Book Review: Elantris | Brandon Sanderson

Elantris: home of gods who walked among men, worshiped for eternity. Alas, eternity ended ten years ago.

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After nearly a decade writing stories, Brandon Sanderson was contacted by Tor editer Moshe Feder: we want to buy one of your books. A year and a half later, he submitted the manuscript of his sixth novel (by 2003 he had written twelve, all unpublished) and Elantris was published April 21st, 2005.

Since then he's become one of the biggest fantasy writers in the world,: impressed with the first Mistborn, he was chosen by Robert Jordan's widow Harriet McDougal to finish The Wheel of Time series. In 2010, he published the first book of the planned ten-book Stormlight Archives series. In 2016, the entire Cosmere universe (encompassing most of his work, though not all of it) was licensed by DMG Entertainment. Just last month, the ambitious multimedia Dark One project was announced, encompassing novels, graphic novels, a podcast, and a television series.

In terms of profile, only Tolkien and Martin exceed him and of other fantasy writers today only Rothfuss can match him.

I suspect that the way I came to this is not the ideal way for anyone to come to Elantris, because before reading this - long before reading this - I'd read the original Mistborn trilogy (which is sitting in my bookshelf) and all the presently-released books of The Stormlight Archive (the first two twice).

Coming into Elantris from his later, more famous, more polished works, it's basically "primordial Brandon Sanderson," from my perspective. Many of the themes he's gone on to explore, many of the ideas about magic and world, appear in earlier form here.

And I do mean "primordial." Coming off of reading Bakker and Abraham, reading Sanderson's prose at the beginning of his career was a bit of a jolt to the system. Abraham's prose is silky-smooth, lyrical and beautiful, and Bakker's is intelligent and even philosophical. Sanderson's... is clunkier.

I found the first hundred pages a rough read. Many an infodump, many a paragraph and passage where I said "I could've written better." Past that it was much smoother and much more satisfying.

Sanderson, as is his wont, builds an utterly intriguing world quite unlike our own, populates it with an assortment of mysteries, and then brings it all together into an avalanche of a conclusion.

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We see action from three perspectives: Sarene, a tall, gangly lady of twenty-five who is, by the standards of her people, already safely on her way (if not already arrived at) spinsterhood. Raoden, the prince of Arelon, who is taken by the Shaod and becomes an Elantrian, and so is exiled to their city. Finally, we have Hrathen, a Fjordell priest whose mission is to convert the Arelish to Shu-Dereth.

Of these characters, my favorite by far is Hrathen, whose internal struggles and conflict make for the most interesting story out of all them, though his chapters (especially early on) are bogged by exposition.

Sarene was to be married to Raoden, alas, Raoden was taken by the Shaod and banished to Elantris before they could be married. To the rest of the world, it is presented that Raoden is dead, and so according to their contract, they are considered married. Alas, poor Sarene.

Her storyline follows her efforts at trying to block Hrathen's efforts to convert the Arelish to the Derethi beliefs. Clever and politically astute, she is also a talented fencer, introducing it to the ladies of the Arelish court in an effort to give them agency, and very swiftly working her way into a revolutionary group that had previously been collaborating with Raoden.

Finally, Raoden: the charismatic and caring prince of Arelon, a far contrast to his patriarchal, oft-short-sighted and self-centered father. Banished to Elantris, he immediately sets his sights to gathering the poor Elantrians together and making something of themselves and of the decaying city.

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I just wasn't fully sold on it. It's a brilliant idea, but it's a bit of a mess. I felt like it could've used a firmer editor. The apparent complexity of Arelish opinions towards the Elantrians - cursed? hoping for them to return to their former glory? deserving of sympathy? - is presented not as a spectrum of opinion in actual characters but instead described as one, or the other, or one hiding under the other.

Sarene and Raoden, though intelligent, seem to face far too little resistance in their efforts. Or, perhaps, everything went by too quickly. Despite their success, everything spirals downward until they unlock the key to success - and then everything happens just so that, even with prior successes turning out to occur with setbacks, this success doesn't have a competing setback.

The book is dominated by far too many Funny Names as so often appear in fantasy: Teod, where Sarene hails from. Shaod, the transformation that turns one into an Elantrian. Heod, an Elantrian who has lost their mental powers. Reod, the day that the Elantrians ceased to be gods.

Note that they all end "od," and then note that three of the four related to Elantris. Teod sticks out because it has no connection. It's the sort of thing that drags me kicking out of the novel - a failure to adequately make distinctive the linguistics of separate aspects of the world.

As I've said before, everything here Sanderson has ended up doing better: Tying disparate, seemingly unconnected threads together; a fascinating with the nature of divinity and with religion; action set in primarily one location; a strong female protagonist and the person they end up falling in love with (generally a nobleman or someone of nominally greater social status); a man of faith whom undergoes a crisis of belief.

As an introduction to Sanderson's overall style of writing and to the types of worlds and characters and themes he likes to write about, this is a decent standalone. (If you are willing to commit to a series, though, go for the original Mistborn trilogy, which was my introduction to him.)

Ultimately, though I enjoyed it, I was left dissatisfied, left wondering if nostalgia had tinted the many glasses that started with this and moved on to Sanderson's better works without coming back to see the flaws in Elantris. Just about everything here has since been done better by Sanderson.