What a book! After the first couple of the Stormlight Archive books I had high expectations which were still vastly exceeded. I don’t want to tell too much about the book because it works best without any prior knowledge. Therefore, if you enjoy fantasy or fiction in general and trust me, go read the book before reading this review further and then come back to talk to me about it. I don’t intend to spoil anything but the less you know the better. Don’t even read the back cover. Consider my recommendation given and proceed at your own risk if you have not read it yet.

I was a little apprehensive about having to start a new book – particularly a standalone – in between books of what I already consider potentially the greatest series I have ever read, and although the beginning could be described as a bit slow overall, the plot kept picking up speed exponentially and I grew to really like the characters. Comparing to The Way of Kings, the first chapter gives out an impression that Brandon Sanderson really likes to start with a very particular pattern that is perfectly suited to introducing the magic of the world while kicking off the plot at once, introducing tension and setting up promises, most of which will always be redeemed later, but I found the almost explicit, structural parallels with The Way of Kings quite funny.

However, the tone is otherwise a little different. In fact, the first couple hundred pages felt to me almost comically close in tone, setting and atmosphere to Sarah J. Maas books, the humor coming from knowing how much the authors usually differ in certain key aspects. In that sense, tonally, this might then serve as a great entry point to the Cosmere for fans of the genre – you know who you are. It does, however, take a few quite unexpected turns and managed to completely surprise me even a couple of times, though I see now how it had to be that way.

That really is the mark of a great mystery when you can see it perfectly clearly in retrospect and could have put it together yourself but were kept in just enough uncertainty with just the right red herrings and twists that you could not quite anticipate everything perfectly. Why I think that the less you know the better it is also has to do with me not anticipating such an explicit mystery, which also disarmed me a little and allowed me to get more immersed into the story, the world and the characters. That being said, I would definitely call this a fantasy mystery with emphasis on the latter.

In fact, I was almost a bit disappointed about how, in a way, small the role of the unique magic system was in it on a crude level. It was routinely used just like any other tool, even though much of it was unknown. Yet, its intricacies were masterfully used in more subtle ways to ask various philosophical questions along with posing moral dilemmas both explicitly and implicitly, the latter of which are even more interesting in many ways. This gets us to the themes of the book, which go much deeper than your typical whodunit. In a way, the mystery is only a backdrop for a much more personal story about what makes a person who they are. It explores particularly religion and the clash of cultures in a very original way, playing on the prejudices of both the main character as well as the reader in a fantastically crafted tale of truth, trust and responsibility.

Aawez and Tristan once taught me how to extrapolate with two datapoints and after now having partially read two different separate but connected works of Brandon Sanderson, I can tell that the quality of the worldbuilding, characterization and magic systems are and will be such givens that they do not really need to be separately mentioned anymore, but I will mention it here once more just in case you have not yet read my Stormlight Archive reviews. All of the same praise applies to this as well. I give my wholehearted recommendation to all fans of mystery and fantasy, whether you come from Sarah J. Maas or J. R. R. Tolkien, and to anyone who enjoys great stories in general, even if you did read all the way down here despite my warnings.