Had to look up when this was written and was really hoping it was…really long ago? It was 2016, which to be fair does feel like a thousand years ago, but its not really far enough back for Sanderson to use as a plot point (and lame laugh lines) the fact that a secondary character (a senior scribe, who happens to be female) is fat. It’s just…gives the ick, you know, in a book that’s otherwise really enjoyable and written from a unique POV.
The first chapter of this novel can be found in one of the interludes in Words of Radiance–the story of Lift’s attempted burglarization (as part of a crew) and the subsequent Emperor-ification of one of her friends. After that, we continue to follow Lift and her beleaguered spren Wyndle who used to be a top notch gardener (not of anything as pedestrian as plants) before being bound to her and brought along on her slapdash adventures.
You enjoyment of Lift, I think, will depend on how much patience you have with antics prior to what you know is coming (since she’s Surgebinding, she’s a Knight Radiant and at some point will speak the words/oath and become a proper Knight, and indubitably her Oath will come at a time when she’s demonstrating some high morality that sets her apart from other humans). Her jokes are a bit one-note–she’s always hungry, because she metabolizes food the way the others intake stormlight; she’s always charging headfirst into scrapes or walking away from stability to the exasperation of Wyndle–but they come together to form a full character, with a different take on life than everyone we’ve met so far. And, since this is Sanderson, we’re also learning some really fundamental-feeling backstory that seems like it’ll be relevant for the larger Roshar conflicts going on.
It’s cool to see the inverse of the Star Wars “there is only one city on each planet, and our heroes are there” vibe–here, we’re in a different city in Roshar that seems so very far removed from the all-consuming conflict on the Shattered Plains…at least until the Everstorm blows into town, tying the two stories together in a neat but realistic way.