Victor Hugo Kebbe
Original Review (2014): I have mixed feelings about this book. Sanderson came with such an amazing setting and, despite hating all this need to every single fantasy title to have a magic-system-mumbo-jumbo, his is very original. Nevertheless, plot is quite mediocre, with cardboard characters. It is somehow a fast read, but the writer repeats several phrases throughout the book. A fine piece of entertainment, but entertainment only.
Updated Review (2024): I've been venturing into TikTok for the past few days, mainly following booktokers. After several days following these people, I realized that, in the area of Fantasy literature, many have a great appreciation for Brandon Sanderson and the entire unfolding of his production that, now unified, he calls Cosmere. Nothing against the author, but I wonder about his quite expressive popularity there. I read Mistborn in 2013 after following several recommendations and I was quite disappointed with this particular title. At the time, everyone extolled the importance of having a “coherent magic system”. At that time, it seemed, due to the amount of articles and comments about it, that this would mark the quality of the narrative, as if we needed very well-defined rules (like the scientific method) to explain the fantastic elements such as Magic in these stories. However, this is, in my opinion, the biggest flaw in the proposal: when the fantastic elements need to be explained within a pseudo-scientific rationality, it ceases to be fantastic. The various societies of the world have never needed this Western rationality to create their stories and complex mythologies. This has always been the fight between the genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the latter of which, in fact, relies on this idea of scientific rationality to tell captivating stories. I understand Sanderson's appeal at the time. And I also understand the success of Sanderson and his books in our Western context, which values this specific idea of rationality. With his idea of Allomancy, he created rules that seemed important at the time. But I went back to my notes on Mistborn and came across, at the time, a finely crafted “magic system” with two-dimensional characters and a rather average narrative. A “coherent magic system” does not make a book a book.
Original Review (2014): I have mixed feelings about this book. Sanderson came with such an amazing setting and, despite hating all this need to every single fantasy title to have a magic-system-mumbo-jumbo, his is very original. Nevertheless, plot is quite mediocre, with cardboard characters. It is somehow a fast read, but the writer repeats several phrases throughout the book. A fine piece of entertainment, but entertainment only.
Updated Review (2024): I've been venturing into TikTok for the past few days, mainly following booktokers. After several days following these people, I realized that, in the area of Fantasy literature, many have a great appreciation for Brandon Sanderson and the entire unfolding of his production that, now unified, he calls Cosmere. Nothing against the author, but I wonder about his quite expressive popularity there. I read Mistborn in 2013 after following several recommendations and I was quite disappointed with this particular title. At the time, everyone extolled the importance of having a “coherent magic system”. At that time, it seemed, due to the amount of articles and comments about it, that this would mark the quality of the narrative, as if we needed very well-defined rules (like the scientific method) to explain the fantastic elements such as Magic in these stories. However, this is, in my opinion, the biggest flaw in the proposal: when the fantastic elements need to be explained within a pseudo-scientific rationality, it ceases to be fantastic. The various societies of the world have never needed this Western rationality to create their stories and complex mythologies. This has always been the fight between the genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the latter of which, in fact, relies on this idea of scientific rationality to tell captivating stories. I understand Sanderson's appeal at the time. And I also understand the success of Sanderson and his books in our Western context, which values this specific idea of rationality. With his idea of Allomancy, he created rules that seemed important at the time. But I went back to my notes on Mistborn and came across, at the time, a finely crafted “magic system” with two-dimensional characters and a rather average narrative. A “coherent magic system” does not make a book a book.
This is one of the best Ancient History books today. Its tiny size is misleading if you think it’s a short text book: the author proposes a bold theory to rethink Ancient History as being, in fact, the history of connections and exchanges and the entire Mediterranean Sea. From this new perspective, everything needs to be rethought: Greece, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Persian Empire, Roman Empire, Hellenism... the theoretical gains are immense.
This is one of the best Ancient History books today. Its tiny size is misleading if you think it’s a short text book: the author proposes a bold theory to rethink Ancient History as being, in fact, the history of connections and exchanges and the entire Mediterranean Sea. From this new perspective, everything needs to be rethought: Greece, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Persian Empire, Roman Empire, Hellenism... the theoretical gains are immense.
