Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson is a newly crowned heavy-hitter in modern fantasy. His inaugural solo publications (such as Elantris) held promise, and then he was chosen to aid the terminally ill Robert Jordan in finishing his vast Wheel of Time epic. Sanderson is now a full-fledged epic fantasy author of large reputation. Problem is, I find the quality of Sanderson's stories pretty middle-of-the-road.
Part of my unenthusiastic reception to this book comes from the fact that it is a certain shiny, glowing sort of epic fantasy, all about bright castles of polished marble, bored and snarky men-made-gods and characters who talk like modern day Americans. This novel comes down definitively on the "sorcery" side of "sword and sorcery," and does not much medieval/historical sort of world-building. The center of this story is its high concept magic revolving around Sanderson's invention of "bi-chroma," a color-laden version of the concept of the soul (at least, a partial soul). Both of the main characters, while not one dimensional, are certainly not challenging in any way. They are both young, naive girls with the moxy to take on great odds and defy authority to make a difference in the world. They don't wrestle with moral conflicts of any depth, or at least not ones the reader can relate to (Vivenna's moral qualms over accepting a supply of bio-chroma isn't exactly an issue burning in the heart of contemporary man).
Sanderson's fantasy is "clean." The story is crisply plotted, the concepts are well-explained, the characters are likable, if not incredibly nuanced. Despite a few moments of violent conflict, this novel is certainly not belonging to the genre of gritty realism within fantasy. It was simply not my style, but despite this fact, Sanderson did, at least, give me motivation to read on.