See my personal book wiki entry for more.

I finished the prequel, Words of Radiance in January 2018. At that time, Oathbringer had just been published in November 2017, and I knew I would have to wait perhaps a year or more if I decided to wait for the Chinese translation. I was also pretty confident about my English skills at that time, so I decided to just buy the original version online.

I thought I would finish before the translation was out.

I was wrong.

The 1233 pages took me 16 months to finish. When I saw the Chinese translation in the bookstore in March 2019 (the 13th month), I was so shocked and even a little irritated. It had been published two months earlier. If I had waited for the translation, I would have finished it in February 2019, four months before my actual finishing time.

What took me so long? Well, the English in this book isn’t really that hard, but the Stormlight Archive series is pretty slow paced, as it’s huge, and you won’t be motivated to binge-watch it if you read at an even slower speed, with maybe 60%-70% comprehension of the story.

Is it worth it? Probably not. The only rewarding thing I got from this experience is that I’ve read a 1200+ page novel in English. I mean, it’s pretty impressive even in my native language, not to mention my second language. But other than that? …… no, not really. Reading in Chinese is just far more rewarding and comfy. That’s why I’m currently waiting for Rhythm of War, which was published in November 2020, to be translated,

So far, I haven’t really reviewed the book—only my journey reading it. So what about the book itself?

Well, it’s just like the other books in the series, I would say. There are many major plot-wise developments in this book, and it gets a bit crazy at the end, but they aren’t really that exciting to me. The whole series is just a bit… messy. Brandon Sanderson is known for his well-crafted, physics-like magic systems, but I didn’t really see that in this series. The magic in this series is just … everywhere. There are no governing rules, nor are they interconnected. They are just there because they’re … fun? The same reason I dislike Mistborn Era 2. The magic system in Mistborn Era 1 is just perfect. It is simple, clearly ruled, well explained, fun, and has a “classical” kind of feeling. Era 2? Not so much. Brandon Sanderson just added so many crazy magics that weren’t explained, and I don’t buy that. If I want to see that kind of magic system, I’ll just watch a fucking light novel (or Harry Potter).

Anyway, it is still a pretty decent book, despite the not-so-good magic system of this series.