The Towers of Sunset by L.E. Modesitt

I've wanted to review some classic fantasy for this site, and I got my chance to reread this book when Tor.com dropped a free epub of the second book in the Recluce Saga. I remember reading it as a teenager and loving it, but many many things change between one's idealistic childhood and one's adulthood. And in this case, my enjoyment of the Towers of Sunset easily doubled in the intervening years. For two reasons: I like depictions of realistic relationships, and while medieval and medieval styled relationships were no doubt different in many ways, the subtleties of understanding between the sexes are always well developed in the realm of Recluce. The second reason, of course, is my devotion to economics and the study and display of economics in fantasy literature. That said, I can see this as a possible turn off to many readers. In my attempts to sell my own work, I've found some who think economics are boring! And I'm not even talking microeconomics, replete with equations and variables and charts, they find the macro stuff boring!

Well, fuck them. The Towers of Sunset is a great book, full of chaos and order, and gives a fascinating glance at the history of Recluce, and the founding of a mighty nation.  Before we get started, a reminder.  The magic system of the Recluce saga is really quite original.  There are forces of chaos, and forces of order.  Order is black (without the chaos of light), and Chaos is white and red.  Naturally, these forces must balance, and so one of our protagonists is a White Wizard, albeit a reformed one.

Not Creslin, unfortunately, no fanfic in 1993

Character: The story of Towers of Sunset begins with a man and a woman.  A man, Creslin, who is a swordsman and storm-wizard as well as a consort in a matriarchal society.  He is chattel, and as such, an arranged marriage is forged to strengthen the bonds with another matriarchal nation.  He spends the first 150 pages of the book running from that marriage.  I found Creslin to be a very real portrait of a man.  For one thing, his desire to flee and find his way is anything but focused.  In my own experience of life, real focus is rare, and most of us fumble through with only the knowledge that we desire something different, and that this difference 'lies over there.'  As such, we follow Creslin to the nation of Candar, where the White city of Fairhaven lies. Creslin knows something of his power as a storm wizard, but he knows little of Order magic, and he adopts a wait and see attitude.  The Whites are fairly sophisticated nation builders, and recognize him immediately as a threat (both for his parentage, and his power).

One stylistic note about the writing of this book:  Not all is explained; a lot is left unsaid.  In general, I have enjoyed Modesitt's writing, and given the fact that he's written nearly 60 novels, it's safe to say he's pretty good at it.  But there are these sort of weird gaps, that are really never explained.  For instance, Creslin's parentage:  his father was a pawn of the White wizards, and sent to seduce the Marshall of Westwind (the Matriarchy). But he has disappeared at the story's start, and we're lead to believe that something strange has happened.  This is the sort of discrepancy one expects from a book in a series, but the first book in the series, the Magic of Recluce, takes place several centuries later!

Creslin is also not an elf, but he does play a guitar

Like any typical young man, Creslin is fairly into himself, not in a crass or arrogant way, he simply doesn't think much about what other people think.  He's strikingly handsome, and would have been popular with the ladies, had his mother, the Marshall of Westwind, not been very stern with her female guards about fraternization with the prince consort.  This leads him to a great deal of difficulty with his wife to be, the beautiful fire-haired, Chaos wielder, Magaera.  Magaera is hot-tempered and bitchy, the perfect compliment to Creslin's good humored, cool distance.  That said, her dialogue, and the manner in which she tries to confront Creslin are spot on (at least from my perspective.) Creslin is simply not equipped, despite massive intelligence for both order magic and nation building, to handle feelings, and the second third of the book is an exercise in frustration for all three parties. (Creslin, Magaera and the Reader.)  And it is SO frustrating: you want them to get along, and to stop fighting each other. But Creslin's hamfisted attempts to apologize, or even to understand what Magaera is on about are cringeworthy, and all too familiar for those of us in the mating game. Modesitt's marital and relationship writing style puts him in a class far far above both Jordan and Martin.

Actual Recluce art, different book, see White Wizard

The only other characters of note are the White Wizards, and they are not directly involved in the action.  We see snippets of what the "bad guys" are planning, and what they decide to do to deal with Creslin, and his new nation-state.  What makes them interesting is the atypical approach Modesitt takes with them.  They are hands-off bureaucratic administrators, attempting to create an ever expanding empire of Chaos Magic, not through fire balls and earthquakes, but through road building, and trade policy!  Truly, road building!  It's an overlooked phenomena in the modern world, but the Roman's success early on had a lot to do with the massive roads they built, which allowed trade, but also quick passage for armies.  Anyway, when your chaos mages can blow up big rocks with a flick of a wrist, road building gets a lot easier.  All of this is extremely fascinating to me!

Fractal trees show how chaos and order are linked

Cliche: As we learn more in the Magic of Recluce, and in the various books that follow Towers of Sunset, Modesitt is a cliche buster.  However, the two cliche's most heavily relied upon are: Order and Chaos. As mentioned above, the theory of magic draws heavily on these concepts.  But the cliche of Order and Chaos is normally quite a bit different, usually Chaos is symbolized by the Abyss. Take the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, there the Dark One wants to break the wheel of time, and escape his prison, thus destroying the world and returning the universe to darkness. Not so in the Recluce Saga, Order (or The White cliche) is darkness, calm, lack of movement, structure, stasis, Negentropy.  And Chaos, in a word it's opposite, or Entropy.  Order wielders are healers, taking the chaos of infection and bounding it and strengthening the body's normal structures. Chaos wielders live short lives, but are stronger wizards since they can throw fireballs, lightning bolts, etc. There is one last thing that this cliche buster addresses that is IMPORTANT.  I try not to dwell on racism in fantasy, but fantasy undoubtedly uses racists tropes on a regular basis.  Black magic.  No one thinks that black people use black magic, and no one should, but it's definitely an unfortunate and unavoidable connotation with this common trope.  By making black magic, into good magic, Modesitt breaks with this common trope, and, I think sheds a hair more equality in a vastly unequal world (Check out redditor D3athRider on the Wild Savage trope's racism.)

A new one, possibly, let's call it Red Thread of Fate.  This cliche is the idea that two characters are bound together somehow, perhaps by blood, or some soul connection.  The term I've chosen here relates (see the link) to the east asian belief in fate, symbolized by red string.  Sometimes that connection is one of love, as in Elizabeth Hayden's Rhapsody, and other times by hatred as in the connection between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, or the connection between Frodo and Golum. It is a useful cliche for writing, as it requires a certain cause and effect on the other character connected.  In this case, Creslin and Megaera are bound together by their forced wedding vow.  This connection wasn't supposed to be supernatural or magical, but owing to the power of both characters, the connection assumed a greater power than it might have otherwise had. And then, this connection between the two becomes a matter of life and death.

Because Storm is hot, and an X-Men

Another new cliche would be the Storm Wizard cliche, throwing lightning and wind is fantasy fodder for thousands of years.  I mean, look at Zeuss, the ultimate god, why? because he's a badass who can throw lightning.  Well, in addition to being an Order-Wizard, Creslin is also a Storm Wizard.  While the mythos of the Recluce books contains knowledge of other storm wizards, apparently, Creslin's great strength (see Maintaining the Balance cliche) is due to the influence of the White Wizards of Candor on the world. So really, Creslin is the strongest Storm Wizard in this world's recent history. But it's bigger than lightning bolts, Creslin can move millions of metric tons of air, change pressure systems, bring massive rain storms, and turn the ocean into a ravenous hurricane.

Nation Building: this is actually a pretty rare cliche, this book is about the founding of a nation, and so it takes place over a large space of time, through several epic battles and wars.  It also contains a good deal of economics (again something I LOVE in fantasy).  This is sort of a meta cliche, and it relates to the third section of this review, "Completion." A lot of fantasy worlds are entirely character driven, and outside of what is strictly necessary to make the plot work, the rest fails to hang together.  But in this case, Modesitt makes a concious decision to set the stones for the entire saga, and it all hangs together, complete to a bumper crop of a bitter brandy called Green Berry, to how Creslin changed the weather patterns to turn Recluce from a desert, to a temperate paradise.

Medieval Trade Routes

Other cliches only mentioned: The book touches a bit on The Am I going Crazy cliche, Creslin and Megaera's connection does begin to inflect seriously on both of their mental states, and indeed the end of the book has a moment where this cliche is addressed head on. Broken Homeland, Creslin is born in a strong matriarchy that is a major power in this verse, by the end of the book, his nation of origin is entirely shattered. I mentioned earlier this book deals with The White cliche, while true, even this is cliche busting.  Usually The White, is good, all good, all clean, industrious, free from decay or corruption.  In this case, The White is exactly the opposite.  But even that is too cliched, because under the Maintaining the Balance cliche, even chaos-entropy is important to life itself.  To wit, the wizards of Candar, evil as they may be, are not evil in the grander sense.  In fact, the book goes through three generations of White Wizard Tyrants, as each is deposed by the younger generation for failing to contain the island of Recluce. Given Creslin's enormous power, he has taken thousands of lives by the book's end, this forces something of a Hero's Redemption cliche on him, though indeed, the weight of his deeds are never truly absolved.

My homeland (NYC), broken

Completeness: The Saga of Recluce is complete in that, in that this enormous number of books (nearly 20!) Modesitt literally tells the entire history of this world, book by book.  He jumps around a bit, the first book started several hundred years after the founding of Recluce, and this book details the start.  There's even a book that (SPOILER) details the original colonists of this world. (SPOILER END).  And Modesitt is very interested in the practical aspects of his world, he's invested in technology, trade routes, benchmark industries, GDP.  If that stuff sounds dry, well, it is perhaps a bit.  But there are plenty of sword fights too (Creslin's mastery with the Blade is without question).  What's really interesting is just how differently Modesitt establishes this completness record from Jordan, or Martin.  The book doesn't use documentary evidence (via epigraphs) or mysterious old ruins, or names and background of long dead nations.  These are ways to establish a complete history that Modesitt eschews, instead, he concentrates on the present and details it excruciatingly.  This is more on a level with Riftwar Saga's author Raymond E. Feist.  I think one difference perhaps, is that to cite another cliche, neither Feist nor Modesitt's worlds are Worlds in Decline.  They are more or less modern, thriving worlds where progress is derailed by war, and strife, but that the great wheel of progress is spinning forward furiously. So there really aren't massive ruins, or formerly great nations to discuss, because the world is full.

Ancient Mayan ruins, because they're cool

My overall recommendation for this book is definite, but qualified, yes!  It is not teen fantasy, or YA, as the industry calls it.  However, it is classic fantasy, published in 1993 when the genre was really starting to grow.  And, with 20 books to this particular world, it's a good series to start if you want something with legs.  I also really appreciate the seriousness of the relationship between the two main characters, something that is really quite seldom seen in traditional or young adult fantasy.  Relationships are hard, and even love at first sight fades after that first sight, so it's rare that genre fiction actually handles the actual difficulties in making relationships work.  Also, it's just a really cool magic system, worth exploring for those of you who like Brandon Sanderson's magic choices.  My other reservation on this book (particularly for a younger audience) is that Modesitt really does enjoy the wonkiness of economic systems.  It's still immensely readable, and a good way to learn about economics, but it might not be your cup of tea.

Brandon Sanderson's Way of Kings

My review of The Way of Kings, must start with certain caveats. First, I must cop to a certain envy of Brandon Sanderson, a man younger than myself, who is incredibly prolific, and talented, and successful, and... hand picked by Harriet Jordan to complete the Wheel of Time. My own attempts to start my career in fantasy have been thwarted mostly by myself. So, it is important to view my criticisms of his writing through a slightly jealous veil.

That said, I do have certain valid criticisms, of his writing style, and his view of fantasy. Also, looking at his essay on magic, though well intentioned as a guide to young writers, it doesn't quite fit the facts of some very successful sagas.

One thing is undeniable, Sanderson is a formidable story teller. I have read several of his Mistborn series, and Elantris, and each book is a well laid out, truly engrossing story. The same must be said for Way of Kings. And though his writing may not be my cup of tea, I certainly intend to finish the series, unlike Mistborn, which I did not complete.

I think I must state outright that, I think his writing lacks the sophistication of Martin, the breadth of vision of Jordan, the complexity and sublety of Erikson, the familiarity of the Eddings team, the cohesiveness of Weiss and Hickman. Any reader should know that going in to one of his stories. But maybe, Sanderson doesn't need to do that, he's made his own place in the starry sky of modern fantasy.

Let's go to the fantasy five.

Character: this is one of the things that I think Sanderson falls down on. The hero of this epic is a young soldier/slave named Kaladin. The book is over a thousand pages, probably 20% of that is given to describing Kaladin's state of mind, chiefly his depression. As Kaladin is as deep as a teapot, this makes for some boring reading. My wife has a saying that she used to describe certain boys when she was on the market: "darkness is not depth: do not mistake depression for intelligence, charisma, wisdom, or introspection". Kaladin has some decent reasons for being down, but for whatever reason, the constant vacillating on his state of mind, really just bores. That said, I found Dostoevsky's  Underground Man similarly irritating, and Notes from the Underground is considered to be one of his seminal short stories. In Way of Kings, even on page 600, Sanderson has Kal again teetering on the brink of his boring depression. Again. I don't have anything against depression, and for all I know the writer himself may have struggled with it, but it does not for concise story telling make, and Way of Kings would be a better book if it were about 200 pages shorter.

A beautiful illustration of Kaladin with Syl, by Dixon Leavitt, http://dixondoodles.blogspot.ca/2010/10/kaladin-meets-syl.html

Kaladin's history is told in increments through out the novel, culminating in the secret reveal in the last 100 pages. Several secrets revealed. One of which was worth it, the other of which, the reason for his depression, was, frankly not.

However, I am an optimist, and I do like Kaladin. And it was his story, not Shallan's, not Dalinar's that made me want to complete this novel.

Shallan's story, told in a different country of the same world was almost useless. I won't waste too much breath on Shallan. Much was made of her wit, by Sanderson, but to me, her wit was a slug-like thing next to the satirical utterances of Tyrion Lannister, or even Jaime Lannister. For some reason, Sanderson's editors at Tor (I love you darling people, so don't hate me for saying this) thought it was a good idea to keep the entire length of a poorly written essay by Shallan in the text of the book. It was not. It is a bad essay, and any non creative writing professor, and a few of them as well would have reduced it, and Shallan to shreds.

One neat note: I suspect Sanderson is an artist, because he describes the process of drawing, in so far as it works for me, very well. And all of the book's illustrations are quite good, though I haven't bothered to find out if they are his or not.

The other epic hero is Dalinar, who, interestingly is a much older man than usual in fantasy. He has to be about fifty, with a 20 year old son. That's good. As a man getting older myself, I find myself frustrated by the fact that say, all of Jordan's central characters are between the ages of 18 and 22.  Rand al'Thor frequently acts impossibly mature for his tender 22 years.  However, Dalinar suffers from the same problem that all of Sanderson's characters do, he's one dimensional.

You can get an idea of what I'm talking about from a casual sampling of his "extras". Sailors are crude but happy, blacksmiths are big and jolly, priests ingratiating, standard nobles are feckless, you get the picture. As I've written ad nauseum, tropes are a necessary part of writing, yet... It doesn't work for Sanderson. His characters are Saturday morning cartoon versions of what ought to be a made for HBO series.

Cliche: Sanderson is not a believer in the use of standard fantasy cliches. I don't have a problem with that necessarily. There are no dwarves or elves, and the magic, which I'll discuss in depth, seems to be original. However, as I've suggested, Sanderson's lack of character depth means that the central characters all rely on the bad sorts of cliches, the types that are unintentional and indicative of bad writing.

Sanderson breaks with standard cliches in the following ways. There seems to be no central awful evil one, not by the end of the first book at least. We know that there were, thousands of years ago, crazed beasts called the Voidbringers, which sounds a lot like the beasts that destroyed the land of the Never Ending Story, the Nothing. The races that populate this world, are nothing like the other races we have come to love, they are different colours, but carnival colours. Class and caste are determined by eye color. Size differences are slight, and poorly delineated. The biggest cliche that Sanderson dispenses with is the simple air and water his characters live on. The continent in which the action takes place, is like the ocean bed from The Little Mermaid. I kid, but Sanderson's imagination runs wild with this world. This was truly inspired. A funny example is that there are chickens in this world, but they are rare and exotic. People eat crustacheans only and grow seaweed from rock pods. Pretty neat, though it trends toward science fiction. 

A Warg from the Never Ending Story

As I wrote, Sanderson is invested in some cliches, standard story type cliches, thus sloppy writing cliches. It's one thing to call to mind a sailor with his lewd mouth and ruddy complexion, it's another thing to make him act like an after school special, version of himself. I think that's one way other writers successfully use cliches. The Belgariad's Durnik, was exactly the sort of man you'd expect to be a smith, as is Perrin from the Wheel of Time. Yet, each of these characters had a subtle sense of originality. durnik's heartbreaking devotion to Polgara, Perrin, slow to rage, yet given to his wolven nature of blood frenzy.

Speaking specifically about the story's main hero, Kaladin, SPOILER ALERT, I mentioned the Coming of Age cliche, and the Hero's Redemption, cliche. I think one of the greatest examples of the Hero's Redemption is Mad Mordigan from the film Willow, whose first appearance is having been locked in a cage and left to rot. The first time we meet Kal, he is a proud and strong soldier, a few years later he is an escaped slave, recaptured and bitter, but not broken. Gradually we see him enliven, and boy do I mean gradually.

Mad Martigan from Willow as we first see him, in chains like the scoundrel he is.

Another familiar cliche, The Am I Going Crazy cliche, is used for the story's older hero Dalinar, the old warrior who begins to have prophetic visions. I think this works rather well for Sanderson, even if it is somewhat tired, and the answer to the cliches question, is simply "no". When Jordan used the Am I Going Crazy Cliche in Lord of Chaos, it was to describe The emergence of Lews Therin Telamon in Rand Al'Thor's mind. Jordan showed his depth with that one, and the answer was much more complicated than simply yes or no. Still, the novel is already too long, and even more boring soul searching would have further dragged the novel down.

Scope: The best thing Way of Kings has going for it, are its magic and its scope. Little Mermaid with gigantic swords, is actually a great start to a story. And the book is full of interesting little details, for example, the female nobility of Alethkar, keep one hand, their "safe hand" hidden as is only proper for a lady of good breeding. Men and women have acceptable norms for behaviour. Men should study war and be fighters, women, should study music and reading and writing. In fact, men are intentionally illiterate, typically having their wives scribe for them, reading books aloud, or writing messages out for their husbands. I like this, not because I don't like equal rights in my fantasy, but because sexual dimorphism is a real thing. I am constantly surprised by the number of really powerful women fighters in Steven Erikson's novels, and he is an practicing anthropologist! I don't mind the idea of it, but if you have them, then they can't allbe thin wisps, most of them would have to be like Martin's Brienne of Tarth, big, or ugly, and literally built like a man. Swords are heavy, armour is even heavier.

The Maid of Tarth, played excellently by GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE, who happens actually to be quite pretty in real life.

But i digress, the scope of this planet is large, and you get the feeling that Sanderson spent considerable time developing it. that said, it isn't deliverd particularly skillfully. One of the things that made the world of the Wheel of Time so compelling, was that it started out small, in a small village called Emond's Field, far from anywhere else. But Jordan didn't declaim as Author, "the people of this subcontinent eat fillet of fish," or "the people of this continent only eat fried bugs," what we learned, we learned through the omniscient story telling voice of whatever characters were central at that time. The villagers of Emond's Field knew that far to the south, a city named Tear existed, but they wouldn't have been able to tell much more than that. Jordan made damn clear, almost annoyingly so by page 7000, that people learn by rumor, by word of mouth, and even the omniscient voice was frequently wrong about the facts.

Emond's Field, the cover of the Wheel of Time's first installment, The Eye of The World

All of which to say, Sanderson throws a lot at you at once. It is nice that the action takes place in several kingdoms at once (though I would have nixed Shallan as a character altogether) but, at this early early stage of the game, it's sort of unnecessary and distracting. The main story is about Kaladin, and that takes place on the Shattered Plains, where Chasm Fiends roam like giant lobsters. With flashbacks to his homeland, just over the border. Kaladins fellow slaves are from all over the world, and are thus incredibly diverse, showing just how much Sanderson has in store for us. And yet--I don't buy in.

A beautiful rendering of a Chasm Fiend, by Mighty5cent, and courtesy of http://bookswithoutanypictures.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/way-of-kings-readalong-part-iv/

It takes a singular talent to make new races, new peoples, and to introduce them in such a way as to hold to the reality of the world. Because that is what we are talking about ultimately with fantasy. The world bends or breaks the laws of Earth, and the Galaxy in general, but it must adhere to its own rules. Sanderson knows this, indeed a portion of essay on magic systems stems from observations bout internal consistencies. Sanderson is rigid about making sure his system works, and I commend his outstanding creativity.

The world of Way of Kings is truly ground breaking. Still, it might have been nice for him to explain some of its intricacies through the characters, and not through bland references to far away kingdoms and customs. A good example of this idiot tactic, is Kaladin's blithe reference to Corinne's slave rules.  I guess there is some nation named Corinne, or person, or state, where they've established laws that govern slavery.  While it is absolutely fascinating, and a worthy endeavor to detail such laws, that's not what Sanderson did, he threw this supposedly obscure reference in to add depth, I know its bad writing because I do it myself.  It just comes off as amateurish.  When Jordan does the same thing, a good example would be Birgitte Silverbow, who has lived countless lives as she is attached to the Wheel of Time as one of its greatest heroes.  She makes fun passing analogies, like, "Elayne's always looking down her nose like some Tovan Councilor."  But the context for Birgitte has been established, she has lived dozens of times, and each time she was born and died a member of a different nation, in a different land, it's only natural for her to mention names we've never heard of.  And, even better, Jordan will bring up those references, miniscule as they are, later when we find out hundreds of pages further along that a Tovan Councilor is a really snooty elder from a nation that died during the Trolloc Wars.  I sincerely doubt that we will ever see reference to the Corinne Rules again.  That is not to say he doesn't always get it right.  He did do a neat job with describing chicken. Naturally, these crustacean devouring Alethkari, think it the most exotic food, and, he even includes a random trading scene where chickens are acquired (somehow relevant to the plot, but I can't say how.)

image by quargon http://grand-fantasy.tumblr.com/post/36947495502/shardblade-concepts-by-quargon-conceptual-art-of

Magic: not to be out done by his own system of allomancy in the Mistborn saga, the Stormlight Archive, the proposed name for the saga Sanderson hopes will be his opus, uses several systems of magic. There are Sheardbearers, men who wield gigantic swords reminiscent of he blades from manga comics. The swords are magic and weigh little to their owners. I must say I enjoy this particular brand of magic, a child of Dungeon and Dragons, and Final Fantasy video games, I am much enamoured of magic swords, and they are not as common as you might think in contemporary fantasy. It was the openings scene of this novel, which I read in a Tor newsletter sample over two years ago that made me want to purchase this novel two begin with. That opening scene featured a dozen of these gigantic blades rammed into the ground after a megalithic battle. That opening had real promise, sadly, the book itself has not measured up to its glorious beginning.

But I digress again, there are other forms of magic: Stormlight, soul casting (which is creating matter out of thin air) and some power called Lashing, that uses Stormlight (Sanderson's source of Magic are these massive high storms that pass through every week or so. The power gathers in gems, which powerful people use to power their magic items). Lashing uses some of the facets of Allomancy, namely, the push me pull you method of moving. It is a singularly scientific manner of creating a system of magic, people who are flying aren't defying gravity, so much as using methods of force and trajectory, with the allocations of various elements. In Mistborn, allomancers use different kinds of metals to perform different actions, and the metal "burns" during use, such that it disappears. Because magic always has to have limits. Similarly, gems lose their light after infusing the caster with Stormlight.  Interesting that Sanderson's opus uses such a similar method of magic, Stormlight, as his last trilogy. It harkens to another fantasy cliche, Fire and Ice. In all final fantasy games, and in many manga epics, including Naruto, the earth is divided into elements that complement each other: fire and ice, earth and wind, lightning and water (much as that ancient Greek philosopher Thales did). I don't think this was intentional, but the magic system of Mistborn clearly was "earth" while the magic of Way of Kings, is "lightning". As I've said dozens of times, I see nothing wrong with the use of cliche. It enhances a story, it says without saying, implies without utterance.  In this case, I think it novel.

One of the things at which Sanderson excels, is his technical treatments of magic and battles. The second prologue in Way of Kings, (I call it a prologue, because it proceeds the main action of the story by five years, not because Sanderson designates it as such) has a fantastic scene during which a minor but pivotal character, the Assassin in White, is introduced. It is a phenomenal battle scene, and reminds me about of some of the battles in the science fiction epic, Enders Game, where gravity and perspective are thrown to the four winds. Good work Sanderson, good work.

Last...we have Theme. As usual it is the hardest to define, and the most important piece of the puzzle. Oftentimes, We know what we like, the second we see it. Sometimes, we have to do a thing, or see a thing many times before we know that. What is the difference? Does it matter? I knew I liked the Wheel of Time immediately. A song of Ice and Fire, (Game of Thrones) I hated at first, because I was young, and having my favourite characters killed was awful. But successive rereads over the years have made me love Game of Thrones dearly. I did not like Harry Potter at first,  I thought the writing childish and simplistic (and its teenie bopper lit, so that's not wrong) but the cleverness, and growth of the characters in successive books made it well worth it. I knew the second I cracked the cover of The Black Company that it was awesome.

 But where does Way of Kings fit in all of that? I look forward to the second book, published in a matter of days I believe. But... as you may have guessed, I'm not a Sanderson groupie. There is just something about the writing that puts me off. In Fires of Heaven, when Rand al'Thor stares off into the mountains and asks Asmodean if he knew what those distant ruins were, Asmodean shrugs and says he doesn't know, that the world has changed too much. But I believe Jordan knew. Or, if he did not, he could have fit those nameless ruins into his epic without upsetting the story, or world history. I do not have that same confidence with Sanderson. Nor did I with Goodkind.  If I had to define Sanderson's theme, it might be, I see him as a fantasy cover artist who had a gift with words, who can visualize and depict incredibly intricate worlds, but does not have the depth of a great game changing writer. And he definitely tries, there's enough, faux pholosophy and character analysis to indicate that if he could do it, he would have.  He is the John Grisham of his genre, that's not too cold I don't think. Grishams novels are vastly entertaining, and they will keep you on the edge of your seat, waiting to find out what happens next, but they won't educate you, they won't enlarge your experience, and they won't make you a better person. And sadly, I think that must be true of Way of Kings as well. Which is sad, because the title of the book is named after a book that was aimed at doing precisely that.