Toivo's Thoughts

I've always had a bit of a suspicious relationship with Hearne's urban fantasy. The protagonist of the Iron Druid series was rather a jerk, which frequently made it hard to root for him — even if it appears that Hearne was playing the long game and had his misdeeds result in consequences.

Ink & Sigil, while set in the same world, has a new protagonist, a sigil agent, a human given the power of crafting special sigils with special inks by Brigid (the First among the Fae), partly to take up the slack from the aforementioned irresponsible druid. Very much inspired both by Taoist Fulu and Celtic sigils, the protagonist can work limited magic by drawing a sigil on paper, and then having the subject look at it. However, aside from having to possess the knowledge of crafting the sigils in the first place, they only work if done with special inks particular to a given sigil, so there's a good dose of alchemy involved as well. This specific combination is something I haven't encountered in urban fantasy before.

The plot arc was decent, with a definite peak towards the end which kept me glued to the Kindle turning pages, though it wouldn't have been enough to keep me up at bedtime. Nonetheless, a perfectly well crafted story and dramatic structure.

The setting — while in the Iron Druid world, this story is specifically set in Glasgow, and Hearne relishes in the Scottish dialect and colorful language, as seen by an outsider. With his usual over-the-top approach and frequently rather immature humor, there's just so much energy and clear love that concerns about coming across as a caricatured stereotype didn't linger long in my mind. So yes, the vocabulary is very colorful and refreshing, the characters are drawn with very vivid colors, and there's plenty of opportunity for Hearne to name drop locations, drinks, fountain pens and whatnot.

Another refreshing change is that he protagonist is an elderly gentleman, though one who isn't completely clueless about modern things — and while I'm not as old as the character, it is always hard for me to imagine that we are starting to have many an elderly grown-up who grew up with nerdy and geeky stuff, so having an elderly Glaswegian printer know about Magic the Gathering really isn't nearly as incongruous as one might at first blush think.

Very little is left to imagination about the author's view of social issues and the current politics in the US through some comments the characters make. There is an effort to draw a parallel between the supernatural crimes happening and real-world issues, so overall there's a pinch of social activism involved, but if anything, I appreciate this.

Finally, the book does not require knowledge of the Iron Druid series, and it neatly tells a tale of an adventure which is tied up by the end of the book, although it clearly leaves plenty of opportunity for recurring characters and longer story arcs as well.

The way of Kings is an epic fantasy novel, the first part in a series that, according to Wikipedia, might be ten books long; no other books in the series are out yet. It stands reasonably well on its own, plot-wise, so the serialization shouldn't necessarily put you off. The first novel, at least, is quite long. I read it on a Kindle, and in this particular case a print version might be better; there are maps and drawings that did not reproduce well on the e-ink screen.

The book is a bit confusing at first; there's a time-shift, and a number of separate characters and threads are introduced. Some of them also keep switching to historical flashbacks for extra complexity. The world is pretty unique — broadly fantasy medieval, but the cultures, animals, geography, plants and indeed the entire cosmology are different from our world. This could be risky, but in the end I felt like Sanderson did a good job at making this alien world seem real, and stimulated my imagination in trying to envision the various things described.

The world, and plot, are deep and multi-layered. The first novel generally just introduces the reader to the tapestry, and few of the story threads are concluded or secrets revealed. For whatever it's worth, this didn't bother me as much as I would've expected. The characters remain a little artificial, but interesting. There's a main protagonist of sorts, and the story follows his trials and tribulations. There is a lot of death and misery, but unlike in Robin Hobb's books, there is a point to it, and the characters grow through the story. Still, in balance, it feels at times like a bit of an angst-fest, though of course the fate of the world hangs in balance. The story runs well, and I wasn't tempted to skim.

This all sounds somewhat non-committal, but I actually really liked the book. Whereas Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles are exquisitely crafted, down to every word, the Stormlight Archive is in too much of a hurry with too much to tell to spend that much attention on everything. And yet, when I speak of one I instinctively contrast it with the other. There's just something properly epic in The Way of Kings to elevate it to a level above your run of the mill fantasy novel. Sanderson has set himself some ambitious goals, and he delivers.

If you like your fantasy epic, if you love complex and unique new worlds and magic, if you enjoy the clash of armies and the fight between good and evil, I can easily recommend The Way of Kings. Personally, I'm going to rate it four out of five.

Oh. Turns out that this Sanderson fellow wrote the final book in the Wheel of Time series, except that his book ended up published in three volumes. That explained a lot.