Thoughts on Wind and Truth

The Stormlight Archive is one of my favourite book series. You'll find references to it scattered around this website, from the quote of the first ideal of the Radiants in the footer, to my naming of various stuff and much more.

As my reading log shows, I picked up the first book in the series — The Way of Kings — in late 2021. It hooked me. I spent the entirety of 2022 reading the remaining books and Brandon Sanderson's other works set in "The Cosmere".¹ All of them were good, but none of the others captured me quite like those first Stormlight books.

This is the fifth book in the series, and the conclusion to what Sanderson has dubbed "the first arc" of the series. In other words, a final adventure with the characters I've come to love through the first four books. I was both excited and almost a little nervous before starting the book.

Would it live up to the previous books in the series and my high expectations?

Will my favourite characters get a worthy end to their stories?

What I didn't like

Truth be told, I felt Rhythm of War (the fourth book in the series) didn't quite live up to the first three entries. I had a hard time pinpointing exactly why, and it certainly had redeeming qualities that mostly made up for it shortcomings. Nevertheless, although I hoped Wind and Truth would mark a return to form, I had some reservations going in.

Unfortunately, those turned out to be justified.

All in all, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped. It doesn't reach the heights of the first three books. Here are some things I thought made this book less enjoyable than it could have been.

Book is too long

At 1330 pages this book is quite long. Maybe the longest work of fiction I've read. Ordinarily, I don't mind a long book. But this one had the feeling of a draft that lacked focus and polish. As if Sanderson said "look, this is the finale and I want to fit all of this in here" and so the editor let it slip.

Chapters are too short

Ironic, I know, given the first point. But I think the two are connected. There are many chapters in this book. And each chapter usually jumps several scenes, despite not being particularly long. Although this is part of Sanderson's distinct style of writing — as with the tendency to end chapters on "cliffhangers" — I think it got out of control here.

Every time a scene started getting interesting, the focus switched elsewhere. This is fine in moderation, and can make a book feel fast paced. Here, it made the book too frantic for my taste. By halfway it had me quite annoyed. It didn't let up.

Too many point of view characters

The driving factor of the two points above. I think the book could've been much better if Sanderson had sacrificed some point of view characters in favour of more time exploring what's going on with and around fewer characters. Keep it as long as it already is, but spend more time fleshing out the scenes of fewer characters.

Missing distant mountains

I once came across a quote by JRR Tolkien (or someone else entirely, I can't seem to find it again) talking about the importance of "distant mountains" in storytelling. The gist of it was that to make a story appealing to a reader, you need to weave in hints of untold stories, unvisited lands, majestic civilizations past and present. And distant mountains. These act as blanks parts in the context of the story in which the reader will fill, consciously and otherwise, with their own notions, ideas and dreams.

The comparative lack of these distant mountains makes Wind of Truth a less interesting book than its predecessors.

Where the early books had many blanks with regards to the history of Roshar, the background of the humans and the Parshendi, the Heralds and the Gods, all is laid bare in Wind of Truth. And much is kind of anticlimactic. To avoid spoilers (or perhaps laziness) I won't go into details here. But suffice it to say, the more that is revealed about the Gods and the Shards of the Cosmere, the less interesting I'm finding it.

Too many references

Somewhat of a corollary to the above point. There are so many references in this book. To the four first books, yes, but also to the dozens of other books that make up the collected lore of the Cosmere.

This isn't necessarily a problem, if done right. But too often, I found that the references were blunt and, as a result, pulled me out of the story and got me contemplating what it was referencing. In my opinion, Sanderson struck a much better balance about in the second Mistorn arc, The Wax and Wayne series.

I liked things too

All those things aside, I still enjoyed the book. Some of my favourite characters throughout the entire story progressed to a very fulfilling conclusion.

Kaladin and Szeth's story, in particular, was excellent. Not least because those are the two characters I can most relate to. I don't know if it's coloured by that particular fact, but I also have a hunch that Sanderson has channelled much of his own experiences into these two characters, because they are very convincing.