Sorry for another late post, my mom and I are visiting my sister and aunt and uncle for the weekend, so I have not had much time on the computer. (Except when I was watching Netflix for three hours... that doesn't count...)
Anyway, I finished an amazing novella on Thursday night and I thought I would do a bit of shameless advertisement for it. The novella is called The Emperor's Soul, and it's written by Brandon Sanderson, the same author who finished writing The Wheel of Time series, and who has written some other amazing work, only a small fraction of which I have yet read. The Emperor's Soul is only about 160 pages, thus why it's a novella, so it's a very quick read. The brilliant thing about it is that the world building is very strong. It explains everything enough to not confuse the reader, but also so as not to make the reader lose interest.
*SPOILERS* The plot is simple (obviously). The idea is that there is some sort of magic that is placed into stamps. It allows the stamp to change the history of something or someone. For example, at one point in the book, the main character changed the history of a table so that it was taken care of, transforming it from a run down and old table into a beautiful, ornate table. That's simple and easy to understand. Now the main character is considered a Forger, and was caught trying to steal a very famous painting. She was tasked with rebuilding the Emperor's Soul after he was attacked and suffered great brain damage, or else she would be executed.
The plot sounds a little boring, but it's the prose that brings it to life. The main character, Shai, is a genius when it comes to her trade. She can read anyone and anything better than a book. The POV is limited (mostly) third person omniscient, meaning that we can see the thoughts of Shai, and on occasion will switch to the thoughts of other characters. Because we can see her reasoning for what she does. It's like Sherlock, how he connects every little detail to form a larger picture. Amazing, simply amazing.
As I mentioned before, Sanderson is able to create a strong world. Actually, that's not quite the right word. He has created one empire, and has mentioned other countries or kingdoms in the world, and he could have explained the politics better, although that might be my complete ineptitude at understanding any sort of government. But the government that is currently in control is very detailed, along with many laws. The most important thing is, of course, the magic, and that is explained in great detail, using both showing and telling. There was only one point which I rolled my eyes, because it was clearly a conversation used just to explain the magic. But it was effect, if a little cliché.
All in all, I would give it 4.5 stars out of five, simply because it ended rather abruptly and felt like it should have been longer. However, Sanderson has shown his ability to create long, complicated plot lines that stretch out through three books. I would definitely suggest him to anyone who likes a mystery novel combined with fantasy, medieval and even a bit of sci-fy.
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