Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
And so we come to the yearly ovation for Mr. Sanderson. The man is a genius, his lecture series is one of the most important resources ever developed for writers, and I’m yet to pick up a Sando that’s scored below a 70. I have critiques that we’ll come to, but suffice to say I am a big supporter of Sanderson.
Of the 9 books of his I’ve read so far, I think this is the best one. Words of Radiance best blends the conflict of character Sanderson is so good at with his most intriguing faction level conflicts. Without spoilers, the dueling pit scene is an all time fantasy fight scene. The ending is cataclysmic and really hits you in the face; a perfect punctuation for satisfying conflict throughout.
If Sanderson has one “flaw” it’s that he can get too in the weeds on his world building. Now, he balances wandering in those weeds with effective characterization so that it avoids being an infodump, but often it feels unnecessary. In other books where that wandering makes them feel drawn out, Words of Radiance interjects action during all arcs that makes the entire novel much more engaging. Sanderson has earned the slow burn, his books almost always pay off in epic ways, but Words of Radiance feels the least like a slow burn.
My only other complaint is that sometimes the tone of this book feels. . . odd. I understand that coming of age arcs are important to two primary characters, but there are a few scenes where it feels very forced and, well, odd. It often drew me out of the characters.
This is the best epic fantasy series in production right now (unless you still count ASOIAF. I don’t). If you like epic fantasy and aren’t reading this right now, crawl out from under the rock.
Final Grade (all out of ten):
Plot: 8
Characters: 9
Conflict: 9
Theme: 8
Setting: 8
Prose: 7
Tone: 6
Quality: 9
Impact: 8
Enjoyment: 9
Overall: 81/100
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A/N:
Over the next ten days I’ll be releasing full reviews of my top ten books of 2025. From there, I plan on publishing a weekly book review. I’m hoping this is a way to keep me reading regularly and academically.
A quick note on my grading philosophy which I formed listening to a few movie critics. I believe that a 7 in any of the categories above constitutes “Good”. Anything above that is something that is above and beyond in any one particular category. I believe this creates a more nuanced evaluation of any Story. Very, very rarely do I give scores above 90 (8 since I started grading books back in 2022). Consider anything a 70 or above the equivalent of 5 stars. You may note that some entries are tied. The tiebreakers are the higher individual score in Enjoyment, then Impact, then Quality, then back up to Plot and descending from there.
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About the Creator
Matthew J. Fromm
Full-time nerd, history enthusiast, and proprietor of arcane knowledge.
Here there be dragons, knights, castles, and quests (plus the occasional dose of absurdity).
I can be reached at [email protected]
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Comments (1)
Huge Sanderson fan here. I will never write that well if I live to be five hundred. 😬