Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was not my favorite of Sanderson’s work, but it’s partly my own fault for starting out with his later stuff. I could tell this was his earliest novel.
The subject matter had a large part to do with it as well, though. One of the main story lines of the book is about the walking dead - an awful existence that Sanderson really gets you to feel on a personal level. His talent as a writer is already clear, but also makes for a Fantasy that is darker and more hopeless than I generally prefer. The discoveries and changes came too slowly for me, and despair was an overwhelming emotion in the meantime.
Aside from the dark lives of the dead, there's intrigue, social commentary, and religious extremism in the lives of the living. The living at least give you a break from the struggles of the dead and add layers to the world. I liked that I wasn’t always sure who was 'bad' because some of the characters' motivations prevented them from being purely evil.
All-in-all, not my favorite Sanderson book, being more on the dark side, but still a good, solid Fantasy above the norm. The awesomeness I've come to expect from Sanderson kicks in at the end, bringing it all together brilliantly and bumping this up to a 4 star read.
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