the Nightmare Painter, Sanderson

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, Brandon Sanderson

fantasy, subadult

copyright 2023

read in June 2024

rated 6/10: read to pass the time

The author took out his list of, Essential elements for a Young Adult potboiler --and ticked off the points one by one.

Young hero and heroine, of course.

Get them naked as soon as possible, make them embarrassed.

Make sure that they think about but never have sex.

Make the hero a well-meaning but misunderstood fringe member of the young group. With talents which will only prove their worth when the world is about to end.

Then provide good advice, or good examples, for the young readers... except that this book slaps you in the face with the advice. Yes, it's good advice but not when it's shouted in your face.

Then there's the science which drives the plot. Yes it's strange but this book is fantasy so that's okay.

What does not work is when the author drops the plot to say,  Oh dear there is no more plot so I'll have to tell you what was all about.

The final advice is central to the "science": Do not trust The Machine, where The Machine is AI.All very good, except that the lack of logic and lack of subtlety make it very hard to do anything other than nod and smile indulgently.

There is also a problem with the author being famous for setting all his books in one consistent universe. In this one standalone story -- it is annoying.

In particular, the third person omnipotent narrator seems to be a statue in a cafe. Really? So he appears in other books, so what? In this book it adds only confusion. Particularly since he sometimes says/writes , oh, I can't really explain what happened there.

For an author to write outside his usual rut -- he needs to move right out of that rut. Anything else is just confusing. Or an annoying cross-promotion.

Nick Lethbridge    /    Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting    /   Problems? Solved.
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Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood