StanleyWheeler

Oathbringer is Sanderson's third book in the Stormlight Archive series following The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. The file size on this e-book is gargantuan. It is listed at 1220 pages. TWoK weighed in at 1009 pages, and WoR tipped the scales at 1088 pages. That's just over 3300 pages to get to this point.What is this point? I don't know, but this series isn't over; this isn't a trilogy. Let me point out that Sanderson has chosen the word "archive" to describe this series. Merriam-Websters indicates that "library" is a synonym for "archive." Are you starting to get a sense of my feelings about this? I understand that there are ten volumes planned.

Let me praise where praise is due. Sanderson is a brilliant writer. Oathbringer has received over 2,000 reviews and has a 4.5 star rating on the big river site. My praise is as but one simple bead in the vast sea of Shadesmar, and I'm certain that my criticism will pass with as much notice.

In TWoK we met Kaladin, the slave, the bridge man. His story was extremely compelling. We met many other characters but Kaladin and Syl bound the tale together for me. Cool things like Shardblades and Shardplate added to the excitement and the transcendent awesomeness of the epic, filling our hearts with anticipation like gems with stormlight from a highstorm. In WoR, more of the focus went to Shallan whom I'll simply describe as a hot mess because the mess is too tangled to attempt to unravel or explain in a short review--and also because I have limited memory and I can't remember all of the details of her story which, while not as compelling as Kaladin's, nevertheless interested me throughout the second book. We learned more about Dalinar Kholin as he rocked the battlefield in Shardplate and smote hip and thigh with the Shardblade. Meanwhile, Kaladin's character arc continued with ups and downs that made us leap for joy one minute and pound our faces on the table in frustrated agony the next. In a word, or several: The story remained fabulous, like nothing that I had ever before read.

After finishing WoR, I became patient. At last my patience brought forth fruit and I found Oathbringer on sale. I think I got it for $1.99 or $2.99. Although I didn't want to wait to return to the awesomeness of Roshar, I did wait because I needed to be ready--ready to dive into the storm and commit to riding it through to the end. Having ridden the storm, I may not return to Roshar to visit Alethkar and Jah Keved and the other locations. You may ask: Why, after over 3300 pages, why would I abandon Sanderson's epic, awesome, high fantasy?

Let me explain. I have no patience for books that become a labor to read. There's a great story in Oathbringer, and it could have been well told in about 500 pages. The story left Kaladin on the fringes and focused on Shallan and Dalinar. Shallan became less interesting as she consumed more of the story. I grew fatigued with the memories and flashbacks, visions that made no sense, and characters and places who required a lot of time and attention but who didn't add to the enjoyment of the story--it was Heart of Darkness-boring at times and several times longer to slog through--the toils along the Congo were like an office party birthday lunch compared to this. I don't think that reading about a difficult experience should be as difficult and distasteful as the experience itself. It is likely that many of these places and things that drove away my original delight in the tale will eventually be crucially important. However, I'm not going to remember them. I can't remember a lot from the first, the second, or even this third book at this point--how am I going to remember this stuff ten thousand more pages into the future with all of the new stuff that comes with those ten thousand pages? I'm not.

Although several things bothered me, when the story finally became an Avenger's movie, I was thinking, "Just hit me in the head with the shovel and push me into the grave." Seriously, almost everybody gets to be a superhero and they have to fight the enemy superheroes. The fight goes on forever and then some. (I must confess that I believe a lot of readers probably enjoyed that part of the book as the payoff, the big conclusion for the third act--so I'm in a minority here.) When the epic fantasy becomes a comic book, I'm out. I can only imagine that someone is reading this saying, "What do you want? First it's too boring, and then it's too exciting? Pick a theme for your dissatisfaction and stick with it. The story can't be both too boring and too exciting!" That's a valid criticism of my criticism only if you have misunderstood my point. What I mean is that there are too many long, tiresome descriptions and stories that drag down the pace and which could have been omitted or explained in less detail. While the end is exciting, the degeneration into a comic book battle among superheroes, even told with Sanderson's usual skill and brilliance, isn't the destination for which that I signed up when I started the book. Movies and books that become all about the special effects are like carnival rides that won't stop--a little bit is fun but too much makes you wish that you hadn't enjoyed the fried foods and fountain drinks along the midway quite so much, because you're not enjoying them now--and you're about to share them with everyone. To put it another way: It's like bluegrass music or bagpipe playing--a little bit of it goes a long way to scratching a certain itch, but too much gives the kind of road rash that comes with laying down the Honda on the interstate while wearing only your swim trunks.

Don't take my word for it, read it and decide for yourself.