These posts are not really meant as a critique, but more of a reaction to whatever I just read. One of the reasons I wanted to read this, was kind of as a reset. I haven’t been in the consistent habit of reading for a while, and wanted a book that would be fun/light. In that sense, reading this was a success. I found it easy to get back in a rhythm and read about characters that I’ve gotten familiar with over the past three books.

Overall, this was another solid installment in the Stormlight Archives series. I mentioned in my Currently Reading post that while I really enjoy this series I consider it “average” fantasy. The series is very polarized; the books are either good or bad with very little in-between. Therefore I do not use the word “average” to be insulting, I just mean to convey that it’s a very entertaining series, but not ground breaking.

If you are not familiar with this series I will not give a full synopsis here, but instead will attempt to provide a brief overview. The main protagonist of the series is Kaladin Stormblessed who is a Spartacus type figure who rises from slavery to become one of the Radiants; a mythical and mysterious supernatural group . The scope of this series is very ambitious going into gods, other realms, other planets and unending wars. This was the first of the books where the scope bothered me at times. The focus of the narrative seems so large that it’s hard to really concentrate or care about a specific portion of the story. During the course of this book it was also alluded to that the major conflict of the story has not yet begun. That really bothered me because each of the books is about 1000 pages so to consider the first 4000 or so pages to be a preface to this still little known conflict is a bit annoying. However, this is hardly the only series that likes to ask questions without offering much insight into the major dispute of the series, so I’ll give it a pass here. With the amount of characters and the ever growing fantastical world I increasingly find it difficult to enjoy any of the story that does not directly follow Kaladin.

A change in this story that did not seem to go over great (from what I’ve seen) with the overall fanbase is the foray into mental health. Several characters in this story are suffering from post traumatic stress. I’d be curious to know: if this book had come out in a different year instead of 2020 – when most people were experiencing increased issues with their own mental health – would this still be such a large criticism? For many people a novel, especially a fantasy novel, can serve as a form of escapism from the realities of the world, and having these ‘heroes’ confront such normal human problems might have been off-putting for some. For me, it was not so much that the mental health issues were brought up, but instead the amount of time spent on it. At points it felt like the narrative was just on pause until the character finished figuring out their issues. Mental health is hugely important but I think the expectations from readers for this story was more for an exciting blockbuster, instead of the more introspective, less-action-packed book that was delivered.

I’m glad I read this book; I’m a fan of this series. Sometimes you just need something to read, and this book, even the less enjoyable parts, gave me a way to pass the time. This was not the strongest installment, but I’m still intrigued enough to see where this series is headed.