Edgedancer
Ratings610
Average rating4
espreno bundão com uma pirralha sarna. como pode um arauto não conseguir acabar com uma praga dessas
A lovely little interlude with Lift, aided and abetted by Wyndle. As usual, an excellent audiobook performance by Kate Reading.
Lift's interlude was my least favorite part on WoR. It is not a bad piece of story, but I found her particularly annoying and I was getting worried about her role in the series.
Obviously, I shouldn't have doubted Sanderson, especially regarding one of his favorite characters.
Edgedancer is far from Sanderson best work, but it was a lot of fun! It took me 4 hours to read it so you can attest I had a great time.
Despite being a novella (on Sanderson standards only, it is indeed a regular novel with 40,000 words), we get to see what I believe to be interesting and important developments on Stormlight Archives, both in terms of characters and plot-wise.
We watch the others. The assassin. The surgeon. The liar. The highprince. But not you. The others all ignore you ... and that, I hazard to predict, is a mistake.”
Lift is indeed a very interesting character and I end up itching to know more about her.
“I will listen,” Lift shouted, “to those who have been ignored!”
Wyndle is just delightful! I mean: “... I was a very regal fork, wouldn't you say?”
More random thoughts: I was hoping this novel would clarify more about the old magic trades but I was left disappointed.. my only advance on this is that her trade was probably the opposite of what she wanted, but I have to wait and see.
If you are on the fence with Edgedancer, don't be. It is a worthy stormlight “novella”!
Y pasa a ser uno de mis dos relatos favoritos del Cosmere, junto a “El Alma del Emperador”.
A diferencia de este último, el punto fuerte de la historia no es su trama y misterio, sino el personaje principal, que es capaz de subir este relato al top con su ingenio, su carisma y su trasfondo.
Aparte de esto, la trama también me ha gustado mucho y en ella nos revelan detalles importantes de Roshar. También hace muy bien de puente entre los libros de Archivo para conocer el contexto de Lift, Nale y el pueblo tasshiki.
En general, es un relato increíblemente carismático, de lectura rápida, con una trama relevante dentro de la saga de El Archivo de las Tormentas y que se disfruta mucho pasando de “Palabras Radiantes” a “Juramentada”. Muy agradecido con la lectura
Fun but hollow in impact and tiresome in character delivery.
Read my full review at my website.
I liked the book but had my issues with Lift, nothing major but still noticeable. I think, even tough it says you can, you should not read this as a standalone book.
“Lift prepared to be awesome”
Wat een schattig, onzinnig, grillig verhaaltje dat je plotseling doet beseffen dat het toch serieus wat diepgang heeft. Er waren ook verrassend veel onthullingen die hoogstwaarschijnlijk van invloed zullen zijn op de volledige Stormlight Archive. Ik zal niet doen alsof ik alle referenties heb opgemerkt of zelfs heb begrepen, want dat heb ik absoluut niet.
Maar zelfs zonder het volledige plaatje te snappen, vond ik dit kleine zijverhaal erg leuk.
“Being young was an excuse. A plausible justification”
Ik vond het geweldig om de evolutie van Lift te zien.
Ze is een personage dat heel veel verdeeldheid zaait, met hoe irritant ze is en hoe ze zich wanhopig vastklampt aan haar vrijheid door haar kinderachtigheid te overdrijven. Maar ze maakt veel groei door in dit avontuur en ik heb het gevoel dat we onze ogen open moeten houden voor haar, want ze lijkt een underdog te zijn die behoorlijk belangrijk zal worden voor wat nog zal komen!
“I will remember those who have been forgotten.”
This was a pretty fun romp that serves as an origin story of Lift, a character that's likely to become more important later on in the main series of the Stormlight Archive, as well as establishing some other small little nuggets of lore.
The refreshing thing about Lift is how she just doesn't seem to take anything seriously, not even her own powers, or the fact that she has a sentient being that only she can see following her around and nagging her all the time. She's only in her pre-teens and often behaves that way, but sometimes she displays thoughts and maturity that are beyond her years, and makes me wonder whether Lift has a lot more in her past and history than what is even shown here. Sometimes, though, I found her wilfull rebelliousness and nonchalance a little wearying but overall it wasn't too bad.
Wyndle, imo, was the star of the show. BranSan enjoys creating quirky little side characters and it's clear that he had a lot of fun here. Wyndle is some sort of plant being, but essentially behaves like a very reluctant babysitter to Lift, bemoaning that he was selected for this task of accompanying her and fondly reminiscing on how he could have been a gardener instead of this. His presence really adds a much-needed voice of reason while still maintaining the light-hearted comedy of this story.
There's definitely even a mini-Sanderlanche in this one, with some small plot twists here and there. I'm looking forward to seeing more of a character introduced in this novella that grows to be more important towards the end of the story and, I hope, will be more prominent in the later SA books, aside from Lift and Wyndle, of course.
I know a lot of people do not like Lift much and I will admit I was on the fence about her but after reading this I am quite fond of her. It is a good quick read.
3.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews
Summary
Young Lift has an odd, vine-like companion who's invisible to others, and really wishes she'd stopped stealing and take up gardening. He keeps giving her advice and broad hints about his true nature, but she just doesn't seem to catch on. And there's this dark, powerful guy stalking her.
Review
Authors – and Brandon Sanderson in particular – like to use shorter fiction to fill in gaps in larger stories. Publishers like to use them to fill gaps in publishing schedules, and to attract new fans. Sometimes, though, they can backfire. In this case, I bought book 3 of the Stormlight Archive, Oathbringer, four years ago. Before I got around to reading it, though, I learned about this book, Edgedancer. I like to read things in order, so I decided to wait until I had this. I took me until this spring to finally buy it. So, waiting for the fill-in stopped my reading of the series dead in its tracks. That's not exactly Sanderson's fault, but it does mean that I've completely lost track of what was happening, which somewhat defeated my whole purpose.
In any case, Edgedancer is a moderately self-contained piece, though some knowledge of the larger world is useful in understanding what's going on. Sanderson lays out his reasons for writing this separate installment in an afterword, but I wasn't really convinced that he accomplished them. For example, he intended to show how the protagonist, lift, took some key oaths. And throughout this story, her companion Wyndle is encouraging her to say key Words. Yet she never does either – at least not in a way that doesn't require a lot of unfounded inference.
That said, Lift is a fun character – full of light-hearted sass. Her backstory isn't made clear here - apparently there's yet another short story that may do that - and there's not a lot of logic to what she does and where she goes, but it's enjoyable to follow along with her as she eats her way through the story. I can't say I'm glad I waited for this, but it was an easy and quick, if non-essential read.
I liked the story, but Lyft is an annoying Mary Sue.
Sure, she has had a difficult past and supposedly good intentions, but she is somehow better than anyone at everything, while completely disrespectful to absolutely everyone she meets.
Moreover, the way she thinks, speaks and acts is inappropriately comedic, which creates a tonal inconsistency to the Stormlight Archive.
Maybe the author has a soft spot for her, but to me she is the weakest character of his so far.
This was such a fun novella! It's been a few years since I've read something from the Cosmere, and this was a delightful re-entry (I couldn't stomach 1000+ pages of Oathbringer just yet). Lift was one of my favorite characters from Words of Radiance even though she got so little space – so I'm so glad she got the attention of an entire short narrative. Her character development was great, and this was light while still bringing some additional detail to the overarching story.
Not my favourite book by BrandoSando. I really like Lift, but the story itself was a bit meh.
6/10
Lift is a super annoying character. And the way her POV is written is really childish and irritating.
But the third act is great as usual. Lots of Stormlight goodness and important plot details.
Definitely a must read before Oathbringer.
An interesting story. I found the MC a little obnoxious but over all I liked this book and it's a fun addition to the Stormlight Archive
Bien para saber más de Lift. Pero como novela corta me parece que cojea en ritmo.
When I heard lift had a whole book to herself, I just could not wait to get my hands on it. Its a character you can see Brandon went to town with and the town was really pretty. And this story did not disappoint in the least. We journey through a couple of Kingdoms and meet some characters old and new. Probably the best character we meet though is her Spren and you can see why they are so matched. The humor which is becoming a large part of Sanderson's repertoire is the highlight in this book and suitably so. And just so that you don't think its frivolous, he caps it off with the Words chosen by Lift. Onwards!
Why you should read this novella, a summary:
- You wanna see someone use a Shardblade as something other than a blade?
- You wanna see the protagonist fall face first onto the ground (literally) and use Stormlight to slide across the ground so as not to hurt her face?
- You wanna see an exasperated Spren trying to dissuade its assigned human from trying to do foolish things?
- Do you wanna see a cool kid fight a Herald, and steal his breakfast?
- Do you just wanna see someone steal food for a 100 pages and use it as motivation to keep doing more stupid things?
Then yes, read this book. You won't regret it! Even if it has no Kaladin or Dalinar, you'll keep on reading!!!
P.S. Szeth shows up so read it
I enjoyed the world building that added to the overall Stormlight Archive narrative but the rest was just meh. I don't particularly enjoy the character of Lift and didn't feel like she really developed or changed over the course of the book. I disliked her attempts at humor and her constant reuse of the “Wyndle is a Voidbringer” joke. It got very repetitive.
This is a must read if you are going through Stormlight Archive, but at least it is short enough to read in one day!