Bookish Thoughts

After slogging my way through a few denser books, it was nice to take a break with a collection of Sanderson's shorter fiction. I'd forgotten how readable he is, and I was surprised by how quickly these stories went by. So surprised that I ended up dragging the book out over a few more weeks just so I could keep reading it. Luckily that's easier to do with short fiction. There were a couple of stories in here ( The Emperor's Soul  and Mistborn: Secret History ) that I'd been wanting to read for a while, but never quite enough to pay $15 for a novella. So I was glad that Sanderson decided to release all his Cosmere short fiction (of which there is a surprising amount) in a single collection. In addition to the stories, there's some background information about the Cosmere that stitches everything together. As Sanderson promises, there are answers about the background story in this collection - just enough to start raising some really interesting questions. Th...

Brandon Sanderson's first publish novel, Elantris , starts out a little slow. It was enjoyable, it just took me a while to really get into it and become invested in the characters. But it picks up speed admirably. I hit a point where I didn't want to continue reading so much as instantly ingest the final 150 pages so I wouldn't have to live in suspense anymore. I started carrying the book with me everywhere, sneaking extra paragraphs on my way to the kitchen or while I was waiting for data to load.  Elantris was the city of the gods until suddenly it wasn't. Ten years before the book starts, the city becomes cursed and the god-like beings who inhabit it go from all-powerful to destitute essentially overnight. The city used to provide food, clothing, medicine, etc for all the people in the country of Arelon, and once the power disappears, the country is forced to figure out how to support and defend itself. The book focuses on three characters. Raoden i...