Book Review: Elantris

This past weekend, I finished reading Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, and I have to say, I was pretty darn impressed with the work from start to finish. Elantris is Sanderson's first published novel and unlike most of his other works, it is a stand alone story. It is an amazingly solid first entry and after reading it I am not even a little bit surprised that Sanderson wound up being tagged by Robert Jordan to finish the Wheel of Time series after his death. I have really enjoyed his entries into that particular series and they made me very interested to check out his own original work. I settled on Elantris as my starting point because I had heard some pretty good buzz about it, and I'll admit, I am keeping up with enough series at the moment that jumping into another one seemed a bit daunting.

Sanderson is quite lauded by the fantasy community for his extremely well-developed and detailed systems of magic. Elantris is certainly no exception to this, which is all the more impressive because the most notable thing about magic in this book is its absence.

The story takes place about ten years after the fall of the eponymous city of Elantris. The Elantrians once ruled the nation of Arelon more or less benevolently, godlike beings with vast stores of magic at their very fingertips. Despite their amazing power and superiority to the mere humans of Arelon, they did not demand to be worshipped. In fact, they were quite content to let the humans practice their own varying religions without interference. Perhaps this is because every Elantrian was once a human. The beings were not born, but rather, one night a human would go to bed and the next morning he or she would wake up transformed into an Elantrian.

Under Elantris' rule, Arelon was a very powerful and prosperous nation until something went horribly awry. In an event called the Reod, the magic of Elantris suddenly stopped working. The Elantrians, without their power, became horribly disfigured but unable to die. Their hearts stopped beating, but their bodies went on, skin shriveling up and hair falling out. Hurts and injuries could not kill them, but nor would they heal, and the pain of those hurts endured, driving those who continued under their newly cursed existence mad. When the Reod came, the servants of Elantris rose up in revolt against their transformed masters. The merchant class stepped in, taking over and organizing a new government, declaring themselves the new nobility. The city of Elantris was locked up tight, its surviving citizens left to wallow in their never-ending misery. The Shaod, or transformation from human to Elantrian, did not stop occurring, however. Now, instead of being a blessing, it had become a curse. Those poor damned souls who changed were thrown into Elantris with a single basket of food and considered dead by the rest of the world.

The story begins with Arelon's prince, Raoden, finding that the Shaod has come upon him. He is not immune to the fate of the cursed and his father wastes no time in throwing him into Elantris. Raoden must find a way to survive his new circumstances and to avoid the madness that takes his new people. On that same day, two people arrive in the city of Kae, heart of Arelon since Elantris' fall. The first, Princess Sarene of Teod, was engaged to Prince Raoden, a political match to ally her nation with Arelon. She reaches her new home to learn that she is now a widow, the stipulations of her marriage contract declaring death by either party before the wedding the same as a wedding itself. She never had the chance to meet her husband and now she must find her place in her new home without him. She is quickly given purpose by the other newcomer to the city, however. Hrathen is a gyorn, or high priest, of Fjordell, an enemy nation to both Teod and Arelon. He has been sent to convert Arelon to his religion of Shu-Dereth within three months. Otherwise, Fjordell will invade and force conversion upon Arelon in the bloodiest manner possible.

Elantris rotates fairly smoothly between the perspectives of Raoden, Sarene, and Hrathen and tells the tale of each individual's struggle to fulfill a purpose. These three characters are absolute powerhouses of charisma and the reader is quickly swept into their world, eager to find out who will succeed and who will fail, and how each person's machinations will influence the other's.

For as much as religion is a key component to the story, I felt like its touch was astoundingly subtle throughout. There were, to me, very clear parallels to the state of organized religion in our world, and its influence on the citizens and nations, but I felt like Sanderson used that more as an inspiration to this work rather than using this work as a way to preach some personal message. The characters are the true center of this tale and Sanderson has done an amazing job of giving each believable motivations and actions. None are without their flaws, but those flaws are put to masterful use in weaving these three disparate threads together. As the story progresses, those three threads do become one steady piece of fabric, too. I never felt cheated by convenient coincidences, everything felt very natural.

There is something of the traditional "hero's quest" in this story, but Sanderson manages to make it feel fresh and new. The romance and intrigue and action and friendships and journeys of discovery all manage to come across as very true. Nothing feels forced, nothing feels trite. I also appreciate that Sanderson has clear and simple answers for most of this book's mysteries by the story's end. Yet, that being said, he didn't hesitate to introduce a few new loose ends for our characters in the process of providing them with the answers they sought. I am satisfied with the loose ends, however. To me, they suggest that these characters are only just starting out as the story is ending. I am free to imagine them continuing to go on and solve their new mysteries.

The ending is still an ending, however. There is no sense that Sanderson was trying to leave the back door open for a sequel, and I am glad of it. As I told my husband, I don't think this is a book that needs to be a series. Everyone (that survived, of course) ended on  pretty high note, and I was happy with how things turned out. That being said, I would love to read another story set in this universe in some other time period, before or after the events of Elantris, dealing with other characters. I suspect that there are many interesting stories to be told about Arelon and its neighbors.

This is the kind of book that makes me excited about writing. It is so amazingly well done. I was lucky enough to meet Sanderson last year when he did a tour for the most recent Wheel of Time book's release, and I hadn't yet read any of his own stories (that was actually when I picked this book up--I am super proud to have an autographed copy). I hope he does another tour for the last book and that I might get a chance to meet him again and thank him for this amazing story. Assuming I can actually get over my fangirl shyness and form coherent words, that is.

Anyhoo, fans of fantasy and magic and well-developed worlds and characters: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. Check it out. I doubt you'll regret doing so.

Winter Reading List

Holy cow, my book pile just keeps on getting bigger. It's ridiculous, it is. Sigh.

I finally finished reading George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, first in his A Song of Ice and Fire series and the source material for that apparently awesome television series that aired this past spring (whoo! I finally get to watch that now, don't I?). I took it slow, reading along with Leigh Butler over at Tor. Two(ish) chapters a week. It took a while.

I am really not sure if I will be able to hold back on the next four books though. That ending. Man. I mean, man.

Currently, I am reading Brandon Sanderson's Elantris. I will probably do a write-up of my thoughts on that when I finish it in the next week or two. It is pretty spectacular so far, and the ball has just started rolling downhill.

Leigh's ASoIaF read-along is on hiatus until January. I am thinking once I finish Elantris I might try to squeeze in the conclusion of N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy, The Kindgom of Gods (it just arrived on Tuesday, much to my delight). After that I want to wrap up Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle with Inheritance, which has been hanging out in my pile for about a month.

Probably I won't get finished with those two before Leigh starts up with A Clash of Kings, but I figure I can stick to the read-along schedule on that until I do. Then I can just plow through the rest of Martin's insanity. It will be like ripping off a band-aid, I suspect. Yeesh. That man. Not very nice to his characters. It's kind of delicious and terrible all at the same time.

After that...well...who knows? There are oh so many to choose from. There are worse problems I can think of.

Does anyone else have this kind of insanity going on in their bookshelves? What are you guys reading? (Please for the love of Pete, no suggestions though, I am full up at the moment!)

Towers of Midnight Book Signing

So last night at the Borders Books & Music in Dallas, Brandon Sanderson showed up to do a signing for the release of the thirteenth Wheel of Time book, Towers of Midnight.  Also on hand was Harriet McDougal, wife of the late Robert Jordan, who has been collaborating with Sanderson to help make sure that the WOT series is completed as RJ envisioned it.  I'm not gonna lie to you folks, it was awesome. 

I attended with my husband and one of my best friends, Miss J.

Me and Miss J.

Me and the hubby.

There was a pretty decent crowd assembled.  Huzzah for geeks!  Everyone was very excited to be there and get to meet Brandon and Harriet.  One of the things I love about being a geek is that it seems to me when we get together in large numbers, we tend to be mostly pretty organized and polite to one another (or to be so introverted that we all just leave each other alone).  I am usually not good with crowds, but I had no problems last night at all.  Everyone I encountered was pretty groovy.  There was also a group of volunteers, The Tower Guard, on hand to answer questions and help keep things running smoothly.  My husband and I both thought about volunteering for it this year but didn't, though we are in agreement that we will probably apply next year for the signing of the last book.  My apologies for the pictures not being top quality, but I am, quite frankly, an amateur.  I still haven't totally figured out how to work my silly camera.

Waiting patiently...

The Tower Guard.

Some more fans.

Brandon and Harriet were introduced to enthusiastic applause and then Harriet kicked things off with a reading of an excerpt from the prologue of ToM.  Can I just reiterate that I cannot wait to read this book.  Gah.  Must finish The Gathering Storm reread first though.  Egwene is so awesome.  Anyway.  during her reading, Harriet was interrupted by a phone (hers I think) ringing.  She played it off with a Star Wars reference, which was awesome, and then continued on.

Harriet McDougal and Brandon Sanderson

After the reading Brandon took questions from the audience for the both of them.  He asked if anyone present hadn't read TGS yet, and there was a fair smattering, so he refused to answer any spoilery questions about either TGS or ToM.  He asked audiences to save up those questions for they got up to the signing table (but did not promise to actually answer them, I suspect there were quite a few RAFO cards handed out).  One of the audience members, complete with her handmade Brown Ajah shawl, really wanted to ask a question about a "certain member of the Brown Ajah," but, other than that people kept to the request to try to be spoiler free for the two most recent books.

Someone asked Brandon if he writes the stories linearly as they appear or if he writes scenes out of order.  He told us that he writes the scenes linearly, but he writes them in POV groups (like all of Mat's story for the book, then all of Perrin's story), and then gives them to Harriet, who decides how they get split up and arranged.

Someone asked who Bella is really working for, to which Harriet replied, "Would you believe Bella is the Dark One?"  You know what, I like her, she's got sass.

Brandon shared that in between writing contracted books, he likes to work on other projects based on whatever strikes him.  He revealed a story he had recently started about a pizza delivery guy that becomes a necromancer. 

Someone else asked him which character was the most difficult for him to write.  He didn't really have any one in particular, but did tell us that it took him a while to figure out Aviendha's voice in particular, and that he has a hard time writing Gawyn, not because he can't find his voice, but because Gawyn's frustrations bleed through in to him as he writes them.

He was asked who his favorite villain is to write and said that it depends on the books.  For ToM it was Fain.

He ended the Q & A by demonstrating his best Forsaken evil laugh.  It was pretty awesomely evil.

Then came a few announcements about how about how the signing would work.  He would sign up to three books for each person.  He would only sign WOT books that he had worked on (so only TGS and ToM).  Harriet would only sign the books she worked on, which in addition to the last two WOT books included Brandon's newest book The Way of Kings, which she consulted on I think.  Also, as you may or may not know, ToM was dedicated to all of the people from WOT fandom who have kept it so strong over the years by running FAQ sites, discussion sites, message boards, forums, etc.  One of those people, Bob Kluttz, is a Texas native and was at the signing, so Brandon and Harriet asked him to come up too and sign ToM.

When we got to the store and bought our books, we were given wrist bands (you needed to have one to get signed).  The wrist bands were in different colors and what they did was have people line up one color group at a time.  I thought it would have been pretty nifty if the order of the color groups matched the order of the Ajah bands on Accepted's dresses and the Amyrlin's stole, but as we were orange, that kind of blew that theory out of the water (there is no orange Ajah).  Our group was the second group.  So while the people from the first group (green) got their books signed, we hung out in the cafe until it was time for us to line up.  I felt really sorry for the lady working at the cafe who was clearly in training.  It was looking like a rough night for her.  Though to her credit, while she was a little slow, our order was perfectly right and she was very nice to everyone.

While we waited, Hubby hunkered down with ToM--apparently he had just gotten to a really really good part.  Miss J and I chatted about writing--she was asking me about my story for NaNoWriMo, and she is in the middle of writing a really awesome series that I have been reading as she gets it done.  I drew a map for my story on a cafe napkin.  It was fun, and got me super excited about my writing all over again. 

When it was our turn to get in line, we hung out and chatted with some of the Tower Guard--they were giving out post it notes for us to put whatever personalization we wanted in our signings on.  One of them was a super cute 16 year old girl who told us her mom was a little worried about the whole thing--all of the adults and she was the only kid.  Her mom was worried she might be getting into a cult--at Borders--and so was hanging around keeping an eye on things.  She was clearly having a ball.  Turns out the Tower Guard got to have a mini-pizza party with Brandon before the signing.  That's pretty spiffy.  Also, one of the Guard was the lady who played Moiraine in the ToM book trailer that came out a little bit ago.  If you haven't seen it, check it out here.  It's pretty cool, despite the weird voiceover that I don't think sounds like Moiraine would sound (that may be because in my head, Moriane is played by Teryl Rothery), but everything else is spot on. 

We also chatted a lot with the guy in line in front of us.  He was very nice--very talky.  But it was cool, we talked about a lot of different book series as well as some television shows we mutually watched and he recommended a lot of good audiobooks.

When it was our turn to get signed, my husband was all calm and cool and I totally went fangirl on Brandon and Harriet.  I didn't have any questions, just thanked him (them) for being so awesome, and for doing the Egwene scenes in TGS so well, though I don't know how coherent I was.  They were both super nice and seemed genuinely happy to be there, despite obviously being tired.

We even got some free bumper stickers.  Yay, swag!

Bumper Stickers!

Our two new Brandon Sanderson books.

All in all, it was a fantastic evening.  We are definitely going again next year for the A Memory of Light signing if they come back, and will most likely at least apply to be part of the Tower Guard as well (getting accepted is another matter entirely, I am sure).  My husband picked up a copy of The Way of Kings, while I snagged a copy of Elantris, which I have been wanting to read.  In addition to getting those signed, we also got TGS and ToM signed as well.  Good times all around, and much fantastic reading to look forward to in the near future!

Also, there were people dressed as Aiel, which was just frakking awesome.

Thankfully she did not ask me to dance the spears!

Oh, and, as it's Friday, don't forget to check out this week's Gronk!  That is all.