Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson review

Warbreaker is perhaps the most interesting fantasy novel I've read in years. The tale revolves around a looming war between the kingdoms of Idris and Hallendren. Idris, once part of Hallendren is ruled by the former royal family of Hallendren. Hallendren is ruled by the Court of Gods and the God King.

Twenty years earlier, Idris and Hallendren signed a peace treaty. In twenty years, the Idrians were to send a princess to marry the Susebron, God-King of Hallendren. But when the time came, the king of Idris sent is youngest daughter, Siri, instead of the 20-year old Vivenna. This action throws a wrench into the political machinations going on. And to further compound matters, Vivenna runs away to Hallendren to help her sister and takes the place of an Idrian agent living and working in Hallendren's capital city T'telir.

The story about those trying to start the war and those trying to prevent it is very interesting. The character development is exceptionally well-done. I particularly enjoyed the character Lightsong the Bold, one of the gods of Hallendren. Lightsong doesn't think he's a god. He thinks the "gods" are pathetic and that the people who worship them are fools, so he spends his time trying to do as little as possible.

I should digress here a bit and talk about the gods. They are people who have died and for some reason have returned to life. It seems that when they died, they saw something or knew something and had to return to do some great deed. Once that deed was done, generally healing someone, the god died. They really don't seem to have any other ability except for looking like one would expect a god to look (yes, their physical appearance changes).

So, Siri goes to T'telir to marry the God-King. Vivenna goes to T'telir to rescue Siri, but becomes an anti-Hallendren agent within the city. The Court of Gods debates whether or not they should declare war, making Lightsong with his command of 10000 Lifeless soldiers a very important god. All the while, someone is active in T'telir trying to force the gods into declaring war.

It's a fascinating and well-written tale. It's made even better by the unique magic of this world - BioChromatic Breath. The Breath is sort of like a soul, but not quite, and everyone has one at birth. Breath can be given to others but it cannot be taken. When a person collects more Breath, they have heightened perceptions, become immune to disease, and can even become immortal. But the most interesting thing they can do with the Breath is to Awaken lifeless objects. And to Awaken something, they need color. Like a bright scarf, for example. The Awakener drains the color of the object, and sends some of his Breaths into the object to awaken, along with a (relatively simple) Command (such as "hold things"). The magic plays a central part in the world and in the two kingdoms of Idris and Hallendren. In Idris, it's considered blasphemous to Awaken. The gods of Hallendren must have a new Breath every week in order to survive.

As noted above, this is probably the most interesting (and also original) fantasy novel I've read in quite a while. It's also nice that it's a single standalone novel, rather than book one of a series of indeterminate length. However, the ending is left a bit open for a possible sequel, though I don't think it would work nearly as well as Warbreaker.
/ [Viking]

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