groofay

This book is deceptively simple, and every time I read it, a different angle seems to be the “main point;” this time, it was how simplifying language for convenience can lead so easily to reframing, propaganda, and gaslighting. One wonders what Orwell would have made of McCarthyism, let alone what both “sides” of the current US corporate government machine get away with on a constant basis to this day scot-free.

This is a very solid follow-up to The Final Empire, expanding the setting and cast while still feeling lived-in, real, and familiar. I'll be looking forward to Hero of Ages, albeit with some trepidation because Sanderson has made it clear with this entry that nobody and nothing is necessarily safe, and even the things that seem well-established can be unreliable.

A great read, and if I wasn't fully invested in the Cosmere before, I sure am now.

I don't know how he did it, but Brandon Sanderson turned the characters he set up in Alloy of Law–easily my least favorite Sanderson book to date–into people I empathize with to the point that the last part of the book emotionally wrecked me, almost out of nowhere.

So screw you, Brandon Sanderson, for making me feel something. But also thank you for making your characters so gloriously, horribly human.