Team Review: Oathbringer (Part One) by Brandon Sanderson
1233 pages
Published by Tor, 2017
Genre: Fantasy
This is the first of our four Oathbringer reviews, which can be found here:
Part Two
Part Three
Final Discussion
Oathbringer is the third book in the Stormlight Archive. It’s a book we’ve been looking forward to for a long time and we’re excited to finally have our hands on it. Due to its length (and its epicness), we’ll be breaking up our review into four parts. Warning: spoilers ahead for all of part one!
Indiana: So far, Sanderson has delivered exactly the sort of book I was hoping he would. The story is moving at a pretty fast pace, but there’s a lot more character development than I expected and not just of the main Radiants like Shallan or Dalinar.
Pete: It’s wonderful. Things have really ramped up in intensity since The Way of Kings, but at the same time, there have been a lot of more contemplative, character-exploring scenes. Young Dalinar is shockingly different from present-day Dalinar. I expected him to be a warlord, but I don’t know if I expected him to be so brutal that he accidentally kills his own men in combat from time to time.
Indiana: Yeah, I definitely doubted my interpretation of that part. It was hard to imagine him doing that. But his younger self drives me crazy. He’s such a grating caricature of himself. But it makes me wonder what other characters Sanderson will explore through intense flashbacks in future books.
Pete: Young Dalinar may be terrible, but I still love reading about him. I mostly just love Dalinar. I’m really enjoying the emphasis on his character and on his struggle to convince any world leaders to join his cause—except for Taravangian, of course.
Indiana: That’s been a bit disheartening, but at least it seems like a few other mysteries are being, well not solved, but at least explored. We’re getting to learn more about fabrials and even the murder mystery hunt that Shallan/Veil and Adolin is created and explored pretty quickly.
Pete: Yeah, that’s been a fun mini-plot. My favorite part of the book so far is Kaladin’s scenes with the newly transformed Parshendi. I was glad that they weren’t these terrible monsters that had to be killed. They are deeply troubled and lost, and I was glad that Kaladin was immediately sympathetic toward them (which makes sense given his background). And of course, I’m very excited to see what role Jasnah plays in part two!
Indiana: Same here! I’ve missed her character. Looking forward to part two!
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