Elantris

I like this book a lot! It's cliche in a lot of ways but when you consider that this is a debut, it's a really good one.

I picked up Sanderson's books because he's taking over the Wheel of Time. Naturally, I started with the first book he wrote. I found myself enjoying it very much. The pacing starts off slow, in the form of three separate storylines, that slowly converges and builds into a fast-paced and satisfying finale.

The style of prose seems similar enough for me to the Wheel of Time, with sometimes lengthy descriptions and portrayals. But someow I feel that it's nicely woven into the story as a way to pull you into that world and care about the characters.

Granted, the protagonists (prince and princess) were a little too good to be true, with events conveniently favouring them. I can't help liking them though - like fairy tale heroes. The antagonists were rather interesting, with clear and strong motivations.

The setting in particular deserves applause. The magical city itself, the magic system, and the way they're slowly unraveled and shown to the reader - it was brilliant! And just an aside, the religions of world rather reminded me of real-world religons, so i guess that's where the inspiration came from.

Elantris is like a nice tale of good vs evil with politics and religion thrown in and then served with rich prose.