Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive (The Stormlight Archive, 3) Mass Market Paperback – August 27, 2019

Oathbringer is the third installment of The Stormlight Archive, Brandon Sanderson’s highly-acclaimed series set in the Cosmere. The story has major middle-book vibes, which makes sense considering this is a 5-book series. While it may not have the panache of the first two books in the series, I thoroughly enjoyed Oathbringer. READER BE WARNED, SPOILERS FOR THE WAY OF KINGS AND WORDS OF RADIANCE ARE BELOW. If you have not read my reviews for the first two books, I recommend doing that first as there are continuing themes.When I say “panache” I mean that books 1 and 2 of the series came through like a highstorm, with so much power as to be destructive and restorative at the same time. They were wall-to-wall action, almost never allowing the reader to come up for air, finishing in fabulous style with the way everything culminated at the end of Words of Radiance. And to that I say: take my breath away. I do not need it, for the stormlight will sustain me. Oathbringer, by contrast, is a very typical middle book (if anything Sanderson writes can be called “typical”), more gambit than check chase.With the coming of the Everstorm and many secrets unlocked, Dalinar, Kaladin, et al are resetting and learning a new way of life. The main protagonists have all evolved and are occupying the ancient city of Urithiru, and the Parshmen have been freed. All of the players are moving pieces around the board, searching for an opportunity to put their opponent into zugzswang. This is a long series, and as a reader I enjoyed the break from the constant war, death, and destruction of the first two installments. The way Oathbringer is written, it gives the reader many opportunities to survey the scene, learn more about Roshar, its people and history. One way Sanderson accomplishes this is with flashback narratives, which is an underrated aspect of this series.I do not believe I mentioned this in my previous reviews, so this is a great time to do so. From a writing perspective, flashbacks are hard. If they are going to take my interest away from the main storyline, they should not overwhelm, but at the same time need to be relevant and interesting. This type of narrative can be a detriment to a book if not done well, but when an author finds a balance it can be a boon. That is exactly what Sanderson has accomplished with this seres, as the flashbacks were phenomenal in providing supplementary information, focusing on first on Kaladin and Shallan in the first two books and now Dalinar and the Parshmen in Oathbringer. To me, this provides even more depth to a series that is already overflowing with it. I think that is a good thing, as a story can never be too deep (watch Sanderson take that comment and run with it – not that the encouragement is all that necessary).Another great aspect of Oathbringer is that it really ups the ante for the rest of the series. In the first two books there is a lot of standard warfare, introducing the reader to many of the players and how their powers work. It was a really exciting start, but Oathbringer has a different feeling. The Big Bang at the end of Words of Radiance put the pieces in place to rebuild sections of the story. It is much slower than the first two books, working to a longer crescendo. At the same time, the world is entirely different now. Because the it has changed so much, and because everything is going through a bit of reset, the reader is able to learn so much about this new-age right along with the characters. And that really is the brilliance of Sanderson’s writing overall (as I have come to find), which is that is feels so interactive as the reader is able to experience every event right along with the characters. That feeling of immersion has often been what has made this series so unputdownable, and Oathbringer taking a different narrative path than the first two books in the series is helped by this immersive atmosphere.Here is the thing about the ending: I cannot talk about it. In typical Sanderson style that crescendo that has been building culminates in an unbelievable way. It is easily the best ending of the first three books, and that saying something because I felt that way about each subsequent book in the series. The fact that Sanderson continues to up the ante is impressive, and I left this book with my jaw dropped.While Oathbringer is incredibly well-done, there was one detraction I want to mention. Certain events (small[ish] ones, none of the big reveals) felt rushed to me. There is a scene at the beginning of the book that felt that way to me (if you read it you will know what I am talking about), and a few others like it along the way. I know it is hard to say in a 1,000+-page book, but I would have preferred to ruminate on certain events for a bit. It is a bit of a weird thought because Sanderson at times can be the King of Rumination, so take those words with a grain of salt.This Stormlight Archive continues to be absolutely fabulous. Oathbringer is another phenomenal entry into the series, and yet again gets my highest recommendation. It has set things up for what I expect to be an amazing second half to the series, and I am very much looking forward to Rhythm of War.

So many great themes in this book. It had me on the edge the entire time especially at its darkest hour. I could not put this book or any other book in this series down because of its phenomenal storytelling.

Amazing series. There is so much going on in this book, just be prepared for a wild ride. I love the fact that Sanderson gives just enough and ties it all in at the end. Every time… I’m never disappointed in reading Stormlight and always amazed at the intricate story and characters who you root for who fight for what they believe in. I escape in this world and have been having a blast reading this series.

In short, this is a great third installment to the Stormlight Archives, and readers will not be disappointed. The core characters are there, doing their stuff, there are plenty of mysteries, revelations, character progression, and it ends up with some incredible moments that are exactly what readers wish for in a fantasy book conclusion. Events are big, bold and exciting. The stakes are high, and the powers and magic are bigger and better than before. If it were a movie, the effects would be better than ever, the running time longer than ever, and the big name actors would all be together in scenes, making all their best quips and speaking character-defining lines.Readers of the first two books are going to enjoy this, and be well satisfied. Anyone who hasn't read the other two books should definitely not start here. That would be crazy. Stormlight Archives is a series that will no more forgive you skipping the first two books than Lord of the Rings would.Oathbringer is not perfect though. It's a long good, and not many authors could write a book this long and be consitent throughout. It's good. Maybe even great, but there are also flaws, mis-steps, and frustrations.The biggest complaint I have, is that Oathbringer is a slow starter. A really slow starter. At first, it meanders, it heads down dead-end paths, it wastes time on characters or events we don't care about much, and attempts to tie up plot-threads left over from previous books that didn't need it, often in unsatisfactory ways.However, once the first third of the book is over, the plot gets moving and the story begins in earnest. From thereon, things are tight and tense, heading for a climax that arrives at the right place in the book and delivers more excitement that anticipated. There's just the right amount of "tie up" afterwards. It's a satisfying ending, even if it does end "Marvel Style", creating a lot of hooks for the next book in the series.If the first third of the book were ... another book entirely ... Oathbringer would be a good length, tight and well paced from start to finish, delivering satisfactory adventures and revelations for all the characters we've grown to love from the first two books... And those first two books are Sanderson at his best. For me, Stormlight is his most original series, his most interesting setting, and his best characters. The first book of Mistborn was awesome, but alas that series started to flounder in the second book. In contrast, Stormlight is three books, all very as good, and showing no signs of falling into premature resolution just yet.If there's a problem, it's clearly that it's not two books, it's one. It's overlong, and the start is slow, boring and frustrating at once. Every one of those early chapters I felt that I'd been robbed of plot events that could have been great and given a substitute that was merely acceptable in its place. Once the preparation is over, things start to improve, and it keeps on getting better from there.There were events I wanted to see, and threads I wanted resolved, and they weren't covered, and instead we got ... Kaladin doing almost nothing for chapter after chapter... Shallan suffering from unconvincingly articifial personality problems for chapter after chapter ... and a lot of time spend on the fabrial researchers failing to understand that Urithiru is missing its "zero-point modules" or something (Stargate Atlantis fans will feel my pain regarding Urithiru - it's a little bit too similar to the city from that show).Stormlight Archives in general, and Oathbringer individually, have - like most Sanderson books - a debt to Wheel of Time, but despite the planned length of the cycle, it doesn't feel like Wheel of Time, which frustrated readers by presenting heroes then whisked them away, repeatedly, denying them a chance to be what they were supposed to be, only to end it all up in a giant fight scene that could never pay back what was stolen. Let us hope that Stormlight doesn't do this... There are some worrying signs in Oathbringer that Sanderson might be considering doing this.Oathbringer does have a giant fight scene, and that it shows up this early in the series is a good indicator that the heroes will be allowed to be the characters we were promised. Nevertheless, there are also signs to the contrary.The ending of Oathbringer is better than the ending of Words of Radiance, and that was a hard act to follow.Unfortunately, it feels like Sanderson has been reacting to criticism of Mistborn having an obvious, dull ending ever since. The problem is that his reaction is misplaced. He tries to keep the reader guessing by undermining expectations. This can end up leaving a feeling of being cheated - as in the Reckoners - by resort to a Deux Ex Machina ending to try and create surprise, depriving us of the obvious good ending we were expecting. Game of Thrones has shown us that bait and switch tactics annoy the majority fantasy audience. If we wanted that sort of thing we could read literary fiction, where there is zero narrative economy and no promise of adherence to genre norms.Sanderson's fear of predictability leads to the worst parts of the Oathbringer, where old threads are tied up in weak "unexpected" ways, or character progression is transparently retarded so that other characters can be given more space to shine. I can't say too much about who wins and who loses in this lottery without creating spoilers, though I say that some characters get better personal arcs than others - see below. Yes, problems are solved, weak characters are improved, but its at the expense of previously strong ones, and maybe that didn't have to be the case?In particular, while Shallan isn't diminished in terms of achievements and relevance, her character arc seems to have faltered. With no new revelations to fall back on, we're given some contrived developments to her personality. She is written in a heavy-handed, forced/awkward way that only gets clumsier as the story progresses. Over and over again, Sanderson tells rather than shows. The events themselves are solid, but the writing doesn't support them well. Her inner narrative is particularly trite. Comparison to Julian May, who did an incredible job of nuanced character development in the Many Coloured Land series, is not favourable. May developed characters without frequent resort to lazy "telling". In this book, Shallan's inner voice seems more like like it belongs to a YA-fiction or X-Men comic character than one of the lead protagonists of an adult fantasy series. Sure, it's not awful, and the pace of action means you don't notice it so much as you might, but it's not as good as Words of Radiance, and definitely not the best that Sanderson can deliver.There are strong signs that Brandon Sanderson hasn't been getting the editorial assistance he needs to do his best work. The later books of the Reckoners series, with its awkward, mis-timed character-arcs, mid-book climaxes that left you exhausted for the latter half of the book, and other problems show this clearly. A good editor would have spotted those problems and convinced him to fix them... A good editor would have fixed the characterisation of Shallan and Kaladin so their arcs felt natural rather than forced. A good editor would have pointed out the inappopriate use of tell over show when developing those characters. Most importantly, a good editor would have made sure they were listened to and acted on. I can't guess to what extend Sanderson got advice on Oathbringer, or how good the actual comments were, but if it was good advice, he clearly didn't act on some of it.Stormlight Archives has generally fared better than Reckoners or Mistborn. The first two books were not blighted by many dull spots or wasted narrative. Sanderson seems extremely averse to narrative economy of late, frequently attempting to subvert reader expectations. This doesn't always work. It can be frustrating, disappointing, or simply annoying, when a whole books is spent telegraphing an event that never comes, or arrives in the wrong way at the wrong time, leaving an empty, hollow feeling of disappointment - a sensation of being cheated by the author - again Reckoners showed the worst of this, but...There are still points where you will end up thinking, "this never got resolved, or that was made into a big deal, then turned out to be nothing, or that other thing was made out to be important and then ended up being a dead end." Ryse is a good example. She needed more time, more chapters, more development. Instead, we get a huge dump of her unconvincingly info-dumping on us in her inner narrative. This is pure "telling", zero show. What a waste of a character. And after the Lift novella, there wasn't enough Lift in Oathbringer. We could have had these things if the first third of the book had been trimmed appropriately, or pushed out into its own "Dune Messiah" sized Novella.I believe that if the first third of Oathbringer had been split off into one of those novellas that Sanderson loves, and paired with the Lift novella, it would have improved the pacing of Oathbringer measurably. Despite the time allocated, Kaladin's plot threads weren't tied up well, and that undercut his development in the rest of the book. Shallan's situation wasn't well established either. Instead of evolving from the end of book two, it was just presented to us, with no real justification, entirely as "telling" and narrative info dumps.Sadly, after finishing Oathbringer, I can't see how Kaladin or Shallan are supposed to be developing, what they need to overcome, or how they might overcome it, and this means their character arcs have become arbitrary. While we are told very clearly what they cannot do, it feels too often that their character arcs serve the plot, and so their development stalls or advances in directions that lack a proper internal consistence of character. Too often, inner narrative becomes inner excuses for the latest plot shift.If Kaladin had revisted, and build on his earlier concerns about integrating the role of healer and warrior (and their resolutions) as shown in the previous two books - in a way that the reader could see that progression - it would have been better. Instead we're just told things happen - until the big "reveal" moment. In the big reveal we have him failing in ways that were already resolved. Moash was the plot point of book two. It was done. How can it be stronger by being repeated? It isn't, it's weaker. It feels like a cheat. The internal monologue that tries to explain this is weakened because it ignores previous events to such a great extent. Kaladin is just a puppet of the plot. We lose faith in the honesty of his character arc, and are frustrated when his actions come out of nowhere, explained only by inner narrative. The clumsy linking between the parshmen slaves and the human slaves in Kaladin's memory is so forced, it doesn't work. We never learned to like the parshmen in the early sections. They were just a nuisance stopping Kaladin doing cool stuff and holding up the plot. Their later return just makes us like them less. At least, that's how I felt about it. I did not feel that Sanderson made those characters compelling or built any genuine empathy with them.If Shallan's fragmentation were more properly established from the start, and there was a proper inciting event, and real reasons for why she doesn't integrate her selves, we would feel that a resolution of the problem or a worsening was meanginful. Instead it just proceeds to suit the plot, and the internal monologue that tries to justify it falls flat.Fortunately, as the supposed main hero of this book, Dalinar's arc works better than that of the other main heroes. His developments and early history are awesome. The only problem is it makes it hard to believe Sadeas would ever have dared go up against him.The character were Sanderson does best is Adolin. He doesn't overshadow the main heroes, but his developments are organic, well founded, and believable. They don't feel arbitrary or forced. They aren't presented entirely in his inner voice. We're shown how Adolin acts, not told. His character doesn't have to bear too much weight in the plot, and so he's allowed to develop in his own way without having to have his powers vary just make the plot work, and yet the things he does have huge plot implications and great emotional resonance.Speaking of historical revelations that don't quite gel with events we've been shown directly, re-reading the first two books after reading this made it obvious that Sanderson's ideas about how certain powers work, about the cognitive realm, about how spren work, how spren live and function, have all changed significantly since the earlier books. No matter how he tried to keep it vague, or try and paint over the changes, there are clear differences and disconnects that are hard to explain. The idea of how spren interface with the physical realm remains a bit of a shaky convenience, and there isn't the feeling that it's entirely well thought out. Oathbringer could have fixed a lot of that, but has really only muddled it further. I suspect some of these ideas were formed part way through Words of Radiance, and it was partially fixed to accomodate them, but the job wasn't completely finished.One major "clunk" is that Pattern treats the Recreance as an event in book 2. Where did he get this point of view? It turns out to be largely wrong, as were his explanations of spren origin, which seem at odds with the description of spren parentage. While Sanderson can probably wallpaper over this in later books, it does make it frustrating that we're told crucial things that are wrong (or lies) by characters who act as if they have first-hand knowledge, and are generally truthful on other similar topics.While the new developments work well, there are problems with them too. A bit like the wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey grade nonsense of the multiple dimensions in Reckoners, the cognitive realm remains a problem. Sanderson is trying to keep it mysterious, while also trying to make it work consistently. These two things can't easily be reconciled. He's going to have to come down on one side or the other soon, or the following books will feel like the cognitive realm maguffin is being used to justify too much that should have been explained by proper character development instead.But in conclusion. If you read the first two, read this. If you haven't read the first two but like Sanderson, or Wheel of Time, or fantasy epics like Game of Thrones, then you should read the Stormlight Archives books, but don't start with the third one!

Sanderson has done it again! Pretty close to perfect storytelling. He paints a three dimensional view of every character. Oathbringer was almost impossible to put down!

Such a triumph of growing characters into people one can empathize with and love. Surprising and thrilling. Kicking myself that book 5 is so far off, but not daunted in the least.

This was a great read. Highly recommend.

I totally mixed up the book order--but thankfully reading the first bit of book 4 had no chance at spoiling just how incredibly awesome every part of this book is. SO much needed character development, all of the personal victories that are won for a change, AND THE REVEALS. Everything is brilliantly laid out and I can't wait to properly finish book 4 now.

El libro estaba empaquetado muy bien y llegó sin ningún problema y en poco tiempo

Really lightly used, no major problem really love it. Came also with the paper cover which is really easy to ruin but it looks great. Thank you!

Si tratta del terzo volume delle "Cronache della Folgoluce", in Italia edito da Mondadori. Sono stato costretto all'acquisto del volume in lingua inglese perché *inspiegabilmente* Mondadori vende solamente il primo, il secondo ed il quarto volume in versione cartacea, costringendo l'acquisto della versione Kindle per il terzo. Da amante del cartaceo, quindi, non posso che ringraziare Amazon per questa opportunità, oltre che la mia vecchia professoressa di inglese del liceo!

Excellent book. The story doesn't let down, the revelations, the mythology and the philosophy in Roshar and its characters keeps getting richer. Loved it.