BRANDON SANDERSON
Sanderson's outstanding fantasy debut, refreshingly complete unto itself and free of the usual genre clichés, offers something for everyone: mystery, magic, romance, political wrangling, religious conflict, fights for quality, sharp writing and wonderful, robust characters... The intrigue and excitement grow steadily in this smoothly written, perfectly balanced narrative: by the end readers won't want to put it down. As the blurb from Orson Scott Card suggests, Sanderson is a writer to watch.
Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
In this stunning debut novel, Sanderson has created a completely unique world that enfolds the reader in mystery and wonder right through till the last page. Sarene and Roaden are compelling characters, and it's wonderful to see a strong female heroine who doesn't compromise her integrity.
Romantic Times
A surprisingly satisfying, single-volume epic fantasy that invokes a complex, vibrant world.
Booklist
Sanderson's fantasy debut offers a vibrant cast of characters and a story of faith and determination set against a vividly protrayed world where magic is based on channeling power through the depiction of runs. The author's skill at turning conventional fantasy on its head produces a tale filled with surprising twists and turns and a conclusion both satisying and original. Libraries of all sizes should add this to their fantasy collection.
Library Journal (Starred review)
Elantris will be enjoyed immensely by those dedicated, advanced fantasy readers who appreciate a complex plot. Sanderson leads his readers through a long and difficult puzzle, but the freshness and inventiveness of the conclusion make the ending well worth the wait for a reader who finds delight in serious fantasy lore.
Kliatt
Elantris is a well-told, character-driven story. It's also that rarest of creatures: a done-in-one-volume fantasty...although there is room for a sequel. If readers are fortunate, Sanderson will return to Arelon soon.
Starlog
Fascinating... [Elantris] is handled with such expertise, you'll swiftly forget you're reading a first novel. This is a heck of a debut.
Locus
...A genuinely interesting setting as well as a good story. ...good reading.
Chronicle
Brought to a satisfying ending, Elantris is a story that will stay with you long after you've finished reading it.
World's Biggest Bookstore (fan letter)
Elantris is the finest novel of fantasy to be written in many years. Brandon Sanderson has created a truly original world of magic and intrigue, and with the rigor of the best science fiction writers he has made it real at every level.
What makes this novel unforgettable, however, is the maginificent characters he has created. True heroes who, in the face of adversity, find strength they did not know they had, make mistakes from whose consequences they do not shrink, and sacrifice to save what is worth loving in their world.
Best of all, the story is complete. Oh, there's room for a sequel - and I hope there'll be one. But this does not feel like "volume 1," with all the important questions yet to be answered. Sanderson bring off an impossibly complicated resolution only a few pages from the end of the book, and you finish the book satisfied.
Sanderson writes within a moral universe where people are rarely sure who the good guys and the bad guys might turn out to be. But the difference between good and evil is clear even though it's subtle and sometimes hard to find.
It's rare for a fiction writer to have much understanding of how leadership works, how communities form, and how love really takes root in the human heart. Sanderson is astonishingly wise.
I'm glad I didn't write this book. I'm not the least bit envious. Because if I had written it, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of letting it unfold before me as this story did, in all its ugliness and beauty and excitement and pain.
Orson Scott Card
Brandon Sanderson is the real thing--an exciting storyteller with a unique and poweful vision. ELANTRIS is one of the finest debuts I've seen in years.
David Farland
While every new fantasy author is hailed as unique, new, and different, Brandon Sanderson's ELANTRIS does indeed provide an absorbing adventure in a unique, different, and well-thought-out fantasy world, with a few nifty twists as well.
L.E. Modesitt
ELANTRIS is a new BEN HUR for the fantasy genre, with a sweeping, epic storyline and closely personal characters
Kevin J. Anderson
Brandon Sanderson's Elantris is a marvelous, magic monster of a book, packed full of intrigue and daring, based around a killer high concept. When the city of the gods becomes a city of the damned, who and what do you believe in? The story twists and turns, characters bait traps for one another as they vie for secular and religious power, and no-one is necessarily who or what they seem. Royal houses rise and fall, the fate of all Humanity is in the balence, and maybe, just maybe... the gods are coming back. All this and a genuinely touching love story too. Elantris; the book that put epic back into fantasy.
Simon R. Green
I suspect that most of us have marveled at the human body's amazing ability to heal itself, and perhaps have considered how awful it would be if all the injuries of one's life, from shattered bones to stubbed toes, sprained ankles, and bruises, even down to each annoying paper cut, all reappeared at the same time-and never healed. It doesn't bear thinking, does it?
Brandon Sanderson obviously has thought about it-and has used a variation on this notion as part of the premise for his excellent first novel, Elantris-except that, in the world he's imagined, this unhappy state stems from a disease. After you've "died" from it, you're not really dead-but every injury done to you from that point accumulates, along with all the aggregate of pain. And you can never really die.
There's more-much more-but I'll refrain from revealing any more of the ingenious plot twists.
Elantris, Brandon Sanderson's excellent debut novel, is marked by vivid and strongly drawn characters (including a memorable female character) and ingenious plot twists that will keep the reader turning pages. Don't miss it!
Katherine Kurtz
PRAISE for MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE
Brandon Sanderson has come up with his own neat idea... He has created a fascinating world here, one that deserves a sequel.
Washington Post Book World
The characters in this book are amazingly believable. Vin is an eminently sympathetic protagonist whose development over the course of the book is beautifully and realistically delineated. The system of magic is exceedingly clever and well integrated into this complex and plausible world that Vin and Kelsier inhabit.
While this is the first in a series, it's an exceedingly satisfying book on its own, and fans of the genre should waste no time picking it up.
Romantic Times (4 1/2 star, gold review)
Eerie...fast-paced.
Publishers Weekly
Intrigue, politics, and conspiracies mesh complexity in a world Sanderson realizes in satisfying depth and people with impressive characters.
Booklist
Author of the critically acclaimed instant fantasy classic Elantris (2005), Brandon Sanderson returns with the first novel of his new Mistborn Series. Staunch fans of Elantris no longer have to defend their new favorite fantasy author; with a riveting opener to an intriguing new series Sanderson is here to stay. Be sure to check this book out.
Cinescape Magazine
Mistborn is a[n]...enjoyable, adventerous read...should satisfy.
Locus
Sanderson does an excellent job of laying the ground work, of establishing both the world and the characters and in developing the major plot lines to be explored. While it's hard to judge a trilogy based only on the first book, this first book holds a lot of promise. Definitely worth a read.
SFRevu
A surprisingly satisfying, single volume epic fantasy that invokes a complex, vibrant world, and in quick-moving, suspenseful, stunning story for fantasy readers and the world of fiction.
Curled up with a Good Book
Sanderson populated this fantastical, red-skied, ash-falling, mist-rising world with believable characters in a fascinatingly detailed world. I liked the novel a great deal, and my enjoyment truly progressed with each page. By novel's end, I felt fully entrenched. I felt very much in tune with the characters and am glad I have the second book by my side to start reading. Readers who enjoy Greg Keyes, Robin Hobb and Gary Wassner would enjoy MISTBORN.
SFF World
Mistborn utilizes a well thought out system of magic. It also has a great cast of believable characters, a plausible world, an intriguing political system, and despite being the first book in The Final Empire, a very satisfying ending. In short, it's one of those great kettle books, in which the author has thrown not merely a bone of an idea and a few potatoes of originality, but half a cow and everything in the garden. And then added seasonings. Highly recommended to anyone hungry for a good read.
Robin Hobb
PRAISE for MISTBORN: THE WELL OF ASCENSION
...entertaining... This entertaining read will especially please those who always wanted to know what happened after the good guys won.
Publishers Weekly
The Well of Ascension is full of plot twists and surprises, leading to a cliffhanger ending.
Locus
Vin's a beautifully realized protagonist whose struggles are wonderfully written and, as always, the worldbuilding is unusual and compelling.
Romantic Times
Vin's struggles with love and power inject the human element into Sanderson's engaging epic.
Booklist
Throughout the novel Sanderson does a good job of incorporating interesting aspects of the mist-magic into the otherwise realistic scenario, and of juggling the small-scale and large-scale scenes that must comprise an undertaking of this scope and magnitude. ...most [readers] will be mesmerized by Sanderson's balancing act.
Realms of Fantasy
Part of this one is a quest, but part of it is also an examination of what it might really be like to bring down an absolute ruler.
Critical Mass
Fans of Terry Goodkind and Terry Brooks will find The Well of Ascension fulfilling, satisfying and incredibly exciting.
SF Revu
Sanderson is crafting an extremely well-thought out saga with Mistborn, one that looks to stand above the pack of his literary peers. The magic system is perfectly detailed, the world, though not completely revealed, has a great sense of natural logic to it, and the characters are a reflection of both. Reading both books so far has helped to remind me why I enjoy Fantasy, especially those stories told in a secondary world, so much.
SFF World
For readers who always wanted to know what happened after the hero killed off the evil bad guys, this is an intricate story fill of tangles and twists, and plenty of intriguing characters.
Black Gate
[Sanderson's] books are a lot different than I've come to expect from fantasy. What I like about Sanderson is that he can write novels where the plot just hums along, and still have some profound character development going on at the same time.
Textual Frigate (on-line review)
Builds to a heartstopping crescendo of a conclusion, setting the stage nicely for book three.
BookLoons
PRAISE for MISTBORN: THE HERO OF AGES
A dramatic and surprising climax... Sanderson's saga of consequences offers complex characters and a compelling plot, asking hard questions about loyalty, faith and responsibility.
Publishers' Weekly
PRAISE for ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE EVIL LIBRARIANS
This is an excellent choice to read aloud to the whole family. It's funny, exciting, and briskly paced. Best of all, the message it gives young readers is that a person's flaws--being late, breaking things, etc.--can sometimes turn into useful talents.
NPR (www.npr.org)
Readers will likely bond with the hapless Alcatraz immediately. Most librarians will appreciate the satiric teasing, and they will also see the strong appeal and easy-genre-crossing potential in this futuristic fantasy adventure.
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (BCCB)
Enough originality to engage fans of the Baudelaire children's adventures as well as other tween readers with a taste for quirky stories.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sanderson unexpectedly draws everything together in an extravagantly silly climax. Readers whose sense of humor runs toward the subversive will be instantly captivated. Like Lemony Snicket and superhero comics rolled into one (and then revved up on steroids), this nutty novel...[is] also sure to win passionate fans.
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
The conventional trappings of the middle-school fantasy get turned upside down in this zany novel. ...the adventures [are] engaging, as well as silly. Readers who prefer fantasy with plenty of humor should enjoy entering Alcatraz's strange but amusing world.
School Library Journal
In this original, hysterical homage to fantasy literature, Sanderson's first novel for youth recalls the best in Artemis Fowl and A Series of Unfortunate Events. The humor, although broad enough to engage preteens, is also sneakily aimed at adults. Readers are indeed tortured, with quirky, seemingly incompetent heroes; dastardly villains fond of torture; cars that drive themselves; nontop action; and cliffhanger chapter endings. And as soon as they finish the last wickedly clever page, they will be standing in line for more from this seasoned author of such adult-marketed titles as Elantris.
VOYA
The premise is intriguing.
Kirkus
Genuinely funny... plenty here to enjoy.
Locus
The twists are particularly amusing and inventive...the characters are delightfully done and the balance of humor and adventure is managed exceedingly well. I would mind seeing Alcatraz return again, perhaps to battle Perfidious Publishers or Wicked Waitresses or Malevolent Mailmen.
Critical Mass
A happily action-packed romp, with just the right amount of repartee between Alcatraz and his cantakerous teenage protector Bastille, and a cliffhanger ending that promises more of the same. Plus dinosaurs in tweed vests. Who could ask for more?
Horn Book
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians is a fun-filled adventure for young readers. The wildly imaginative Sanderson, who has written two fantasies for adults, includes such creative details... Though kids will love his story, be sure to tell them it has no basis in fact--librarians could never be information-hoarding villains!
BookSite.com (Notable Title)
This clever book rushes through an adventure that resembles ALICE IN WONDERLAND in its oddness. Author Brandon Sanderson has pulled together almost everything that would appeal to readers of the Harry Potter series. I especially recommend ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE EVIL LIBRARIANS to fourth- and fifth-grade readers who enjoy peculiar adventures mixed with fantasy and a little sentimental reuniting of loved ones.
KidsRead.com
It just worked for me. It was funny. While it's geared towards the middle-school boy crowd, I think there are a lot of adults who'll get a huge kick out of it. Definitely try it on teen and tween fans of Artemis Fowl, Terry Pratchett and older fans of the Chet Gecko series. I am totally looking forward to the next one.
Bookshelves of Doom (blog)
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