Tag Archives: Brandon Sanderson

Book Review

Review: Skyward

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Skyward

by Brandon Sanderson

Reviewed by JMD Reid

It’s hard being the daughter of a coward.

Spensa, a young girl living on an alien planet, wants to be a pilot like her father. An alien race known as the Krell have driven Spensa and her people to Detritus, a planet far from Earth. Three generations back, their spaceship crash-landed here while the incredible orbital debris keeps them pinned on the planet. As a child, her father was among the first to fight back.

Only in the middle of a pivotal battle, he fled.

Living with the stigma of his cowardice, Spensa wants to prove her own worth. She wants to be a pilot like him, but will her society let her? While they espouse equality and merit, will she ever truly be allowed to fight to protect her people?

Skyward is about a young woman struggling to get out from the shadow of her father. It’s a story about pain and loss, hope and duty. It’s a story about the resilience of the human spirit in the worst of circumstances, a tale of belief and faith. Is Spensa like her father? Will she be a coward, too?

Or can she make her own destiny?

This was a fast-paced and engrossing story. Sanderson has penned another excellent tale, this time in the science-fiction universe. It’s not the hardest science, the technology is never explained, but it’s well-written. It’s full of great characters and powerful emotions.

This is a must-read for fans of Sanderson and good stories alike!

You can buy Snapshot from Amazon!

Book Review

Review: Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

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Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

by Brandon Sanderson

Reviewed by JMD Reid

Oathbringer starts up right where Words of Radiance left off. The Everstorm ravages across Roshar. The Knights Radiance need to unite the nations of the world the face this new threat. But Dalinar, the new leader of the Knights Radiance, has a dark and troubled past. In his youth, fighting to help his brother conquer the nation of Alethkar, he committed many acts of wanton destruction.

How can the peoples of the world trust a man with such a bloodied past?

As Dalinar seeks to unite, Shalan has to deal with her fractured psyche. As she delves into her illusionary powers, and creates new identities with which to spy, who she truly is becomes harder and harder for her to recognize. But Shalan cannot afford to fall apart. Not when the world itself is at stake. And Kaladin will have to learn a valuable lesson of his own, that tries he might he cannot protect everyone.

Sanderson has delivered another epic door stopper to enthrall fans of epic fantasy. Oathbringer brings to life the characters of the world of Roshar telling us into the past of Dalinar. The characters are tested like never before as a struggle against the ultimate enemy of their world, a being of immense power and malevolent designs.

For fans of epic fantasy, Sanderson once again shows why he is one of the modern masters of the genre. Oathbringer is a book that gripped you from beginning to end, letting you live in the characters heads, and bring them to life. This is a must-read book for all fans of fantasy. I can’t wait for the next exciting volume of the series.

You can buy Snapshot from Amazon!

Book Review

Review: Snapshot

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Snapshot

by Brandon Sanderson

Reviewed by JMD Reid

Davis and Chaz are two detectives assigned to a very unusual division: the Snapshot division. Thanks to some sort of flobltinum, a psychic being can accurately recreate any day in the past. Davis and Chaz’s jobs are simple: to enter the snapshot and confirm details of crimes that have already happened to ensure the bad guys are caught.

Only catch, they have to keep their actions from altering the recreation. Everything they do has consequences, creates divergences. If they do too much, they might never figure out what happened. And today, the stakes have never been higher.

They have a chance to catch a serial killer who’s doing all he can to evade the Snapshot program.

This short story is why I love Brandon Sanderson. He is always coming up with new and exciting stories to read. He’s not locked into one fantasy universe or even one genre. He’ll write in them all to share his imagination with us.

And Snapshot is no different. This time, he delves into the murder mystery with his own style. He’s put that Brandon Sanderson spin on this tale and makes it wonderful. This is a great one that will keep you reading through its various twist and turns.

For fans of speculative fiction, this novella is a must read!

You can buy Snapshot from Amazon!

Book Review

Review: Words of Radiance

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Words of Radiance

by Brandon Sanderson

Reviewed by JMD Reid

Sanderson picks up the story where Way of Kings left off. Shallan, now awakened to her powers as a prospective Knight Radiant, must remember the truth of her broken family and tear away the lies she tells herself to keep her mind sane.

On the Shattered Plains, Kaladin has to adjust to his new life. No longer a slave, he’s now an officer in Dalinar’s army, charged with protecting the Highlord and his family. But his old wounds suffered at the hands of the nobility threaten to destroy his soul and shatter his bond with the spren Slyphrenia.

And Dalinar himself needs to unite his people because the Everstorm approaches. Time is running out. The warrior must become the statesmen and overcome the plotitng of his once friend now turned bitter rival, Sadeas.

If you thought Way of Kings was an amazing book, then prepare yourself for Words of Radiance. From the abusive past that has shaped Shallan into the damaged, young woman to Kaladin’s struggle to understand what it means to be a Windrunner and the power that is found in oaths he has sworn. The characters struggle against the circumstances of the world as day-by-day a disaster looms, a growing dread swells over the narrative.

Sanderson brings us back to Roshar, expanding the world even more and peeling back more of the layers. His writing is dense and packed with character growth. Ups and downs befall our characters as they all struggle against the world. This is epic fantasy at its best. This is the sort of fiction that can ignite the imagination.

The Stormlight Archive only gets better.

You can buy Words of Radiance from Amazon!

Book Review

Review: The Way of Kings

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The Way of Kings

by Brandon Sanderson

Reviewed by JMD Reid

On the world of Roshar, the Heralds sent by the Almighty to guide mankind in their war against a great enemy have survived the war. Most of them. For the first time ever, they don’t have to return to Hell to be tortured. They could give it all up. They could life to mankind and tell them they won. The evil has been defeated.

4500 years later, the Heralds are myths. Their great lie has become a religion. Their magic lost to time, their followers reviled as traitors who failed to live up to the Herald’s name. But those followers, the Knights Radiant, are needed once more. For the great enemy stirs once again.

I know, it sounds like your typical epic Fantasy setup. But this one is so different. Brandon Sanderson has created a wealth of characters, all broken in someway, all needing something to change int hier lives. From Kaladin, the son of a doctor and once a highly respected soldier now sold into slavery and contemplating suicide, to Shallan, the daughter of a minor noble house plotting to steal from one of the most powerful women in the world to save her family. On the Shattered Plains, Dalinar receives cryptic visions as he struggles how to hold his dead brother’s fractious kingdom while feeling guilt for the crimes he committed in the past.

For letting his brother be murdered while he lay passed out drunk at a feast.

Sanderson brings to life the alien world of Roshar. A world where humans are interlopers, struggling to survive in a world wracked by storms that make our worst hurricanes look like spring squalls. Sanderson’s growth as a writer is on full display in this epic series as he writes something to rival the greats in this genre.

If you’re a fan of epic fantasy, this is a series you have to read. It is creative, full of believable characters who struggle and suffer and fight for a better life. You’ll find yourself rooting for them as Sanderson unveils his complex story layer by layer, peeling it back as he slowly guides you deeper and deeper into the mystery of his universe.

You can buy The Way of Kings from Amazon!

Book Review

Review of Mistborn: Secret History

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Mistborn: Secret History

by Brandon Sanderson

Reviewed by JMD Reid

B01B0NS93U.01.LZZZZZZZSPOILER WARNING: Just reading this review will spoil major events of the original Mistborn Trilogy. If you haven’t read those amazing books, stop reading this review, buy them, and discover the awe-inspiring world of Scadriel that Brandon has created.

I am really serious.

This review will totally spoil and ruin those books.

Last chance…

Okay, here we go. This novella came out of nowhere for me. I hadn’t heard it was coming out (of course, I am not the best at staying current on books). I knew Bands of Mourning was coming out and I was shocked when I got to the end there was a note from Brandon revealing the existence of the untold story of the original Mistborn series. That’s not surprisng. If you’ve read the trillogy there were hints of stuff going on behind the metaphysical scenes.

This story lays it out. What happened after Kelsier died? Well, first off he punched god. And by god, I mean Preservation, one of the Shards of Adolnasium that inabits Scadriel. In dying, Kelsier discovers an entirely new world. He learns just how small Scadriel is in the process, and he works behind the scenes to ensure that our heroes victory at the end of the series against Ruin can happen.

There were hints, but to see it laid out was exciting and emotional. To get to see Kelsier struggle to help his friends from beyond the grave was poignant. He is the Survivor, and he never gave up. This Novella shed light on a lot of the strange events that hapepned and even gave new context to things I thought I had understood (like the first time Preservation tried to stab Elend or why Vin avoided talking to Hoid).

This book also did more to shed light on the greater Cosmere than any previous published story. The curtain has been pulled back, and we are getting glimpses of the larger universe that has better things to do then worry about one little planet. I drank this book up. It was wonderful to see all the characters one last time, to have one more chance to say goodbye to them. Fans of the Cosmere, this novella is a must read.

Bands of Mourning is available from Amazon.

Book Review

Review: Bands of Mourning

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Bands of Mourning

by Brandon Sanderson

Reviewed by JMD Reid

B00R697BC8.01.LZZZZZZZIt is the day of Wax and Steris’s wedding, and he is not ready to remarry. The wounds of being forced to kill his first wife for the second time still haunts Wax. His marriage to Sterris is one of political and economic necessity. But Wax has promised to marry her, and he will grit his teeth and get through the ceremony.

Of course, nothing ever goes right around Wax. When a kandra shows up needing Wax’s help and the nearby water tower collapses and floods the church in the middle of the ceremony, another adventur has begun. In New Seran, a kandra has almost been killed after coming across the location of the Lord Rulers bracers, the Bands of Mourning. Reputed to be the source of the Lord Rulers inhuman powers, they are coveted by all, including Wax’s devious uncle and the nefarious group he works for.

Not wanting to help Harmony and the kandra after their betrayal, but unable to resist the urge to hunt his uncle down and recover his kidnap sister, Wax joins the group. Accompanied by his disreputable friend Wayne, the intrepid constable Marsai, his fiancee Steris, and the kandra MeLaan, Wax heads off on an adventure that will change everything for the people of Elendel.

Bands of Mourning was a rollercoaster ride. Brandon weaves almost every pulp story in existence into this tale from Westerns (including a classic train robbery), detective story, and more (I don’t want to spoil this one). Wax and his group have never faced such danger as they try to dicover what the mysterious Set, the shadowy organization bent seizing power in Elendel. The characters have grown and changed, but Steris really shines. In Alloy of Law I did not like her. I wanted Wax to end up with Marsai. But the last two books, especially this one, shows just how great a match she is for Wax.

But there’s more than just Wax’s love life in this book. So much happens. Just when you thought you understood how Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy works, Brandon throws curve balls. MeLaan and Wayne continue to entertain, and it’s great seeing how far Marsai has come from the first book where she blushed at everything (though she does have her occasional blush).

The stakes only grow higher in this book, setting the stage for the final book in the Mistborn Era 2 series, The Last Metal. This book packed some emotional wallops. There were times I was at the edge of my seat, my stomach twisting in disbelief at what was happening.

If you’re a fan of Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn, and the Cosmere, you will eat this book up. And if you’ve never read Brandon Sanderson, you are missing out. Pick up the first Mistborn book (this is not the place to start) and fall in love with one of the modern masters of Fantasy.

Bands of Mourning is available from Amazon.