Volume 1
I suppose these are hard to write individually, since they form a cohesive three book arc—but, annoying, I can’t just say that I read the Omnibus edition because that is, in fact, a newly edited version that everyone says to read in lieu of reading the three individual volumes. I wish I had looked up this information ahead of time, but when I saw that the individual volumes were available at my various local public libraries but the omnibus was not, I thought I had outsmarted the world. Good lesson in humility, that.
There’s a very line-heavy style of comic books that I personally don’t like very much. I understand that it’s artistic, and maybe it comes from my formative years being spent reading manga (which is, largely, defined by very clean line drawing) and bandes dessinées (Tintin, Astérix), but I find it confusing as opposed to immersive. It’s hard to follow with the number of action lines and shading lines, and while the coloring helps it doesn’t fix the underlying issue which is that my eyes start to glaze over a bit.
So perhaps that will color your view of this book as well? Especially since the magic is slightly confusing (as are all of Sanderson’s magic systems, when you first encounter them) and the drawings don’t make it super clear exactly what is going on. Characters that are meant to be clearly tan-er than others seem like super milk-y tea. “Ribbons” of sand look like sand and sometimes like flashes of lightning, and since they can also turn into water (?) it’s not clear whether that was intended (don’t think so).
But all that aside…was I engaged by the story herein? I am, and I did want to know more.
Volume 2
I am starting to understand that Sanderson’s work follows a certain arc: first, we have WAR. Everyone is WARRING and FIGHTING THEIR WAY and there’s someone trying to PROVE THEMSELVES, aka you’ve got a classic hero’s journey type set up going on. But then, in the middle, everything turns into politics and diplomacy, and our formerly gung-ho soldiers are really out of their depth. What do you mean talk? What do you mean words have power? Pen is mightier than the sword? The economics of trade matter? People need to eat and need shelter?
So here we are again, volume two of three, and Kenton is forced into being a Chief Diplomat of a group that doesn’t really value him and convince others who don’t trust him to give him free reign to try something that’s never worked. He’ll start by visiting all of the other heads of guilds to see if anyone is willing to budge (no, but we’ve surely learnt something along the way that will lead to minds being changed). He’ll start opening up the previously off-limits towers that symbolized his order’s aloofness, and in doing so learn about the evils that befell the world of normal people—hunger, poverty, inequality, the like. There will also be assassins, because nothing is ever that easy.
Here too is where the art switches very jarringly from what I call classic comic book to like, clean-cut modern graphic novel adaptation. YMMV with the change, but I found that it made the story much clearer to follow and enhanced my enjoyment. Looking around seems like most people found the switch hideous, but pearls are clutched everywhere.
Volume 3
Here we have the conclusion to this story, and I will admit that it’s not really the cleanest of endings. Normally, I’m impressed with how small Sanderson clues along the way lead to an ending so obvious that you feel like you could have guessed it (but I never can) but here it definitely feels more like an MCU showdown, wherein there’s like a Big Bad and you know our hero will win but you’re not really sure how? And also it doesn’t matter because there’s a lot of action going on and it’s hard to really follow. The only difference here, in my opinion, is that the clear-er art work makes it straight forward to understand the sequence of the fight (even if the way in which Kenton wins—which cannot possibly be a spoiler—doesn’t really build on anything we’ve learnt along the way) (I hear that in the fabled omnibus this is resolved much better by the use of foreshadowing and contextual clues).
I think the politics/diplomacy bits are actually much better—although here too you expect that diplomacy will win the day, it’s useful to see how the various characters in opposition to Kenton come around by hook, by crook, or by careful logical reasoning.