Environment - The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Here is a little update for everyone: So The Way of Kings and it's sequel are very big books, just in case none of you have ever really looked at them let alone read them. It definitely will not take me nearly as long to read them as it did for me to read the Malazan Book of the Fallen, but it will definitely take some time. So I am going back to the idea of picking parts of the books that interest me and doing a post about them. And so the first series of posts to go with the book starts today, YAY :)

The Environment

Now I do not want to sound like I am bragging when I say that I own a lot of books, specifically over 300. And so I want you to realize that out of ALL of those books that I have read, none have had such creativity in the environment as the books by Brandon Sanderson (specifically though this series, however his other books that I have read definitely do not lack in creativity). The only other authors who I have read that have this much creativity behind it is Steven Erikson and Terry Pratchett (I mean come on...a turtle with four elephants and a very very flat world...).

art by satarariley d79skuc

We all know that it takes a very creative person to write a good book. But when you have an environment where mostly everywhere over the continent the grass hides in the ground as you walk through it to only appear again is very unique. And there are these storms that are so scary to be in that everyone runs and hides the second you see it on the horizon. And this is how it is throughout almost the whole continent. Those storms have so much energy behind them that it has caused the environment to have those sorts of defense mechanisms behind it. To top that there is even more  magic to the world. There are spren. I love this idea SO much. I think of them as wispy sprites or fairies.

This is the closest picture I could find that matches the description the best and how I envision them in my head. This specifically is a wind spren, and for the most part they are carefree, tricksy little buggers who enjoy pulling pranks on people from time to time (why they remind me of sprites). And usually they are not the most intelligent of beings, and have a memory worse than a goldfish. There is one exception, pictured above, but we will talk about her later in a character post. There are other varieties of spren too; there are rot spren, creativity spren, life spren, and fear spren to name a few.

 And the animals that roam the world...it is a wonderful thing that throughout the book there are sketchbook like pictures of the different creatures and plants. And for that alone I would say this book is amazing, I am a sucker for books that include extra stuff like this (on a side note I squealed when I saw the hardcover version of the sequel with the sketches IN COLOR, do not know about paperback though). Like chulls...these are essentially their version of the beast of burdens cows. They remind me of gigantic hermit crabs (think about 10-12 ft. tall, with their shell being made of essentially rock). They are slow, and they are really one of the few creatures that can be used for travel that are able to survive outside in a highstorm (those gigantic hurricanes on 5 doses of steroids).

Now the further east that you travel, the less ferocious those storms are. There is a town that you come across were it sounds like all of the residents' feet should have rotted off by the age of 5. They essentially live in the shallows of a giant lake. Their buildings continually have about a couple inches of water, and it seen as strange to have a house that is high enough off the ground that in a low tide it drains out.

You make it to about the middle of the book where you are reading from the point of view of a trader in training, and they cross the final mountain range the furthest east you can go. You have gotten used to the idea of steroid storms, environment that is better at surviving those storms than you, and creatures that are just plain weird. You cross this final mountain range and BAM! You are in a world where the storms are normal, and the grass has the audacity (or stupidity if you take into account the trader's thoughts) to not sink into the ground when you move. And it is a world where chickens can thrive! In other words, everywhere west of that mountain range pays extremely high prices for chickens...because we all know that chickens would shoot out those eggs and die of a heart attack during one of those storms and then you are left with shattered eggs and dead chickens. But the strangest part, is (at least for me) that you start to agree how strange that land is beyond the mountains.

Brandon Sanderson has done a very very good job on the world that he created, showing how the environment has had to adapt to these storms. And really showing that there are different regions that are stark contrasts from each other. I definitely look forward to doing some more of these posts, and if you have a general theme you want me to write about let me know in the comments below. Have a nice day :)