Reading Update
Nov. 18th, 2022 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annavereCurrently reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, lent to me by a coworker, guaranteeing easy conversation for weeks to come. I'm about a quarter in and have never read Sanderson before, though I've heard much applause over the years.
Things I like, so far:
The premise, which combines an Ocean's Eleven plot with a slightly post-apocalyptic variant on epic fantasy with unexpected hints of steampunk. Heist stories are almost always fun, and the mix of genres is entertaining on the face of it.
The character introductions. This is so far Sanderson's strong suit. He introduced over a dozen characters in a handful of scenes and I only had to page back once to refresh myself on who was who. He has the ability to zero in on precisely what a reader will find memorable and build from there. The heroine Vin's seeming character arc (learning to trust other people) appears solid, and the dialogue rarely reads like exposition. It helps that the time-honored "outsider comes into magical power" cliche is alive and well, so Vin gets explanations alongside the reader.
Things I'm not wild about, so far:
Sanderson's writing style. This guy is not much of a prose stylist at all. I would say it reads like a YA novel, except I don't like that kind of generalization (many remarkable stylists have written for teens and children). The plot definitely reads like a YA fantasy, which makes the included violence feel a tad juvenile, but I figure the tone might even out as the book progresses.
Sanderson's celebrated system of magic, in which there are hard rules for everything, and it all makes perfect sense. It's exactly like a video game - press X to do Y, which will happen every time unless your supply of Y is low, in which case go hunting for power ups. Magic is neither mysterious, miraculous nor attached to any kind of morality (power corrupts, magic is not a toy, etc). The video game element is even driven home in the book's first big action scene, in which translucent lines appear around the user, offering a multitude of selections to choose from.
However, I can at least feel safe in that Sanderson's ending for this particular book is likely to be concrete and make sense based on everything established beforehand (unlike the acid-trip dream sequences that tend to fly out of nowhere in, say, Robin McKinley's stylistically superior Damar novels). So like all things, it's a trade off.
Lastly, the action. Rebel visionary Kelsier kills ten men during his first battle scene, and during the course of it he uses magic to be super strong, super fast and with heightened senses so that no matter how injured he gets over the course of the battle, he's basically a superhero who can shrug it off and keep going - which, okay, fine. It's not really where my interest lies, but maybe I'm overthinking this.
Things I like, so far:
The premise, which combines an Ocean's Eleven plot with a slightly post-apocalyptic variant on epic fantasy with unexpected hints of steampunk. Heist stories are almost always fun, and the mix of genres is entertaining on the face of it.
The character introductions. This is so far Sanderson's strong suit. He introduced over a dozen characters in a handful of scenes and I only had to page back once to refresh myself on who was who. He has the ability to zero in on precisely what a reader will find memorable and build from there. The heroine Vin's seeming character arc (learning to trust other people) appears solid, and the dialogue rarely reads like exposition. It helps that the time-honored "outsider comes into magical power" cliche is alive and well, so Vin gets explanations alongside the reader.
Things I'm not wild about, so far:
Sanderson's writing style. This guy is not much of a prose stylist at all. I would say it reads like a YA novel, except I don't like that kind of generalization (many remarkable stylists have written for teens and children). The plot definitely reads like a YA fantasy, which makes the included violence feel a tad juvenile, but I figure the tone might even out as the book progresses.
Sanderson's celebrated system of magic, in which there are hard rules for everything, and it all makes perfect sense. It's exactly like a video game - press X to do Y, which will happen every time unless your supply of Y is low, in which case go hunting for power ups. Magic is neither mysterious, miraculous nor attached to any kind of morality (power corrupts, magic is not a toy, etc). The video game element is even driven home in the book's first big action scene, in which translucent lines appear around the user, offering a multitude of selections to choose from.
However, I can at least feel safe in that Sanderson's ending for this particular book is likely to be concrete and make sense based on everything established beforehand (unlike the acid-trip dream sequences that tend to fly out of nowhere in, say, Robin McKinley's stylistically superior Damar novels). So like all things, it's a trade off.
Lastly, the action. Rebel visionary Kelsier kills ten men during his first battle scene, and during the course of it he uses magic to be super strong, super fast and with heightened senses so that no matter how injured he gets over the course of the battle, he's basically a superhero who can shrug it off and keep going - which, okay, fine. It's not really where my interest lies, but maybe I'm overthinking this.
