancy in his Mistborn series, the magical system in this book feels just a little too much like character statistics, although I wouldn't go so far as to say that you can hear dice rolling in the background. This is a fully realized magical system, but at times gets a little heavy on the exposition in order to make it clear to the reader how the magic works. However, it does not occupy so much of the story that this is a huge detraction, just a bit of a disappointment after how skillfully he handled these issues in the Mistborn trilogy.

I do want to be clear that this is an enjoyable novel, and I look forward to reading the sequel. I'm also intrigued to read in some of his interviews that the worlds of the Mistborn trilogy, Elantris (which I have yet to read), Warbreaker, and The Way of Kings (forthcoming) are all part of the same metaverse that he has created, but he does not indicate if there is going to be any interaction between them beyond that, with the possible exception of a common character in two of the books.

I am looking forward to reading more of Sanderson's works, but this particular novel really only merits a 3.5 (rounded down) for the reasons described above.