Just finished reading The Rithmatist, The Emperor's Soul, Steelheart (and the short story Mitosis), Legion, and Words of Radiance over the last week or two.
First off, The Rithmatist. This is the chalk-based magic one, set in an interesting alt-history of the US.
I'm a little torn on this one. The magic is interesting (although maybe a little TOO straightforward for my taste, though I usually like that about Sanderson's stuff). I actually really like the hints of worldbuilding- the "Nebraska event" that basically put the US into a state of perpetual martial law, the fact that Rithmatists are basically treated as a combination of sports star and military hero, the fact that a British king in exile is apparently the savior of the human race.
It's a Young Adult book, though, and sometimes that means it's a bit more simplistic than I'd like. Still worth a look, though.
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The Emperor's Soul was pretty cool. The "magic stamp" idea was neat, and the main character was interesting. I probably would have missed the fact that it was set in the same world as Elantris if I hadn't been told, though.
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I really liked Steelheart, although I'm a little skeptical about the series' long term viability. That is, the first book was strange and tense and cool, but I'm afraid that sequels would either become formulaic or so different from the first that it becomes a completely different series.
I could be completely wrong; it's just a feeling I have. I think the sequel comes out very soon, so we'll see.
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Legion was really fun, and I'll be interested to see if the character can support a full novel. Sanderson could go to a lot of different places from here- noir, magical realism, hardboiled detective, maybe something closer to the Di Vinci Code...
Anyway, it's a great example of the Sanderson "Hey, this is a neat idea, let's write a story around it" school of fiction.
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Words of Radiance... hm. First off, I definitely liked it. The story moved along well (compared to the first book which, while enjoyable, contained a lot of setup). However, you definitely become aware that this is Sanderson's pet project. He's been thinking about it for 20 years, everything is mapped out, and there are a ton of moving parts.
As neat as the Cosmere stuff is (for instance, I definitely saw Hoid downing some metal flakes, Mistborn-style), I'm paranoid that I'm missing out on stuff. This is mostly because there are SO many characters, all with non-standard names, that it becomes incredibly difficult to keep track of them all. I'm pretty sure a minor character in Words of Radiance is someone from Warbreaker (albeit a character I thought was dead, so I'll have to check up on that). But I know I must have missed at least a few things.
I don't know exactly what I'm feeling, but when I compare the two books of Stormlight Archives to the first two Wheel of Time books, Stormlight is found wanting.
By the end of The Great Hunt, we knew what was going on, and we had a strong narrative thread. Rand was the Dragon, his buddies were walking plot devices, the women in his life alternated between being annoying and being awesome... some things were set.
By the end of Words of Radiance, more than 2,000 pages of writing, nothing has really been set, yet. We know that something bad is coming/has come. We know that some people are getting neat powers. And... well, that's about it.
That said, for all my ennui, I enjoyed it. I'll probably hit up the Coppermind (the Sanderson wiki) to find out some stuff that I missed, and then reread in the near future to see if I appreciate it more the second time around (which definitely happened with WoT).
