Wind and Truth

The world in Stormlight Archive is an interesting one and we really start to see the larger Cosmere in this book. The world building is expanded nicely with both new things and also getting an history lessons of important events on Roshar. Along with the world building is the character development really good and feels natural. And I really enjoyed the story arc with Kaladin and Szeth, to bee fair Kaladin is probably my favorite character in this series. Alodin is another character that I really enjoyed the journey of in this book, with his defense of Azimir, and how that changes him.

This book ends the first story arc of the Stormlight Archive and it manages to tie up quite a few story arches nicely while also setting up quite a few other story lines to be continued in the next arc. I'm really looking forward to see how the surprises at the end of the story plays out in the Cosmere.

I finished Wind and Truth, the latest book in the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. It finishes out the first arc of 5 books, resolving many of the plot points from the first 4 books while setting up the next saga. It is more clear than every that the Stormlight Archive is the central series in Sanderson's "Cosmere", the one that really ties them all together.

And on the whole, I love it. I love the direction that Kaladin takes, and I continue to enjoy Shalan, although I think her story was one of the weaker ones in this novel. Dalinar and Navany were also engaging, but the real stars, to me, were Szeth, Rhenarin, and above all the rest, Adolin. Yes, Adolin.

The book handles a lot of mental illness and neurodivergence, and even a fair bit of LGBTQ+. Sanderson has a long list of consultants he's used for every one of these issues, but the results are sometimes a bit stilted, a bit too perfect. That being said, for all that those moments were sometimes a bit awkward, they never felt out of place. The main reason is that they were always plot relevant. It didn't feel like being "pulled aside" for a little lecture, or like something was forced in on a rewrite without changing anything else around it. However slightly awkward the moments, they were fully integrated, so they didn't leave much of a lingering bad taste in my mouth (not as much as I'd expected after reading warnings about them from other reviewers).

At this point I think it is clear that the Stormlight Archive has deep roots in Sanderson's own struggles with the Mormon church he (ostensibly?) belongs to. Given his increasingly vocal support for LGBTQ+ characters, I do wonder if he's still as welcome.

Anyways, Dalinar in particular might be, I think, Sanderson's self-insert character, and Dalinar's journey is all about reconciling reality with a faith he grew up in, and finding it lacking. (I'll say no more, lest spoilers).

But yeah, overall, I highly recommend the series to anyone with the time to read it.