Sunday, April 3, 2016

Review: Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson


The City of Elendel is threatening to boil over. Industrial advances are keeping some of the city's workers unemployed while forcing others to work ridiculous hours. Wax and Wayne are called to investigate the strange murder of the governor's brother's among a massacre of the city's criminal elite. Wax is convinced that someone or something is intent on destroying the city and when Wax catches sight of an old enemy, who he knows is dead'  he realizes things maybe personal.

Biggest plus for me in this book is the world-building. Taking a look at a world hundreds of years after some very important events gives an excellent opportunity to look at the impact of these actions and this is certainly evident from the religious and social aspects of the society represented. Another area Sanderson excels in is demonstrating the impact of technological advances on this society.

Character development is both superb and seamless with all of the major characters getting fleshed out. The plot moves along at a decent clip with the odd surprise thrown in.

An ongoing issue with Sanderson is his efforts to incorporate humour into his books. In this series it is often through the character of Wayne and unfortunately Sanderson has no idea how to incorporate this subtly. I found Wayne antics distracting at the beginning but gradually it starts to fit a bit better into the story.

Overall delivers most of Sanderson's usual strengths (and the odd flaw). 8.25/10.