Edgedancer

This was a mildly frustrating book. I love pretty much everything about the Cosmere Universe and Brandon Sanderson has one of the most engaging writing styles I have come across. The character Lift is probably his most annoying creation though, and this is a novella focused purely on her.

As with all of the Stormlight books, this has second to none world building and continues with the amazing magic system established in previous books in the system. This brings me to one of the first annoyances of this book - Lift essentially breaks this system. Having gone to all the effort to build this amazing rules based magic system, we have a character here who apparently does not obey the laws previously laid out.

Lift herself is a precocious teenage thief, who was briefly introduced in Words of Radiance. Precocious children are hard to write well, and unfortunately this one falls on the side of annoyingly cocky. Her personality just jars with me.

Despite these issues, this is still a Sanderson Stormlight book. It has his amazing writing style, some genuine moments of humour and a good central storyline and mystery. It is a good book, but due to the central character it just doesn't compare especially well to his other cosmere books. It is still a lot better than many other fantasy books out there though

Why you should read this novella, a summary:

- You wanna see someone use a Shardblade as something other than a blade?

- You wanna see the protagonist fall face first onto the ground (literally) and use Stormlight to slide across the ground so as not to hurt her face?

- You wanna see an exasperated Spren trying to dissuade its assigned human from trying to do foolish things?

- Do you wanna see a cool kid fight a Herald, and steal his breakfast?

- Do you just wanna see someone steal food for a 100 pages and use it as motivation to keep doing more stupid things?

Then yes, read this book. You won't regret it! Even if it has no Kaladin or Dalinar, you'll keep on reading!!!

P.S. Szeth shows up so read it

This was such a fun novella! It's been a few years since I've read something from the Cosmere, and this was a delightful re-entry (I couldn't stomach 1000+ pages of Oathbringer just yet). Lift was one of my favorite characters from Words of Radiance even though she got so little space – so I'm so glad she got the attention of an entire short narrative. Her character development was great, and this was light while still bringing some additional detail to the overarching story.

This was a pretty fun romp that serves as an origin story of Lift, a character that's likely to become more important later on in the main series of the Stormlight Archive, as well as establishing some other small little nuggets of lore.

The refreshing thing about Lift is how she just doesn't seem to take anything seriously, not even her own powers, or the fact that she has a sentient being that only she can see following her around and nagging her all the time. She's only in her pre-teens and often behaves that way, but sometimes she displays thoughts and maturity that are beyond her years, and makes me wonder whether Lift has a lot more in her past and history than what is even shown here. Sometimes, though, I found her wilfull rebelliousness and nonchalance a little wearying but overall it wasn't too bad.

Wyndle, imo, was the star of the show. BranSan enjoys creating quirky little side characters and it's clear that he had a lot of fun here. Wyndle is some sort of plant being, but essentially behaves like a very reluctant babysitter to Lift, bemoaning that he was selected for this task of accompanying her and fondly reminiscing on how he could have been a gardener instead of this. His presence really adds a much-needed voice of reason while still maintaining the light-hearted comedy of this story.

There's definitely even a mini-Sanderlanche in this one, with some small plot twists here and there. I'm looking forward to seeing more of a character introduced in this novella that grows to be more important towards the end of the story and, I hope, will be more prominent in the later SA books, aside from Lift and Wyndle, of course.

I don't think Sanderson does comedy well. I should've read this after Words of Radiance and think that might have hurt some of the enjoyment regardless I just don't like Lyft. The comedy seems more geared towards teenagers which is fine, but I'm not a teenager so it doesn't quite cut it for me. I love the Edgedancer abilities and that part was fun.

There wasn't a TON of Cosmere related info in this at least not from immediate reading, maybe if I go back and read it I'll notice some easter eggs I'm sure. I also don't think this novella is particularly necessary to read not nearly in the way Dawnshard is. If you enjoy the comedy style of Lyft in Words of Radiance or Wayne from Mistborn Era 2 I think you'd enjoy it. Having said that it is a short novella and flows relatively well chapter to chapter so it wouldn't cost a ton of time to read it quickly before jumping into Oathbringer

“Lift prepared to be awesome”

Wat een schattig, onzinnig, grillig verhaaltje dat je plotseling doet beseffen dat het toch serieus wat diepgang heeft. Er waren ook verrassend veel onthullingen die hoogstwaarschijnlijk van invloed zullen zijn op de volledige Stormlight Archive. Ik zal niet doen alsof ik alle referenties heb opgemerkt of zelfs heb begrepen, want dat heb ik absoluut niet.
Maar zelfs zonder het volledige plaatje te snappen, vond ik dit kleine zijverhaal erg leuk.

“Being young was an excuse. A plausible justification”

Ik vond het geweldig om de evolutie van Lift te zien.
Ze is een personage dat heel veel verdeeldheid zaait, met hoe irritant ze is en hoe ze zich wanhopig vastklampt aan haar vrijheid door haar kinderachtigheid te overdrijven. Maar ze maakt veel groei door in dit avontuur en ik heb het gevoel dat we onze ogen open moeten houden voor haar, want ze lijkt een underdog te zijn die behoorlijk belangrijk zal worden voor wat nog zal komen!

“I will remember those who have been forgotten.”

I enjoyed the world building that added to the overall Stormlight Archive narrative but the rest was just meh. I don't particularly enjoy the character of Lift and didn't feel like she really developed or changed over the course of the book. I disliked her attempts at humor and her constant reuse of the “Wyndle is a Voidbringer” joke. It got very repetitive.

This is a must read if you are going through Stormlight Archive, but at least it is short enough to read in one day!