The world of Roshar thought it had survived its great cataclysm four millennia ago, but days are slowly counting down for when the next Desolation begins.  Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy series’ second installment, World of Radiance, brings numerous characters together in the middle of the Shattered Plains as Roshar faces the beginning of the apocalypse as well the rebirth of it’s great heroic warriors that fought to save life.

Although the four main characters are once again front and center, but unlike the previous The Way of Kings it is Shallan Davar who dominates the majority of the book’s narrative either through her own point-of-view, flashbacks, or through the eyes of other major characters.  Shallan and Jasnah are headed to the Shattered Plains by ship when it is attacked, Jasnah murdered, and Shallan dissolves the ship to save the crew and herself using her recently discovered Radiant abilities.  Shallan continues to learn her new abilities as she travels through the Frostlands towards the Shattered Plain meeting several interesting people including Kaladin and the ringleader of Jasnah’s killers then takes her place as the agent of the group that killed her to learn what they know of the things Jasnah has been studying.  Once at the warcamps, Shallan juggles multiple balls that eventually leads her out into the Plains at a critical moment to save the Atheli army.

Kaladin, Dalinar, and Adolin take up the vast majority of the rest of the book, essentially interacting a lot with one another or with Shallan once she gets to the camps.  Kaladin’s is the major secondary arc of the book as he transforms the bridge crews into a guard force to protect Dalinar and his family while also continuing to deal with his issues with lighteyes and the responsibilities of his Radiant powers.  Using his new position as Highprince of War, Dalinar along with Adolin attempt to combat the political intrigue of Sadeas and attempt to end the war either through peace or crushing the Parshendi in battle.  Interlaced throughout the book are interludes that were dominated by the Parshendi general Eshonai and the Assasin in White, Szeth, whose own arcs help give an epic feel to the overall story while adding to the book’s main narrative flow.

While the length of The Way of Kings and the repetitive descriptions during scenes were my main complaint, Sanderson’s Words of Radiance were and wasn’t the same.  The length of the second book is something to give pause (1300+ pages), the repetitive descriptions during the same scenes were cut out and narrative replaced it.  Honestly, with more narrative then descriptions the length of the book becomes less noticeable especially once you’re a quarter of the way through the book but it’s always in the back of your mind.

Overall Words of Radiance is a very good book, building upon and improving over its predecessor and setting up anticipating for the read to see where Brandon Sanderson is going to take this series next.

When I was younger, I used to challenge myself by checking out the longest fiction books in the library and see if I could finish reading them before the due date. Figured I'd get back into the habit now that I have several months of free time left on my hands before heading off to law school.

I know absolutely nothing about this author or series. Ought to be fun!

This was very much my cup of tea. Strong world building where despite the presence of magic there seemed an almost science fiction tint to it all, where you could see a scientific rationale. Stronger in that regard than say GRR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, but not as striking as in Pullman's His Dark Materials. As with GRR Martin this is rather epic in both geographic scope and number of characters, and written in a third person limited rotating point of view. Sanderson so far doesn't seem quite as ruthless to his characters, but you feel insecure enough at least to feel considerable suspense. And I cared about his characters, Kaladin and Shallan--and both grow in this book in unexpected ways both internal and external. There's a moral complexity here where characters don't fall too neatly into good versus evil. There are strong female characters that don't fall into stereotypes and some interesting twists on the usual gender roles. Despite its length though it's tighter than Martin's book. There's no flab and it all seems like it's going somewhere. I feel this is even stronger than the opening book in the trilogy. My only gripe is now it's over, the third book isn't published yet and I'll have to wait. I haven't read his more famous Mistborn series--yet. But I may have a new favorite author.

This was very much my cup of tea. Strong world building where despite the presence of magic there seemed an almost science fiction tint to it all, where you could see a scientific rationale. Stronger in that regard than say GRR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, but not as striking as in Pullman's His Dark Materials. As with GRR Martin this is rather epic in both geographic scope and number of characters, and written in a third person limited rotating point of view. Sanderson so far doesn't seem quite as ruthless to his characters, but you feel insecure enough at least to feel considerable suspense. And I cared about his characters, Kaladin and Shallan--and both grow in this book in unexpected ways both internal and external. There's a moral complexity here where characters don't fall too neatly into good versus evil. There are strong female characters that don't fall into stereotypes and some interesting twists on the usual gender roles. Despite its length though it's tighter than Martin's book. There's no flab and it all seems like it's going somewhere. I feel this is even stronger than the opening book in the trilogy. My only gripe is now it's over, the third book isn't published yet and I'll have to wait. I haven't read his more famous Mistborn series--yet. But I may have a new favorite author.

Sometimes it takes me a while to gain momentum reading a book, but not the case with this one.  I was supposed to be reading something else, in fact, but I thought I'd just peak at it. And then I was hooked.  It picks up right where The Way of Kings leaves off, without slowing down.  There was a little bit of rehashing but he didn't let it bog things down too much.  Do people really pick up middle books in series often enough for this to be necessary?  I've heard people say that books in a series should be able to stand on their own, but that has never been a concern of mine at all.  Plenty of great series can be counted as essentially one book, most famous example being Lord of the Rings.

This book focused on Shallan's past, as the previous one focused on Kaladin's.  Shallan's history was more heartbreaking than Kaladin's, to me.  I had some ideas and guesses about it, but the story still managed to surprise me.  Several completely unexpected events happened in this book, and I'm very interested in seeing what the ramifications of them will be.

I don't think this is a huge spoiler, but it's a minor one.  I'm going to compare this, favorably, against Song of Ice and Fire at this point, in which characters spend entire books headed somewhere but never arrive, where fans wait for a payoff, to see certain characters meet, and it never happens.  People get places in this book.  People meet and it is awesome.

There were some frustrations in this book for me.  I felt like Kaladin spent the majority of the book being stupid.  I knew he was bound to eventually stop, but it was frustrating waiting for him to come around to his senses.  I'm not sure about some of Shallan's choices either, for that matter, but I can't say for sure that she's wrong.  She just makes a lot of decisions that make me very nervous for her.  

The end of this book felt a little cheesy.  Very high powered.  Some people would not like this, I think.  I'm ambivalent about it, but I consider the series well worth it for the complex cast of characters and their development.