thepremier's Full Review: Brandon Sanderson - Elantris
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
I don't know what it was that first drew me to Elantris sitting on the shelf at my local Barnes and Noble. However, I picked it up, and I read the prologue.
I was immediately sold.
I read the first chapter there and then and shortly thereafter purchased the novel.
Elantris takes place in the land of Opelon, which is divided into several nations. The luminous city of Elantris in the country of Arelon was once inhabited by near god-like beings, who were masters of an art called AonDor. With their ability to manipulate the power of the Dor through the drawing of Aons, the written language of the Elantrians, they were capable of magnificent arcane magics.
These "gods" were tolerant of other religions, and indeed, allowed the other peoples to worship freely and did not demand any sort of worship upon themselves. While not immortal, Elantrians were nearly so, blessed with radiant silver skin, lustrous white hair, and a benevolent and tolerant aloofness.
And anyone could become an Elantrian. The process, known as the Shaod, struck randomly, taking people of every class any profession, usually at night. Once transformed, they left their simple lives and became the inhabitants of the magnificent city.
The Elantrians watched over the country of Arelon, easily providing the basic necessities of life with their seemingly supernatural abilities. In return, they allowed the "ordinary" people to produce luxury items and wares, and thus formed the economy of the land. The awe inspired by the Elantrians also kept the rest of the world at bay. The system worked wonderfully.
Then the Reod struck.
It was as if the Elantrians had been stricken by a curse, or as if their true selves were revealed, depending on who you spoke to. Whatever the explanation, instead of ethereal creatures, the Elantrians became living dead - their bodies not a luminous silver and ichor, but that of splotchy, leathery skin. Most importantly, AonDor had ceased to work. Their hearts stopped beating, their bodies no longer healed from the smallest of injury, and they were left at the mercy of their basest need - hunger, a hunger that did not need to be satisfied, for they no longer needed to eat, yet the hunger consumed their sanity. They became despised and feared, yet some of the people of Arelon, notably the church of Shu-Korathi, perpetuated the notion that one day the Elantrians would return to their splendor.
Regardless, the city of Elantris, somehow robbed of the power that sustained it, became a rotting and slimy cesspool almost overnight - it was now a prison for the surviving Elantrians. Anyone taken by the Shaod was now placed inside its deteriorating city walls.
The merchant class of Arelon took the power left by the absence of the Elantrians, with Iadon proclaimed King. A shaky aristocracy founded upon competition became the bureaucracy of the land. The freedom of the remaining people slowly eroded away.
However, the fall of Elantris was noticed by the rest of the world as well. And the religion of the East, Shu-Derethi, set its eyes on the weakened Arelon as a chance once and for all to convert - or destroy it.
The story begins ten years after the Reod. The beloved Prince Raoden of Arelon, has "died" under very mysterious circumstances, but we know that he was taken by the Shaod and his exile to Elantris covered up. With the Prince now left to fend for himself in the seemingly barbarous society that has become Elantris, the Prince's fiance, a princess from the northern country of Teod, Princess Sarene, has sailed to Arelon, for their wedding was to be a week away.
The political marriage, crafted out of a lasting treaty between the two countries, was binding even upon the death of either party - so Sarene finds herself a widow without ever knowing her husband, and more disturbingly for her, she finds herself in a strange land where she knows not the political climate and in a country where women are expected to do little more than look pretty. Frustrated, Sarene becomes suspicious of the Prince's disappearance, suspicious of King Iadon, and begins to make alliances with some of the nobility.
Also arriving in the city of Kae in Arelon, is the gyorn Hrathen. One of only 20 to hold such a high position in the church of Shu-Derethi, he has come to Arelon from his country of Fjordell in the East with but one instruction - convert the heathen nation of Arelon in 3 months, or it will be destroyed.
Sarene and Hrathen cross paths early, with Sarene intent on stopping whatever Hrathen may be trying to do in Arelon. She had remembered what had happened to the nation south of Arelon, the Duladel Republic, when that same gyorn had been sent there.
Meanwhile, Prince Raoden, now going by the name of "Spirit" in Elantris to hide his true former identity, begins to survive the gang organization that has developed in Elantris, and with his new found best friend, Galladon, they begin to transform Elantris into something the inhabitants had never though possible.
What is most enjoyable about Elantris is not only the world Sanderson has created, but the immensely likeable characters.
Princess Sarene was raised with utmost perfect education and schooling suitable to an heir of the throne. Her father, King Eventeo, had raised a headstrong, stubborn, and intelligent woman that most men found intimidating, even in the liberal country of Teod. This in turn, has suffered Sarene to have self doubts of ever finding a man that would ever love her, not that she would ever admit to anyone that was what she deeply wanted. She curtsied, she was sharp, she was prim and proper, she knew the etiquette of high society, she even fenced. Yes, Sarene was a formidable woman. Yet she was vulnerable.
Hrathen, on the other hand, was a man bred on pure logic. He joined the church of Shu-Derethi attracted by the obedience and order that it instilled. Fjordell was a milltant country, that valued order, obedience, and strict structure - and they embraced Shu-Derethi for it. In effect, Fjordell is a completely theocratic society, for its leader, Wyrn, is said to be the direct and only link between their god, Jaddeth, and the rest of the hierarchy and in turn the people. Fjordell had slowly and steadily convereted, thus subjugating all its border nations, Hrovell, Svorden, among others, and most recently Duladel. This left only Teod and Arelon as havens of the rival religion of Shu-Korathi, which valued love, understanding, and tolerance above all other things. Kings bowed before gyorns, who served directly under Wyrn.
Hrathen is faced with the seemingly impossible task of converting Arelon in three monhts, or Fjordell's army of warrior priests will descend upon it and destroy it - and especially Elantris. Like all Derethi priests, Hrathen is physically imposing, trained in a brutally efficient martial art the Derethi church created. In essence, the church constitutes it's own army, as every priest is a deadly warrior. In addition, one Derethi monastary, that of Dakhor, creates twisted and warped warriors with the strength of dozens of men. In addition, his blood red armor and cloak strike a cutting figure among the shorter and pacifist Arelenes.
Hrathen takes it upon himself to be the savior of Arelon, but soon finds opposition not only with Princess Sarene, but with a foil character, that of Dilaf - an intensely zealous priest whose utter fanaticism troubles Hrathen, not only because it makes Dilaf unpredictable, but that it also makes Hrathen question his own faith.
Raoden is almost too good natured. His unstoppable optimism is partly foiled by his uber pessimistic friend Galladon. However, for lack of self doubt exhibited by the character Raoden, we learn later that he suffers more pain than that of the ordinary Elantrian, for reasons left better read than told here.
Sanderson's preoccupation with the Aonic language and the importance of its characters produces some rather interesting words and names with many vowels that sometimes make figuring out a pronunciation difficult, but not an overpower hindrance. The book is rather slow to build, but rather leaves tidbits of things to come, and things that simply MUST be explained, that it draws you in. Indeed, the end of the book contains a satisfying amount of epic heroic action. The setting at the end also leaves the possibility for further story telling, but the initial story laid out is completed within the confines of this single novel.
Sometimes things happen a bit too conveniently, especially for Sarene and Raoden. For example, humans are not the only characters in Elantris, mystical balls of glowing light, called Seons, inhabit the land as well, leftovers of Elantrian magic. They are subservient, yet intelligent creatures of light, who serve their master willingly and devoutly. Sanderson perhaps makes an in-joke reference to his reliance on the use of Seons in the book as the character Hrathen is reluctant to use them in contacting his all powerful lord, Wyrn. Their existence is never really explained or known, even to the people of Arelon.
However, Elantris proved to be one of the most enjoyable books I've read in a long time.
Should Brandon Sanderson decide to write further tales about Elantris, I will surely buy them!
A rare epic fantasy that doesn t recycle the classics and that is a complete and satisfying story in one volume, Elantris is the wonderful debut of a ...More at Buy.com
A rare epic fantasy that doesn t recycle the classics and contains a complete and satisfying story in one volume, Elantris is the wonderful debut of a...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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