Oathbringer
(Stormlight Archive #3)
by Brandon Sanderson
fantasy
copyright 2017
read in August 2018
rated 5/10: readable but only if there's nothing else
Longwinded, violent, going nowhere. Twelve hundred pages ! of fantasy history. Yes, it's about as much fun to read as a history textbook.
The first couple of hundred pages I'm catching up with the characters from books 1 & 2... so many characters, so many separate plots, so confusing. Still, I eventually learn to identify the key characters. And read a couple of hundred more pages.
The book begins to drag. I read it because, well, it's the book I'm reading. I have no great interest in the overall plot, though some of the "fine detail" is interesting. The world itself, for example, is interesting and unique.
Of the dozens of characters, three are sympathetic. By which I mean, I like three characters and hope that they survive and thrive. Unfortunately the book seems to be supporting a fourth character as being the main character. He certainly thinks that he is the only person who can save civilisation…
Not that this civilisation is worth saving. Strict social stratification, slavery, women as an underclass. And the "technology" is based on the capture and killing or forced "labour" of … spiritual creatures ? … of varying levels of sentience. In fact, anything which is not a male member of the hereditary ruling class of the local tribe of the almost-human main race -- is open for exploitation. No chance of improvement for anyone else and no say in their own futures. Obey & serve -- or die.
The self-proclaimed star of this "civilisation" is a psychotic murderer who uses his magic powers to destroy any opposition. And innocent bystanders, no quarter given. Sure, he seems to be having an attack of conscience -- in an interminable number of flashbacks -- but so what ? He is an evil megalomaniac.
So I read perhaps half the book and begin to wonder, will it ever end ? We finally find that (a) the world goes through regular cycles of "civilisations" growing and being destroyed. Worse yet: (b) the opposition -- and quite a few of the "them" race -- are immortal. So... (c) defeat the opposition and "they" will return. To battle the same set of immortal "us" -- and to kill nearly all of the ordinary creatures and people of the world.
When the sympathetic heroine faces off against a monster -- and wins -- but the monster is not killed, just runs away -- I think, if you don't kill it, it will return. Creating a never-ending -- pointless -- story.
Another hundred pages and I check the web... The plan, it seems, is for *ten* books in the series ! This book is #3, #4 is due out in 2020... By the time the series is ended... I'll be dead.
Very close to two-thirds of the book read. It's getting more & more mysterious. Who are all these people & creatures ?! It's getting slower, more tedious. I skip to the end... which is, obviously not the end. But -- as far as I can tell -- it is at least a reasonable point at which to pause.
I give up reading. If I want a complex story with hundreds of characters, multiple intersecting -- and separate -- plots and no real conclusion, I could study real history. To me, an author should present a story so that it can be read and enjoyed -- and understood, without the need for an encyclopedic set of cross-referencing notes.
This book is just not worth the effort.
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
... Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"When it comes to ideas, some people will stop at nothing." … per Ginger Meggs
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