Hold onto your seats, it’s two reviews for the price of one! Which is to say, still free.
Verdict: The first two installments of a modern must-read fantasy series
In preparation for my review of Oathbringer, I’ll be reviewing the first two installments of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series. Sanderson starts things off with The Way of Kings, where we are introduced to the land of Roshar. The Knights of Radiance, who once protected Roshar, abandoned their oaths thousands of years prior to the start of the series. Highstorms sweep across the land, destroying everything but rock while infusing gemstones with magical energy. Most kingdoms in Roshar have a rigid class system, where nobility is based on eye color. One kingdom, Alethkar, wages an endless war against the Parshendi for assassinating the Alethi king.
Verdict: A must read
The Land Across by Gene Wolfe is narrated by an oddly passive young American who decides to write the first-ever travel guide for an unnamed European nation with a reputation for detaining foreign visitors. The narrator is arrested, has his passport confiscated, and is imprisoned. Out on day release, he encounters a haunted house and a mysterious man in black before being kidnapped to broadcast anti-government sentiment, and imprisoned again. He is released, and finds himself immersed in a conflict between disturbing supernatural forces and an authoritarian dictatorship. On the surface, The Land Across seems disjointed, bulging at the seams with everything from Vlad the Impaler to a charismatic dictator. Underneath, it is a searing political and provocative indictment of ignorance.
Verdict: Recommended
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson is set in an alternate, gearpunk imagining of the United States, where people with the ability to work magic through chalk drawings fight against wild chalklings—chalk creatures that kill humans. The story follows Joel, teenaged son of a cleaning lady, who does not possess the magical ability, called Rithmatics. That he was not chosen to receive the gift of Rithmatics is a sore spot for Joel, yet he manages to land an independent study at his school with a kindly Rithmatics professor, Fitch. After the mysterious disappearances of young Rithmatists, Fitch has Joel and his other student, Melody, help him unravel the case.
You hear this sentiment from literature lovers all the time, but not in so many words. They’re the ones who have read every modernist and post-modernist classic, though maybe they are lying about finishing Infinite Jest. When I tell them I read fantasy and sci-fi, they respond with an ominous “oh,” and that look, half distain and half dismay. Everyone knows, fantasy and sci-fi aren’t real literature, but poor pulpy substitutes.
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