Warbreaker
Brandon Sanderson
Gollancz
2009, 652p
Purchased personal copy
Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}: Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago.
Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people.
By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.
For a while now I’ve been wanting to get into reading Brandon Sanderson because I think that his books are ones I’ll enjoy, I just wasn’t sure where to start because he has quite an extensive backlist. I saw someone start with this one as it’s stand alone and apparently a good place to dip a toe in, so to speak and Sanderson himself recommends starting with this one if you enjoy a bit of romance as well. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s got a lot of romance but it is there.
I enjoyed this a lot. I read most of it on two plane journeys and it’s quite a chunky book, 650 pages so it was a good book to have for 2x2hr plane rides! I liked the world building and the characters and the plot definitely took me by surprise a couple times. This definitely made me actually kind of wish it was a series – the ending made me really want more of two characters in particular. It’s set in the same world apparently, as other books so maybe I’ll see them again? Not sure. I’ll have to begin my journey through the other books and see!
This is set in a place where a former royal family have been ousted from the land they once ruled and they now reside in a remote place that is still important because it has control of the trade routes. In their former ruling place, God touched people now rule instead. War has been kind of brewing for years and in an attempt to keep the peace, it’s been agreed to wed a princess of royal blood to the current God King. Tying the two together should help ensure that any sign of rebellion of the ousted royal family is quelled and the God King won’t move on his wife’s family either. It’s supposed to be a perfect plan, until the King in exile sends his youngest daughter to wed the God King, instead of his eldest, throwing everything into disarray. His eldest daughter is so distraught that her younger sister has to go in her place that she runs away to the city to find and rescue her sister from this arranged marriage that she had no time to prepare for. Siri, the youngest sister, is a bit wild, she was always the “spare” – her eldest sister was to be for the God King, the middle one became a monk and dedicated herself to a life of service and that left Siri much to her own devices. She’s not the perfectly well brought up, educated wife those who orchestrated the deal and who serve the God King, thought he would be getting. Siri is much different and it doesn’t take her long to realise that the God King is not really what he seems and that this marriage might have just set both of them up to fail. War is coming anyway, unless they can stop it.
Woven into the story of Siri and the God King is also that of her eldest sister Vivenna, who should’ve married the God King. She is trying to rescue Siri and ends up caught up in a rebellion plot. She wants to work hard to prevent a war – the area her family rule over now is small, they are under resourced and probably would be crushed in any fighting. But Vivenna has a lot to learn about the truth – the truth about the magic her family has always feared and shunned, the truth about the war and who wants it and who is behind it and the truth about who she can trust (and who she can’t).
I quite liked Siri stumbling through her marriage with the God King and realising certain things but the story I really enjoyed in this was Vivenna’s. She goes through a lot in this book and comes out the other side of it in the most remarkable way. She’s been raised as this perfect princess, the one that has been shaped to marry the God King, provide the next heir and basically unite the two kingdoms into a cohesive unit that will no longer carry the treat of war. She’s been schooled in politics and manners and basically every single thing that she’d need to be this perfect wife, with all this responsibility. It doesn’t pan out that way and she ends up going through some of the worst parts of society, she’s betrayed, kidnapped, almost killed so many times. She has to face the fear she has of the magic that lives in this world, that her family shuns and is forcibly inserted into a powerful position with that magic. She also meets a man that is morally ambiguous and mysterious and has to decide whether or not she can trust him. Vivenna had the most fascinating story and I want more. More about her and more about Vasher. I ended up really liking them together, they were very different and because of that, they complimented each other in so many ways. Also there’s a murderous sword in this that talks and it’s far funnier than it really should be.
I found this a solid introduction into Sanderson – despite the length there was never a time when I was bored even though there are definitely times when the story is quieter. The character development was good and the world building excellent as well.
8/10
Book #111 of 2024
Warbreaker is one of my 24 in 2024 books! It’s the 8th book read for the challenge so far….I’m catching up a little on this one. I’m still behind but I think I’ve already read more books from this challenge than I read from the entirety of my 23 in 2023, so….progress, right?
All The Books I Can Read 
Same, same, about trying to figure out where to start. So good advice. Thank you 🙂 xx Fi
Ooh if you try this one, let me know what you think x