Armin Schopfer

Tl;dr: The book is disappointing. Not bad and not good either, just very meh. Skim through it to be up to date on everything cosmere and to have an idea where in 10 years the characters might be. Just don't expect quality like WoK, WoR or Oathbringer. Even RoW is tonally and structurally a better book. Long version: Main problem is the tone and prose. All the following points were different and better in the first 3 books (it's what hooked me, and I guess many others too) but in hindsight the cracks were there in RoW: - humor worse than when I am drunk - every character (and I include here spren and Nightblood) most always talks very casually modern and borderline teenagerish all while at the same time being as self-aware as a seasoned adult who underwent several years of insanely intense, deep psychological analysis - every character talks the same - modern therapy-lingo that comes out of nowhere to and from a character that literally started to develop the field in-world not a mere week ago - so many therapeutical monologues and goody-two-shoes tirades and berating from everyone - everything gets spilled out, nothing is left to interpretation for the reader, all interesting ambiguity is out the window. It feels as if at Dragonsteel the mantra for writing is "tell, tell again, tell a third time, and if it is a thought or concept that requires more than four words to describe, reiterate at least a fourth time for good measure. And for the love of God DON'T EVER SHOW! Readers could misunderstand, get offended, traumatized or even develop their own thoughts, ideas and interpretations and we absolutely do not want that! It could make them write/say bad stuff on reddit/x/bluesky/yt." - current-day socio-politics that feel forced in instances, sometimes they even are setting-wise out of place (ex. alethi researcher out of nowhere talking to spren about genders and stating that ambiguity is an everyday normality on roshar). It very often feels just tokenized and shoehorned (ex. characters that are gay only because they felt awkward around females or people in RoW, not because they showed any signs before) But there are also times where they come naturally and well done because they are not strangely pointed out but flow with the story - so much other than rosharan stuff that the reader has to be a veritable Sanderson-savant to understand it (I had to have a tablet with the coppermind open at all times to be able to follow the mechanical details of the story lest I got confused) - scenes in a chapter are all as short and as cliffhangery as possible to the point where it feels like I am reading something tailor-written for a tik-tok audience with the attention span of a severely mentally deficient gold-fish and the constant need of an action-fix every three pages lest they get bored - chapters also as short as possible with no apparent reason as to why - tone and acting of everybody despite a cliffhanger every 5 to 7 pages is very laid back, cheerfully and jovial despite the world as they know it ending and them getting their asses handed to them at basically every step - it's grim, but here is a lame joke. Please don't feel the gravity of the situation I don't think the majority of readers need this gaudy, overly jovial flashiness and these very tight, overprotective guide lines and cushions to protect us - if we would, we would not be here after the three first more mature books.