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« on: April 07, 2010, 07:12:52 AM »
I liked it, but I was a little underwhelmed as well. (Sorry.) Out of Elantris, Warbreaker, and Mistborn TFE, I liked this prologue the least, for a few reasons.
Here, we're getting a *lot* of information dropped on us -- kingdoms and castes and religion and glimpses of complicated backstory, and in the middle of it all, a complicated fight and magic system we don't know. This resulted for me in a choppy flow, because there were pieces that I picked up fast, but other pieces that were just confusing. (And that's not why I read Brandon -- if I feel like reading something arcane-and-confusing, I pick up some China Mieville or Steven Erickson.) So overall, for me, it made the fight and the magic system much less of a "wow" moment than either Mistborn or Warbreaker. Sorry 'bout that.
One thing that I thought Mistborn TFE did perfectly was the gradual magic system reveal. It starts out with just glimpses -- Kelsier burns down the noble's house, and we don't know how. We realize that the magic is awesome, and then we're drawn into the world, and we're slowly primed to understand the back story, and ready to enjoy the magic system when it hits us. Warbreaker does jump right in with the magic, but the flow and the new information rush seems more carefully calibrated. We get glimpses of backstory, but it's not a drink from the firehose. Here it just seemed like a little too much going on. I'm vaguely hoping that this isn't really the prologue, but one of those fake-prologues that often come up as teasers. (As I recall the paperback teaser that was used for Martin's ASOS was something like 8 chapters into the actual book.)
I'm looking forward to the series, though -- it sounds like it's going to be very interesting.