Edgedancer

Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson is a novella in the epic fantasy series The Stormlight Archive, set between its volumes two and three. Its protagonist is Lift who we already met in an interlude of Words of Radiance. Sanderson felt Lift needed a longer introduction before she becomes more important in the series.

Edgedancer begins with the very same interlude chapter from Words. I found it a bit odd to have the same exact words printed in another book. I guess it needed the pages to justify the hardcover print.

The novella has a bit over 40k words which makes it almost the size of a small novel. The definition of novella is vague but I looked up what different award giving organizations have set as word count limit for novellas and it seems 40k is the highest they allow. Thus Edgedancer could just fit in but the other novella in the series, Dawnshard, with its 56k words would not.

Sanderson has said he's not good with short form stories but at least this novella-size story was entertaining enough. I however do not like the protagonist. Lift's vocabulary seems out of place, like from a current day real life setting or a Marvel movie, and I dislike her dismissiveness for things she has decided to not like.

I find her method of powering her abilities by metabolizing food to be silly as well. It feels a bit too childish for me, just a bit too non-serious like it was from an Artemis Fowl book or something. Allomancers burning metals in Mistborn I thought a better concept, for instance. Lift's powers are cool though: being able to become frictionless is interesting.