okay... YES! Brandon Sanderson can do no wrong. Safe to say i'm so ready for the rest of the book to drop in Dec!
**FULL REVIEW TO COME WHEN WHOLE BOOK IS READ

I am beyond excited that I got to read this excerpt for the upcoming fifth book in the Stormlight Archive series, and it did not disappoint. Brandon Sanderson is one of my all-time favourite authors, and he has an absolute talent for creating such epic stories, with such intricate character and world building. I love how amongst such an epic story, he has such personable and funny characters, as it just makes the story flow and utterly readable. The excerpt from Wind and Truth promises an epic conclusion to the first half of the Stormlight Archive, and I can wait to sink my teeth into the full story!

Note: ARC provided by Hachette Australia via NetGalley.

This is a tricky review, because most of the ‘good’ of Sanderson come from his endings, where everything he’s building towards comes to a head with an epic conclusion. So an eARC that is only Parts 1 and 2 does let me review his strengths as a writer. Instead, these 2 Parts highlight the glacial pace of the book and the pointlessness of many of the chapters. So my rating will probably change upon reading to full novel, although my points below still stand.

It seems ‘Wind and Truth’ is going to broken up into individual days building up to the duel between Dalinar and Odium, with each day being one part of the main story with the usual interludes in between. I don’t like this; it makes the plot feel far too structured and less organic, and I already didn’t like the direction the main story was taking with a signposted showdown between two gods – although I’m sure there will be twists in that tale. The issue here is that the book becomes some bastardised version of ‘24’ as each day jumps between characters going about their business of trying to save the world – but at the cost of focusing too much on micro moments instead of cutting the fat. Sanderson says this is the longest book he’s ever written, and I honestly can’t see the reason for that. There’s a big inciting incident at the end of Day 2, which is Page 443 on my copy, and I can honestly say about 100-150 pages would have been enough to set it up. It feels like far too much tedium, and without access to the ending yet, there’s no way to say it’s worth trudging through.

There’s the usual motley assortment of character, both main characters and secondary characters, which highlights another issue which is the focus on Urithuru, the ‘capital’ of the ‘good’ side. For most of these 443 pages, it feel like every character is in, or around, or travelling to, Urithuru, causing a sameness to every PoV and voice. Roshar is a massive world that Sanderson has clearly very much fleshed out, but we hardly see any of it. Perhaps in the rest of the book the story fans out, but for now it’s frustrating to be stuck in one place in an epic fantasy world. We were stuck in the Shattered Plains for so long, I would have hoped we would see the main character travelling to more places. At least Kaladin is given something more interesting to do than hang out in the tower. Many of the PoV chapters of secondary character, such as Lopen, felt completely unnecessary.

I am also struggling with the mythology. There’s an unwieldy amount of lore and exposition from characters, and I feel a little lost trying to keep track of it all. There’s load of capitalised nouns to show that they’re important and lore-related and it’s overwhelming, like ‘Valor’ , ‘Connect’, ‘Shard’ and ‘Investiture’, and my eyes glaze over. I’ve read some, but not all, of Sanderson’s other work and it increasingly feels like you need to be familiar with every aspect of every novel – and read companion articles and encyclopaedia entries – to fully understand everything going on with the mythology. When the stories and the characters are more grounded, I’m more interested, and I think Sanderson has his work cut out to keep all the threads untangled.

As always, Sanderson’s prose is simplistic and to-the-point, which can feel a drag in the slower parts of the book. There are certainly chapters which felt very rushed and could have done with more imagery and emotion in the writing. However, it’s not why Sanderson's books are popular and it means it can be quick to read.

I’m eager to read the rest of the book when it releases, and we’ll see if it can stick the landing as these gigantic tomes normally do.