Picking up only a few days after the climactic end of Words of Radiance the third book in the Stormlight Archive explores a world where a new cataclysm has come! The Everstorm comes, and the Voidbringers threaten to return! Can the Knights Radiant turn the world towards facing the threat, or will they all be swept away by a new storm about to break upon Roshar? Find out in Oathbringer!
SPOILERS for Way of Kings and Words of Radiance to follow. Read on at your own risk!
The ancient city of Urithiru has been rediscovered. Ancient citadel of the Knights Radiant, it has been occupied by the Alethi highprinces, and Dalinar Kholin's small group of Knights. But, the ancient enemy, Odium, and his Voidbringers come, the Desolation is upon Roshar!
Oathbringer is one of the strongest openings in Sanderson's works outside of The Hero of Ages. It also, nicely, and subtly, twists the expectations of the apocalypse you have, and grinds them against one another. Everything I expected in this book was actually turned on its head, and the one true constant of the cosmere kept coming back to me; there's always another secret.
In this third installment, we explore more of the Knights Radiant, their founding and disbandment at Aharietiam, and the conflict between gods which has been brewing in the background on Roshar for millennia. Major questions brought up in the first two volumes are answered, but even further questions are raised. The issues of old legends being true, and others being false, are brought to the fore again, and we even have to wonder whether we can trust the sanity and perceptions of some of our main characters!
Similar to how the previous two books explored the issues facing Kaladin and Shallan, this book is Dalinar's. We see the history of Dalinar, the Blackthorn, feared but respected general of Alethkar, the blade in the hand of the unifying king Gavilar Kholin, and the power behind the throne of the kingdom. His youth spent drenched in blood to win a kingdom, his attempts at being a father, and his systematic deconstruction of himself to try and become a better man after his brother's death, are all explored in depth. His story is very well handled, and leads to important revelations in the present which threaten to derail the struggle of the good guys completely!
Meanwhile, Kaladin and Shallan continue to battle their own inner demons. Kaladin, who fights to protect the world, makes some disturbing revelations about his simple look at war, while Shallan grapples with her own identity and fragmenting it into many different shapes in order to be the woman she needs to be. This will affect them in different ways, whether they can advance on their path to being Radiants, and refound their orders to, hopefully, save the world.
We also go a bit deeper into the other characters from the Kholin family. Adolin, Navani, and Jasnah Kholin are all explored more in depth, given much to do, and given more depth and character exploration. Adolin may even be on his way to becoming a Radiant! Jasnah however, is my current favorite side character, one who I hope is given much, much more exploration in the series as a view point character.
Two new characters, Szeth, the Assassin in White, and Venli, one of the Parshendi who fought to survive, are also brought more into the forefront. These characters aren't new, since we've seen them in each previous installment, but it will be very interesting to see where we go with them.
As mentioned above, the story itself does what Sanderson does extremely well, and he twists your expectations almost completely. What I personally expected after the end of Words of Radiance fell short as things never did quite go the way I predicted. This was, occasionally, extremely frustrating, for reasons I can't quite outline for spoiler specific purposes, but also in many ways satisfying. The work Sanderson put into expounding on the characters rising to new heights and overcoming both the fantastic, and the mundane obstacles in their paths were extremely well executed. It's a story where characters battle their own selves just as much as external obstacles, and it is so empowering for that.
In a non-spoiler ending to this review, I do want to highlight that if you're expecting the End Times of the Apocalypse as normal, you'll be delightfully disappointed! TEOTWAKI might be upon us, but it is spectacularly so! On my first reading of this story, I was actually severely disappointed with it. I found it dragged in places, and I wasn't quite satisfied with the conclusion. On second reading though, there;s hidden depths, other stories I love, and even things I feel speak to my own inner demons. The story is fraught with twists and turns, lots of highs and spectacular lows for our characters, and some really phenomenal action scenes and sequences involving the gods themselves!
Below the cut here are some spoilers I want to include in my review, as I want to talk about them, but don't want to spoil the book for those who haven't caught up yet. Journey before destination.
One of the problems with this book I found was that much of what I read only made sense on rereading, I did unlock lots of world building and other important issues, catching plot points I had missed, or hints which flew over my head the first time. Unfortunately, much of that only came with reading the books so close together. I think that the sheer density of this world has an unfortunate tendency to bog the reader down, and the byzantine level of detail in the magic system also somewhat gums up an already dense narrative. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can require a really deep reading to appreciate.
These books do require that you be a little more cosmere aware than in Sanderson's other series. As this one has gone on, I've found that not understanding some things from the greater cosmere made an impediment to understanding a lot of the workings in this book. It was frustrating realizing that a gap in my knowledge had opened up, which in turn meant that I had to grope around in the dark regarding more than a few plot points. Getting the hints towards the greater story is very fun, one of the reasons I read Sanderson's work, but getting it to be close to integral to understanding the story on Roshar is a bit self-defeating.
The other major flaw is just how surprising Dalinar's backstory is. I've been solidly rereading the series this year and, with everything you are given on the page in the book, there's so much that just surprises you, and not in a good way. It is fantastic exploring Dalinar's backstory, but at the same time, it is frustrating that these events were rarely mentioned. More allusions to how brutal the Blackthorn used to be, or even hinting at how harsh he'd dealt with rebellion before in either Way of Kings or Words of Radiance would have been much appreciated. It is understandable that we were supposed to sympathize with the principled and new Dalinar for this to work in this book, but here I think that we needed Dalinar's blacker reputation made more evident so this could be a better series of revelations. Similarly, Queen Aesudan, who despite being an important background character was not even given a name until the second book, seemed to jump right into the villain camp. She needed more time to be fleshed out and a little more discussion, as her big reveal moment fell a little flat.
With that in mind, I did find that this book did drag at points. However, with all the praise I have heaped on it, these flaws can be overlooked. Its a series for readers who do deeply love the cosmere, and I can see why some would be turned off because of that. That said, I'm still trying to introduce it to people! It still leaves me looking for more, which is undoubtedly a good thing.
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