They say in a reader's life of reading, once you find your writer, you actually find your writer, you'd know after a few chapters in the book.
And if it's a series, well, your account and time has already been sold to him/her in an act of book love.
Naturally I'm a book whore, at least I thought I was until I started the Stormlight Archives, and now that I'm in (and about to finish) Book 3, another 1200+ pages of this lore, I feel Brandon Sanderson might be the one...
I've already talked about the first two books Way Of Kings and Words Of Radiance, this is the third of the books in the series, but is actually a small side story or Novella.
So instead of book 3, it's called book 2.5...
Edge Dancer
Plot
Despite being given a safe haven by Yada, the new Azish Emperor, Lift still feels choked up and boxed in.
In an act of sheer impulse, after hearing about the workings of the strange Executioner- who she dubbed Darkness- in Yeddaw hunting new budding Radiants like herself, she decides to go there. Her mission was to stop darkness, save his targets and with an even greater importance: try all of Yeddaw's famed Pancakes.
...brought in because I genuinely think it's cute and it's how I actually pictured her✨...
Normally, a book review would be a bunch of words something that stands as a testament to the authors skill or use of the pen.
Yet if you've already read my other reviews, and seen some of my threads and random posts where I've hinted it, you should already know how good Brandon is, and as I don't like to repeat myself, I wouldn't go down that route in this or other posts on this series (unless need be)
This review though would be my thoughts on the story itself and it's relevance to the whole series.
Lift is one of the strangest characters you'd see in this series, her only competitor would probably be Lopen, the jovial Herdazian who sets a new record for strange every day.
Her background shrouded in mystery, her words hard to understand yet fun to read and her actions as intriguing as their unreasonable.
As a little writer myself, I'd see creating such a character to be a feat to be proud of, and to continue creating and improving her is one that should be honored.
This book, is something that was written to try to shed a little bit of light on her story, a bit of a character arc. One that's too long to put in the regular stories and too short to add as a real book.
In actuality, I feel it would have been written if Lift wasn't a Knight Radiant and as such a core character in the books to come, even if she isn't as major as Kaladin, Shallan and Dalinar.
The book wasn't a true background book, but was put as something that would be used to further the story, or at least put the character, 'Lift', up to speed in becoming a true radiant as she spoke the second ideal.
We get to really understand her story, see how and why she behaves as such and know what or a little bit of what her surges and radiant group is about.
All this inner workings is hidden between words of pure fun and action, the dialogue is amazing, the incidences laughable and one can't help but feel pity to Wyndle, Lift's spren as he tries with no avail to show her how a 'true' edge dancer and normal person should behave.
The final battle against darkness, which was the climax of the book was actually good, a true different vibe from the other pages of the book.
We actually got a look at lift being relatively serious and focused, (at least a few seconds of the battle), it was quite fulfilling as she won, the case settled and she slides back home.
Its a truly fun and essential read, the reader leaves happy, knowledgeable and content with the character, a true bridge to help quickly bridge books 2 and 3.
It's not a full Stormlight Archive story of course, but if I were to rate it, I'd give it a storming 4.9 out of 5.
First image has its source embedded into the image, click on it and go to the source, second image is a screenshot of the book amd and third image is made using Canva.