Brandon Sanderson’s Wind And Truth unfolds with gorgeous fantasy action
Wind And Truth marks the halfway point in Brandon Sanderson’s opus, the Stormlight Archive, a planned series of 10 massive books that also connects to a dozen other novels and novellas by the absurdly prolific fantasy author. The book is too long and at times seems to require consulting Sanderson’s extremely comprehensive wiki to follow all the characters, but it’s also an amazing achievement in character development and world-building that demonstrates why fans have put so much faith in Sanderson’s ambitious project.
The action of the Stormlight Archive takes on a frantic pace in Wind And Truth, following the agreement made between King Dalinar Kholin and the god Odium at the end of the previous book in the series, Rhythm Of War, to have a contest of champions in 10 days. Each day before the challenge that will determine the fate of the nations of Roshar and Odium’s ability to conquer other worlds is represented by about 100 pages. The series’ protagonists are scattered across the world, engaged in a mix of desperate battles against Odium’s armies and quests for answers that could give them an edge in the final contest.
Sanderson is a master of fantasy action and Wind And Truth delivers plenty of it, with a wide variety of settings and stakes. The scholar-turned-Knight Radiant Sigzil faces the burdens of command as he takes over from his legendary leader Kaladin Stormblessed, using his knowledge of logistics and strategy as much as his powers to face overwhelming odds on the Shattered Plains. The spy and artist Shallan uses creativity and subterfuge to win battles in the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms, where reality is what she makes of it. Dalinar’s son Adolin grapples with the heavy burden of his father’s expectations and his own feelings of inadequacy in a world where more and more people are developing magical powers as he leads the defense of an empire under siege.
The fights are often grueling and brutal, which Sanderson brings home by focusing on the psychic toll they take rather than the physical blood and guts. Mental health issues have been a major theme throughout the Stormlight Archives, with much of Rhythm Of War following Kaladin suffering from PTSD and depression, Shallan grappling with dissociative identity disorder, and the scholar queen Navani’s issues with imposter syndrome. Wind And Truth follows the progress that Kaladin made in both his personal struggles and his attempts to treat others by sending the hero away from the main action on a quest to deliver cognitive behavioral therapy to the repentant assassin Szeth and the immortal heralds of the lost god of honor.
It’s a powerful next step in Kaladin’s arc that taps into Sanderson’s impressive ability to turn loathsome characters into sympathetic ones. The author has written very few real monsters, but Kaladin initially serves as a good audience stand-in as he questions why the man who helped cause a horrific war deserves a shot at redemption. Yet much as Sanderson helped bring sympathy to the traitorous singer Venli in Rhythm Of War, Szeth’s parable-like story of a child searching for truth being forged into a tool by powers he doesn’t understand makes it easy to feel for him as he grudgingly accepts Kaladin’s help.
Adolin, in contrast, remains the series’ most likable character—a dandy duelist who loves showing off in battle but also takes the time to learn the names of as many soldiers as he can, even if that connection means he feels their losses all the more sharply. While the twist in his plot is obvious long before it actually comes up, his sections demonstrate the best of the series as they combine battles against enormous monsters and mad immortals with the charm and humor of bickering with one of his many exes and creating a scandal by teaching a young emperor how to play cards.
Another bright spot is Adolin’s brother Renarin, who joins the former singer spy Rlain on a quest to find the prison of Odium’s former commander Ba-Ado-Mishram. Their journey is largely an emotional one, a charming gay romance made more important not just because of their society’s rigid gender roles but because of the millennia-long war between their species. Renarin is portrayed as somewhat autistic and his difficulty reading emotions plays cleverly with the challenge singers face communicating with humans who can’t use their rhythmic speech, demonstrating the rewards of putting in the work to make connections.
Taravangian, the scheming monarch who absorbed Odium’s power at the end of Rhythm Of War, makes an excellent villain as he uses the knowledge he gained by working with Dalinar and his coalition against his former friends and allies. His confrontation with the goddess Cultivation is one of the most shocking sections of the book, followed closely by the way he battles Queen Jasnah with her own philosophy and lays the groundwork for future alliances. Unfortunately, much of his battle against Dalinar just feels like a retread of the emotional anguish Odium subjected him to in Oathbringer, adding in a sloppy use of a particularly tired genre trope right at the end.
While a few elements from Sanderson’s other series set in his larger world known as the cosmere are well integrated into the book, most notably Warbreaker’s sentient evil-fighting blade Nightblood whose arc mirrors Szeth’s, most feel extraneous. It’s understandable Sanderson doesn’t want to alienate people who haven’t read all of his books or even just don’t remember the names of secondary characters from Elantris, which came out in 2005, but the result is entirely tangential interludes featuring characters from other worlds not really doing anything.
Wind and Truth has a lot in common with The Hero Of Ages, Sanderson’s third Mistborn book, which also features a group of heroes trying to gather the power needed to fight a god. But Sanderson defies expectations here, leading to an extremely explosive ending with huge implications for Roshar and the rest of his shared universe.