Review: Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson

Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 600
Published: Dec 2011 (2009)
Publisher: Gollancz
Source: For review

Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago.

Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people.

By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.

My thoughts:

Brandon Sanderson is a master world builder, but here it is the magic system that he builds with thought and precision. The world is of course still well built, but the magic, oh the magic just blows you away. I will not even try to explain it, he does it much better. But to simplify, everyone has got breaths, if you got more then you can use those for magic. There is also this thing about colors and how some have returned to life. But yes just read the book. Or else I will spend the rest of this review on the magical system in this world.

It's a world where the Returned and the Godking with his priests rules the kingdom we see most of. They are terrible and worships people who have come back to life. At least that is what our heroines from Idris think. Siri, is young and out of control, but in any other country she would just be filled with life. I liked her because she was real, human. While her sister Vivienne is collected and does her duty well. One of them will marry the terrible Godking to save their country from war.

The story is about these two sisters who are trying to survive and do what is best. It's also about a mysterious stranger called Vasher whom I do not know if I should trust or not when he is skulking about. And it is about Lifesong, one of the Returned. He died, he came back, and he is a God with doubts. My favorite character was Siri because just of the way her story went, which I will tell you no more about. I also liked the Lifesong bits since the whole concept about these Gods was so interesting. But then Viv's story took me for a few surprises too. All in all making all the characters so much more than I would have thought. It is a book about changes, freedom, doubt, misconceptions and more.

This book is it, yes there are no trilogy or 10 books to wait for. You will get a conclusion in it so that is a big plus for me. It's nice with a one book fantasy "series" once in a while.

Conclusion:

It was good and the magic, oh he creates it so well. Where does he come up with these ideas? I do love Brandon Sanderson's books.

Cover:

Not a big fan of the cover