The Wind and Truth: Book Five of the Stormlight Archive

thank you

This was a huge disappointment. I thought I was buying another clean epic fantasy but I found this was just another LGBTQ+ Romance for politics. I guess Brandon forgot his audience and the reason his books were so universally loved. Another book like this and I will need to say goodbye to the trust I had for one of my favorite authors.

Absolutely perfect condition on arrival! Excited to indulge!

Consegnato nei tempi previsti e in perfette condizioni. Sanderson sempre fenomenale.

When I read The Way of Kings way back when it first came out, I remember a couple recurring thoughts popping up throughout the reading: "Wow, I'm X% through a 1000+ pg book and I'm sad I only have Y more pages of this awesomeness" and "Holy crap this entire book is basically a prologue to something bigger." Wind and Truth started slow. It felt like a soft lit reel of feel-good reflections by the main characters set to "Time of Your Life" by Green Day as they mournfully braced themselves for the epic final adventure. This bugged me more than most of my friends apparently. Me: "Ugh this is Brandon's slowest start to a book EVER. We get it. People have grown and changed and there's a lot of feels and goodbyes because probably people are going to die and the rest of the book is going to be insane non-stop action." Others: "I mean it feels appropriate and I kind of like it..." Me: [rolls eyes and looks elsewhere for commiseration] Given the context now of the, ahem, journey and destination, I'm allowing myself to feel the feels of those early chapters. Unsurprisingly for Sanderson, the master of sticking the landing, Wind and Truth delivers. In appropriate counterpoint to The Way of Kings, it feels like a 1000 page climax. That feeling that ultimately happens in a Sanderson book near the end where something VERY COOL happens alongside a surprising and satisfying conclusion? There were so many of those in this book starting around the halfway point. Taln on the pile of bodies and Ash's dying words... I almost jumped out of my chair. So much brilliant resolution of favorite character arcs (I'm left a bit breathless by Kaladin) - even the lingering unresolved tension in other arcs feels so very right (Shallan...). The significant criticisms are mostly true. Some of the writing felt slapdash. The book would have benefited from a powerful editor's red pen. There's a lot of telling rather than showing. There was some content new to Cosmere stories that made some readers uncomfortable (Rlain and Renarin's romance and the explicit "revelation" that some characters have sex). The mental health themes got a bit heavy-handed (Kaladin responding to Ishar "I'm his therapist" might be the low point of the whole series). And there wasn't as much resolution as many expected for the "end" of the five-book arc (I thought that was perfect, actually). Some of the criticisms are baseless contrarianism - as common as windspren when an author reaches a certain level of popularity. Stephen King writes great characters and sucks at endings. Patrick Rothfuss writes beautiful sentences but sucks at... actually writing. And for Sanderson, his prose isn't Dickens. But where he shines, he is brighter than Nightblood's self-perception. Sanderson uses the framework of fantasy to explore questions like "what is truth?" "what is good?" "what is leadership?" "how do people grow?" "why is there suffering?" and "what do healthy boundaries look like?" Rarely does he try and tell us what to think - even if a trusted character is coming to a conclusion, you can usually find someone else with a counterpoint or challenging a pithy answer with nuance. (A favorite exception in Wind and Truth is Wit's rant against the Thaylen Passions religion - a thinly veiled and fantastically vicious condemnation of health and wealth style religions.) This distinction is so important and addresses some of the gripes popping up in one star reviews. Is Sanderson "pushing" a worldview down his reader's throats? In my opinion, no. Do characters see particular worldviews as good and provide thoughtful reasons for them? Yes. It has always been that way in his books. Jasnah has been providing compelling reasons for atheism and Utilitarianism since The Way of Kings. Sazed argues for Universalism in Mistborn. Wayne (Mistborn Era 2) steals everything. I love Jasnah and Sazed and am not a Utilitarian or Universalist. I love Wayne and think his kleptomania is wrong. But I don't think I can believe in a thing if I can't provide compelling arguments for the opposing options. Part of why Sanderson's characters are so compelling is their willingness to think, argue, grow and change - just like us. What Dalinar was convinced was right and good changes as he learns and grows. Same with Szeth, Kaladin, Shallan, Navani, Adolin... you get the point. And the arcs are not necessarily linear - just like us they can be iterative and recursive. So to assume a character (or the author behind the pen) is telling you that their previously held beliefs are wrong because they've progressed to the next thing is an intellectual fallacy of progressive ideology (that Sanderson has already shown he does not fall for). Readers who are upset by Wind and Truth are reading fantasy for the wrong reasons. To be fair, the genre label is misleading. If you want saccharine thoughtless unchallenging escapism that fits and protects a narrow worldview, every flavor is available. But this is a series of books that is literally about people being challenged and growing. Seen for what it is, I think Wind and Truth is satisfying on a visceral "well that was freaking awesome" level as well as emotionally and intellectually. In my opinion, the people who don't like it haven't been paying close attention to the Cosmere books. No matter your opinions (and mine are high - it could be my favorite Cosmere novel to date), he has changed fantasy forever.