Words of Radiance

It took me almost half a year to read Words of Radiance, the second book of The Stormlight Archive. That's not entirely because of the novel; I was simply doing other stuff for entertainment (mostly playing games). However, there is definitely a good two to three hundred page section that I found outright boring. Only when someone else reserved the library book (or books -- a two-volume Gollancz print again), meaning I had to return it finally, I managed to power through it.

The dull part of Words of Radiance lasts basically the duration of Shallan Davar making her way to the Shattered Plains. She's not the only viewpoint and there are action scenes for her and others but the overall plot is crawling. Kaladin and others at the Shattered Plains are following a very samey routine of fighting the Parshendi.

Slowly the novel builds up to a very typical Brandon Sanderson ending -- it almost makes up for the slow pace. There are a lot of plot revelations and flashy action: characters unlocking their powers.

I like the world of the novels but I feel there should be more full-time viewpoints to get a better view of things and to give story a bigger stage -- assuming it will span the whole world. The brief viewpoints during the interludes did feel less detached than in The Way of Kings though.

This is bit of a spoiler -- warning -- but early on in the novel when Shallan's mentor, Jasnah Kholin dies, I was amused by recalling how Sanderson has been asked how does one write a character with a different belief system (atheism). He has a video or two on Youtube where he answers the question -- and I don't remember what his answer was -- but I guess his solution is to just kill them off. I thought it had been highly suspect how Jasnah went off to kill some muggers in The Way of Kings immediately after she had told to not believe in whatever gods people usually do. To me it came off as a religious person's simplistic view that morals come from religion and belief into a higher power.

I will continue reading the series but I definitely wasn't as impressed by Words of Radiance as the consensus seems to be.