Wind and Truth Review

Here is my first book review of 2025. Yesterday, I finished Brandon Sanderson’s Wind and Truth. I’ve been a big Brandon Sanderson fan. When they named him to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, I bought Mistborn to find out about the guy who would give my favorite characters a proper ending. I genuinely loved Mistborn. I found his website and sent him a “Hey Brandon email,” and he responded. I begged him not to mess up Mat, and then, well, anyway. There will be some spoilers.

Halfway through, I did a series of videos on my thoughts. If you want to see those, they are on my Instagram. I did not include many of those thoughts here.

There is a lot of dislike for Wind and Truth in the digital space. Some of it is justified, and some didn’t bother me as much as it did others. I will say that I was let down. It didn’t land with a bang, but more of a thud, or a Thude (ha, see what I did there?)

When I critique other authors’ work in a workshop, I try to write about things I liked or thought the author did well. I think Brandon, as he usually does, nailed the landing. His endings are usually high on my twist register, and Wind and Truth was no exception. I mean, of the top five fantasy therapist heroes. Well, ok, I’ll go even further. The GOAT fantasy protagonist therapist must be Kaladin. Of course, the converse of that is also true. The very worst fantasy protagonist therapist must be Kaladin. But, as a twist and end, it surprised me, and I sort of liked it. I never thought I’d see him send Stormblessed off to fix the Heralds’ mental issues.

I liked that he finally gave Renarin and, for that matter, Rlain some purpose. For those who claim he forced this relationship to please the Woke community, I’m not so sure. It fits both of their personalities. They were always different, and he kind of brought that together. In a way, I liked it. I feel like he had this twist planned from the beginning.

I liked the Adolin storyline and the interplay with Yanagawn worked. I liked the story arc with Maya(alaran). She turned out to be a fascinating turn. I also feel that he probably grew the most realistic of all the characters throughout the Stormlight Archives. With maybe one exception.

My favorite character in the series, and the one that was an exceptional ride-along, was Szeth son Neturo. Following his backstory could have been a brilliant book. I like how he and Kaladin played on each other throughout this book, and Szeth may be one of my all-time favorite fantasy characters who isn’t a main character (maybe right behind Matrim Cauthon).

Ok, now the things I think Brandon Sanderson could have done better. If you watched any of the old Brandon Sanderson BYU lectures, he touts the use of a workshop or critique group in either the first or second. The one thing I remember him saying is, “Point out the parts that are boring.” Or something like that. Brandon, the entire first 2/3 of this book was dull. I did the audiobook version, and that was 62 hours long. I finished it at 2x speed, but I should have started it there. There was so much overwriting in this book that I wonder if the editor had you cut anything.

There was a ton of info dumping.  And much of it was just “told,” plain and simple. The book doesn’t feel as if it was edited at all. I would suggest Brandon dump all his echo chamber BETA readers and enlist some who will point out things. Whoever missed “Let’s kick some Fused Ass” really needs to be fired. In all of those words, in all of those pages, in all of those books, it is the only instance I know of a modern swear word being used. Look, I’m not anti-swear words. I’m anti-words-that-don’t-fit-in-the-work-at-all.

Brandon Sanderson will never be confused with Earnest Hemmingway. He isn’t a talented writer of prose. He is a fabulous world builder. Brandon is an exceptional plotter, and his characters are interesting, and that carries him. He needs to surround himself with people who can at least bring his writing up to average levels. I’ve said this through Words of Radiance and his four surprise novels. Reading his dialogue is now like watching an Avengers movie. About every fourth line is a zinger.

Brandon Sanderson has done me an excellent service by finishing the Wheel of Time. He has written some great stories about fascinating and profound characters. The scene where Kaladin meets Wit (Hoid) on the shattered plains and Wit gives him the flute is one of the best-written scenes in fantasy. Books with those types of scenes get re-read. But books that are seventy percent backstory and slow build aren’t re-read. Unfortunately, Wind and Truth will fall into that latter category for me.

In the five-star convention, I have a voice rolling around my head. It is yelling one, go one. If I had DNF’d it halfway, as I was tempted to do and only respect for Sanderson kept me going, it would be one star. But I will give two stars out of five for the twists and novelty saving the day. I don’t know if I’ll continue reading his Cosmere stuff. We’ll see. I am now reading a book that supposedly uses the same editor; I hope this isn’t an editor problem. Has anyone read Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie? I liked book one of The First Law Trilogy. I hope I like the second.