Book read: Elantris.

(Yes, I'm starting up my book reviews again. I'll try to catch myself back up to where I left off last fall.)

Saturday night I finished off my latest, a 2005 fantasy from Brandon Sanderson called Elantris. I picked the book up on account of hearing Orson Scott Card praise the book on a couple of occasions. Card's one of my favorite authors, and I've picked up some of his recommendations before (Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy, and David Farland's Runelords series) and he hasn't steered me wrong yet.

In hindsight, I think my expectations for Elantris were set too high.

It's a good book, don't get me wrong; I think my wife would enjoy it. It's also pretty original for a fantasy book, and has the added bonus of being a self-contained story. Here's the obligatory plot summary:

In the country of Arelon, the city of Elantris used to be a sparkling jewel populated by beings that were, essentially, gods. There was this transformation called the Shaod that could strike anyone at anytime and magically turn them into an Elantrian: wise, nigh-immortal, and capable of performing the magic art of AonDor. But then a terrible event known as the Reod occurred: the Elantrians began dying, the city lost its luster, the runes (called Aons) that powered AonDor stopped working, and the Shaod now turned its victims into walking corpses.

10 years later, prince Raoden is hit by the Sheod, and banished to the rotted city of Elantris, where those taken by the Sheod are condemned to live out their days scrabbling for food and nursing painful wounds that never heal. Shortly thereafter, his betrothed, princess Sarene of Teod, arrives for their wedding, only to hear that Raoden has died. At the same time, a Derethi priest named Hrathen has come with a mission: to convert all of Arelon to the religion of Shu-Dereth in 3 months, lest the armies of Fjordell march on Arelon and Teod and wipe out the last bastion of the rival religion, Shu-Korath. While Raoden strives to uncover the secret behind the Reod and ressurect Elantris, Sarene matches wits the corrupt king of Arelon and the deadly Hrathen in an attempt to save Arelon.

The story itself is fairly compelling, and builds gradually. The invented magic system of the Aons is precisely detailed and handled well. Above all, it was the mystery of the Reod that kept my attention, and there were a couple of nice twists and "ah-ha!" moments that I enjoyed. The first one -- what caused the Reod -- I was able to guess a chapter or so before the characters (the clue was made fairly obvious) but the big secret -- how to restore Elantris -- I was pretty much blindsided with. But in a good, "That makes sense! I never would have thought of that!" kind of way.

So why didn't enjoy it more? It's hard to say. Though the characters were fairly well-drawn, they wasn't a whole lot of depth to any of them, except maybe Hrathen. There was nothing exceptional about the dialogue. In fact, there wasn't anything really exceptional about any of the writing. I may not be fair that I had just finished reading Steven Erikson's latest, but then, I don't like to read a lot of fantasy that isn't extremely well-written. Besides, this was pretty obviously Sanderson's first novel. If he gets better from here, it can only be a good thing.

A solid 3 stars from me:

(good)