Edgedancer
Ratings577
Average rating4
This was a mildly frustrating book. I love pretty much everything about the Cosmere Universe and Brandon Sanderson has one of the most engaging writing styles I have come across. The character Lift is probably his most annoying creation though, and this is a novella focused purely on her.
As with all of the Stormlight books, this has second to none world building and continues with the amazing magic system established in previous books in the system. This brings me to one of the first annoyances of this book - Lift essentially breaks this system. Having gone to all the effort to build this amazing rules based magic system, we have a character here who apparently does not obey the laws previously laid out.
Lift herself is a precocious teenage thief, who was briefly introduced in Words of Radiance. Precocious children are hard to write well, and unfortunately this one falls on the side of annoyingly cocky. Her personality just jars with me.
Despite these issues, this is still a Sanderson Stormlight book. It has his amazing writing style, some genuine moments of humour and a good central storyline and mystery. It is a good book, but due to the central character it just doesn't compare especially well to his other cosmere books. It is still a lot better than many other fantasy books out there though
Probably should have passed on this one... Lift is not my favorite character and having an entire novella on her was too much. Luckily it was short.
I disliked Lift in words of radiance. But while reading this novella I grew to love her. Such a fun and interesting character.
3,5 stars! I really like Lift, but there wasn't much to this story and it took me more than it should to finish it!
3,5 stars! I really like Lift, but there wasn't much to this story and it took me more than it should to finish it!
This is such a hard one to review! I'm.....not a big fan of the character Lift. She seems to be a love her or hate her character, and while I feel hate is a pretty strong word for my reaction to her, I do find her really difficult to like. Having said that, I do like this story and her ideal does pull on my heartstrings. There is a lot in this short book to chew on in the grander scheme of Cosmere and Stormlight Archive things, so it is essential to read and worth plugging through even if Lift is annoying to you. It looks like she will play a much larger role in the coming books, and Brandon has mentioned she's one of his favourite characters, so she's not going anywhere anytime soon. I hope that over time her story will make up for the things I dislike about her character, which Brandon has managed to do with some of the other characters I wasn't a big fan of the first time or at the beginning, so I do have hope she'll grow on me. But I digress. This one is for sure essential to read if you're reading the larger Stormlight Archive books, but your enjoyment of it may depend on whether Lift is a hit or miss for you.
Introduce as much lore as you like, it doesn’t really matter if your main character is absolutely insufferable. Not sure if I’d even recommend this for the hardcore fans
Lift was a standout side character in the last book and getting a longer adventure with her was as fun as expected. It reminds me of the fun cartoons I'd watch. The bonus here was more world building in the stormlight universe and the creation of new questions which I can't wait to find the answers to in the next book
genius of sanderson to flesh out stormlight side characters with their own novellas, and the everstorm is such a dope backdrop for this story but it just feels super underwhelming imo! last few chapters rock but there are so so many more chapters beforehand where nothing much really happens apart from pancake after pancake being eaten by an annoying little girl.
I love Brandon Sanderson's books but one thing he has had a problem with is not being able to distill the essence of his book down to less than 1000 pages. A lot of his early work is filled with fluff that doesn't drive the story along and should be cut out. Sometimes he over explains his lore at the expense of the story.
Not here. This is perfect.
7/10 really fun. Short story that really helps flesh out another part of Roshar. Lift is a fun character but I prefer her as a secondary character.
Me gustó, he leído opiniones de que la protagonista aquí la encuentran insoportable, pero no es mi caso.
El único pero que encontré, es que todos los capítulos son en un solo punto de vista, cuando habían posibilidades de meter otros diferentes.
Juramentada en camino
I didn't enjoy this as much as the previous two, but “Darkness” is very interesting.
A fun novel about one of my Favorit characters in the Stormlight archive. I loved this I don't give a f*** attitude that lift showed on her interlude in words of radiance and this novel is even more than that.
Nonetheless I found that the main problem got resolved too fast and too easy. After reading the authors note at the end I understand that the role of this book was to show the change of mind of a character between books 2 and 3. But I still have the feeling that this change of mind was too sudden. Yes seeing the Everstorm with your own eyes could change your mind... but even Seth was reluctant when first seeing it, and he wanted to believe it...
Therefore my main concern with this novella is that it is too short. Give us more lift and more time for the characters to assimilate the Everstorm.
I don't think Sanderson does comedy well. I should've read this after Words of Radiance and think that might have hurt some of the enjoyment regardless I just don't like Lyft. The comedy seems more geared towards teenagers which is fine, but I'm not a teenager so it doesn't quite cut it for me. I love the Edgedancer abilities and that part was fun.
There wasn't a TON of Cosmere related info in this at least not from immediate reading, maybe if I go back and read it I'll notice some easter eggs I'm sure. I also don't think this novella is particularly necessary to read not nearly in the way Dawnshard is. If you enjoy the comedy style of Lyft in Words of Radiance or Wayne from Mistborn Era 2 I think you'd enjoy it. Having said that it is a short novella and flows relatively well chapter to chapter so it wouldn't cost a ton of time to read it quickly before jumping into Oathbringer
I like Lift a lot, actually. Would love to see her interact with stoic, tough-guy military men like Kaladin and Dalinar. Would love even more to see her interact with Wit.