Oathbringer

In "Neverending Stories," his piece for The Baffler's April issue, J.W. McCormick described Sanderson's writing as "supermarket fantasy." I didn't agree with that assessment until I tried to listen to Oathbringer, and in the process reevaluated The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance.

Oathbringer is the third tome in Sanderson's supposed opus, The Stormlight Archive. It took me two tries to finish. It's bland.

The more I learn about this world, the less interesting it is. And there is SO MUCH to learn that it overloads you. It all mixes together into this flavorless grey goop you gotta power through for FIFTY-FIVE HOURS.

The result is that I simply stopped caring about this world and these characters. I found myself pining for the simpler times of The Way of Kings, where the world was mysterious and the characters faced (for the most part) smaller challenges with personal stakes.

For example, in the first two books, Shadesmar is this eldritch horror parallel universe with some sort of mysterious connection to the real world. Shallan's connection to it is scary and actively dangerous; it's a good parallel to her own fish-out-of-water journey.

In this book, the mystery around Shadesmar dissipates. You find out it works like the real world. They've got cities. They trade. They have prejudice. It's just another version of the real world. This could work thematically! But Sanderson isn't able to draw the throughline here.

There are also twists that you can see from a mile away. And humor I can only describe as "Reddit." I am OK with these things if the story and characters are interesting. But they aren't.

What's frustrating is that the bones are decent. Shallan is trying to find out who she is, Dalinar is dealing with grief and addiction, and Kaladin is learning to accept the help of others.

But the plot is muddied by side character POVs, new magic systems, and what I think is supposed to be political intrigue but is just boring, predictable conversations. And (this is a pet peeve of mine) all the nations are stereotypes. One does trade, one does bureaucracy, one does military, and so on. It's just... not interesting.

The ending picks up quite a bit, to be fair. But the battles amount to Sanderson mashing action figures together.

Pow! Take that! Oof....Oh no! The hero is on the ropes. What'll they do? Here comes his friend from out of nowhere! And and and now his friend can shoot a cool super magical bow that no one else can. Pew pew. Take that! But oh no the bad guy is standing up again!!!

Not sure I'll continue with this series. I may after a break, though.

Related:

• The Way of Kings
• Words of Radiance