Battle of the 2014 Books, Bracket One, Championship Round :: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley vs. Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

We have arrived at the championship round of our current bracket of the Battle of the Books. In one corner we have The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley. In the other corner we have Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. Two fine competitors. I (Aaron) have read through Page 200 of both these books, and the novel I most want to continue reading to the end will be the champion of Bracket One of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the 2014 Books.

The Emperor's Blades: Tor hardcover, January 2014, 476 pages, cover art by Richard Anderson. The Emperor's Blades is the first book in Staveley's Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne high fantasy series. The second book in this series, The Providence of Fire, was published in January 2015. The Emperor's Blades made it to the championship by conquering The Barrow by Mark Smylie in the first round, defeating Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald in the second round, and an upset win over Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer in the semifinals.

The first 200 pages of The Emperor's Blades are told from the points of view of Adare, Kaden, and Valyn, the daughter and two sons of the Emperor, who has recently been assassinated, apparently at the hands of an ambitious religious leader. Kaden is the heir to the throne but still does not know of his father's death, because he has been training in a remote monastery, with monks who hold the sacred duty of guarding the world against strange creatures who fought mankind in an earlier age now shrouded in myth. Valyn, who has been training with an elite corps of soldiers, believes there is a conspiracy against his entire family; he has already faced two attempts on his life. The daughter Adare is embroiled in politics in the capital city, where her father's presumed killer plays a gambit to avoid punishment.

Words of Radiance:: Tor hardcover, March 2014, 1080 pages, cover art by Michael Whelan. Words of Radiance is the second book of Sanderson's epic fantasy series The Stormlight Archive. (The Way of Kings is the first book in this series.) Words of Radiance made it to the championship with a solid win over Into the Wilderness by Mandy Hager in the first round, a victory over Swords of Good Men by Snorri Kristjansson in the second round, and a hard-fought win over Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg in the semifinals.

The primary viewpoint characters through 200 pages of Words of Radiance are Shallan, a young woman traveling by sea with her mentor Jasnah Kholin, while learning about the magical spheres called spren; Kaladin, the leader of a group of soldiers of the human kingdom of Alethkar, who is just learning about his own magical powers; and Kaladin's commander, Dalinar, the real power behind the throne of Alethkar. There has also been a short interlude with glimpses of other characters, including one of the Parshendi, a strange race of metamorphic creatures. Alethkar has fought the Parshendi since they assassinated its previous king, and Kaladin and Dalinar are preparing for further warfare. Meanwhile, Shallan's ship is attacked and she believes Jasnah to have been killed, although the careful reader has cause for skepticism.

The Battle: Going head-to-head in this championship match we have two high fantasy novels. Multi-volume series of epic fat fantasy books are not my personal favorite sub-genre, but I can appreciate any kind of SF/F when it is done well, and through 200 pages both The Emperor's Blades and Words of Radiance are written exceptionally well.

Staveley and Sanderson both eschew standard elves-and-wizards fantasy plots in favor of original and intricate storylines, and each author does a wonderful job of conveying those complicated storylines in a way that is easy to follow. They also both write action scenes very effectively.

An interesting point in common is that near the end of their 200 pages, both books reveal an almost science fictional subplot involving quasi-alien beings. In The Emperor's Blades, Kaden has just been told that the gentle monks he lives with have been waiting for thousands of years for the return of vicious, amoral creatures who were once the enemies of mankind with control over interdimensional portals. As he learns this, the reader realizes that these creatures appeared in the book's previously opaque prologue. Meanwhile, Words of Radiance has just given us a glimpse inside the minds of the Parshendi, explaining why they murdered the previous king and showing their struggle to regain the forms they used to be able to metamorphose into, before the forms were lost when the Parshendi escaped their former masters. I am intrigued by both storylines and wish to read more.

But the Battle of the Books requires me to make some distinction to justify choosing one book to continue reading to the end. Let's do some nitpicking . . .

Both novels seem to have interesting magical systems, but while The Emperor's Blades has avoided giving much detail about how magic works in this universe, The Words of Radiance has shown us a lot about the nature of magic involving the spren. It's an intricate system, so much so that I found it quite believable that Shallan could employ the magical spren to destroy an entire ship, but then utterly fail in her attempt to use magic to build a fire. The magical system scores a point for Words of Radiance.

Let's look at the authors' respective writing styles. The prose in both books is overall nicely done, but one might expect an occasional misstep from Brian Staveley, as the debut author here. Instead, Staveley's storytelling has struck me as pitch-perfect, while Brandon Sanderson on occasion strains a bit too hard (to my tastes) for his imagery, e.g., "She needed to speak with him. She felt an urgency to do so blowing upon the winds themselves." Score a surprising point for Staveley, and we're all tied up.

As it often does, the Battle comes down to characters. Which author has created characters that have come to life for me, so that I need to know how their stories play out?

Shallan in Words of Radiance is that kind of character for me. I find her believable, sympathetic, strong yet vulnerable, and just a touch flawed. At the end of 200 pages, she has been shipwrecked and will have to struggle just to survive, let alone to work her way back into the novel's larger story arc. I want to know how she will manage. I do not, however, feel the same kind of connection for the other viewpoint characters in Words of Radiance. In particular, I don't care an awful lot about the preparations Kaladin and Dalinar are currently making, and it won't bother me terribly much not to know what happens next in their joint storyline.

In contrast, I feel connected to all of the viewpoint characters in The Emperor's Blades. I love how both Kaden and Valyn have been trained in disciplines where their imperial bloodlines are ignored. This has made both of them humble and sympathetic (but they are certainly distinct from one another), yet ironically has now left them both in great danger. At the same time, their sister Adare has stayed in the capital city and has definitely not learned her brothers' humility. And yet her goals are just, and we can sympathize with her frustration when it appears her father's killer may get away with his crime. Staveley has drawn me in, on an emotional level, to all three viewpoint characters' stories. I very much want to keep reading every page of The Emperor's Blades. And that's what the Battle of the Books is all about.

Huge congratulations to Brian Staveley on a most impressive debut novel!

THE WINNER: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

The Emperor's Blades wins Bracket One of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the 2014 Books. Congratulations to Brian Staveley as our newest Battle of the Books champion!

To see the completed bracket, click here.

We've crowned a winner for this bracket, but soon we'll announce a whole new bracket of sixteen books. Stay tuned for more book battles to come!

Battle of the 2014 Books, Bracket One, First Semifinal :: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley vs. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Our first semifinal match in Bracket One of the Battle of the 2014 Books features The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley going against Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. The winner, the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 100 pages, will advance to the championship round.

The Emperor's Blades: Tor hardcover, January 2014, 476 pages, cover art by Richard Anderson. The Emperor's Blades is the first volume in Staveley's Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne high fantasy series. The Emperor's Blades made it to the semifinals with wins over The Barrow by Mark Smylie and Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald.

The first 50 pages of The Emperor's Blades introduced us to Kaden and Valyn, the two sons of the Emperor, who has just been killed. Kaden, the heir to the throne, does not know of his father's death, because he has been training as a monk in a remote monastery. Valyn, who has been learning to be a soldier, suspects a conspiracy that will target Kaden and Valyn next. In the second 50 pages, we meet the sister, Adare, just named Minister of Finance per her father's dying wish. This is as high as a woman can advance in this culture, but Adare is not sure the other ministers will accept her. Meanwhile, Kaden and Valyn face ever more challenging training, and Valyn discovers a key clue about his suspected conspiracy.

Annihilation:: Farrar, Straus & Giroux trade paperback, February 2014, 195 pages, cover art by Eric Nyquist. Annihilation is Book 1 in VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, which continues with Authority and Acceptance. Annihilation made it to the semifinals with wins over The Talent Sinistral by L.F. Patten and What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton.

The opening 50 pages of Annihilation showed an expedition of four women, never referred to by name, entering the mysterious Area X, which has bested eleven previous expeditions. Our narrator, the biologist, descended into a way-creepy tunnel (strangely called "the Tower") she believes to be a living organism. She also learned the psychologist in the group is using post-hypnotic suggestion on the others, which no longer works on the biologist, perhaps due to contamination from the Tower. In the next 50 pages, our biologist-narrator and the surveyor discover the anthropologist dead in the Tower. Our narrator blames the psychologist, who promptly disappears. The narrator sets off for a derelict lighthouse to which she suspects the psychologist has fled, only to find evidence that Area X is even more bizarre than they realized.

The Battle: This is about as fair a fight as we ever get in the Battle of the Books, two books that are both opening volumes in very promising fantasy series. In terms of subgenres, The Emperor's Blades is more prototypical high fantasy, while Annihilation is on the stranger side of fantasy, consistent with Jeff VanderMeer's longstanding association with the New Weird.

Through 100 pages, I am enjoying both The Emperor's Blades and Annihilation very much. They are both well-written and engaging.

Brian Staveley's writing style is right in my sweet spot. He does not deliberately strain for flowery language, yet his word choices are usually perfect to convey the mood he wants. Here, for example, Adare listens to the eulogy for her father, the Emperor::

The words spoken before the tomb were as long-winded as they were meaningless, and Adare let them wash over her like a frigid rain: duty, honor, power, vision. They were applied to all Emperors in all imperial funerals. They failed utterly to capture the father she had known.

I wish I had written that.

Meanwhile, in Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer does a terrific job of building a strange and mysterious mood. We have little idea where or when this is happening, and none at all why. For the most part, I've found the strangeness and mystery intriguing, but an author treads a fine line withholding this much information from the readers. For me, all the secrets got to be too much when the narrator mentioned, over fifty pages in, that her husband was in a previous expedition to Area X. That came across as a writer trick--no way would a real person have failed to mention that before.

I like Annihilation on an intellectual level. I like The Emperor's Blades and its characters on an emotional level.

THE WINNER: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

The Emperor's Blades advances to the championship to face either Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg or Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the 2014 Books, Bracket One, Second Round :: Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald vs. The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

We begin the second round of Bracket One of the Battle of the 2014 Books with Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald against The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 50 pages.

Empress of the Sun: Pyr hardcover, February 2014, 280 pages, cover art by Larry Rostant. I named Empress of the Sun, the third volume in McDonald's Everness YA series, as one of the four seeded books in this bracket, because I like Ian McDonald's work in general and I enjoyed the first two books in this alternate universe series. Empress of the Sun defeated Elspeth Cooper's The Raven's Shadow to advance to the second round.

In the first 25 pages of Empress of the Sun, Everett Singh and his steampunk gypsy companions arrived in a new alternate universe, where they promptly crashed their airship. In the second 25 pages, Everett guesses the bizarre nature of this universe, which caused the crash. They will need to find a way out of this universe before our villain Charlotte Villiers can locate them. Meanwhile, an alternate version of Everett called Everett M. realizes that the incredibly deadly nanotechnology he brought to the other Everett's universe has (predictably) escaped. He desperately tries to track it down before this entire world is destroyed.

The Emperor's Blades: Tor hardcover, January 2014, 476 pages, cover art by Richard Anderson. The Emperor's Blades is the first volume in Staveley's Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne high fantasy series. It reached the second round with a lopsided win over The Barrow by Mark Smylie.

The first 25 pages of The Emperor's Blades introduced us to our main characters Kaden and Valyn, the two sons of the emperor. Neither young man is enjoying a life of luxury. Rather Kaden, heir to the throne, is receiving harsh mental training in a spartan, remote monastery, while Valyn is learning the ways of an elite fighting group who ride giant hawks into battle. Valyn was investigating the murder of an entire ship's crew, when he received word of the death of his father the emperor. The last dying member of the slaughtered ship's crew warned Valyn that he is in danger from a plot. In the next 25 pages, Valyn desperately asks his superiors for permission to go to Kaden, but they refuse. Unsure of whom to trust, he decides to confide in his fellow cadet and good friend (and potential love interest?) Ha Lin. Before they get far into the conversation, they find themselves (surely not coincidentally) in a tavern on crumbling stilts, as it collapses into the sea.

The Battle: : Both these books start out very strong, with well-drawn characters, creative world-building, and interesting storylines. I don't much want to put either book down, but I'm forced to choose one to keep reading. . .

Through 50 pages, I am hugely impressed with Brian Staveley, who I believe has all the tools to become a major voice in fantasy. I am most interested to see where he takes The Emperor's Blades after a very solid opening.

Of course, Ian McDonald is already a major voice in science fiction and I've liked his Everness series so far; however, by the third book it's starting to seem that Ian McDonald feels compelled to toss in every bizarre type of alternate universe he can conceive of. The new world Everett has crashed on is so absurd (think Edwin Abbott's Flatland) as to severely strain my suspension of disbelief.

There is a good action scene in the second 25 pages of Empress of the Sun, but it's triggered by Everett M.'s unforgivably selfish decision to bring to (our) Earth nanotechnology that he has seen first-hand is incredibly deadly. His belief that he could keep it locked up in a peanut butter jar was so foolish that it's hard to cheer for him when he later does battle with the escaped nanotech, even if the future of the world is at stake. Everett M. is a conflicted character, but his willingness to endanger an entire world to save himself makes it hard to sympathize with him on any level.

In contrast, the second 25 pages of The Emperor's Blades place Valyn and his friend Ha Lin in a moral dilemma with no easy answer, as Valyn tries to save an innocent young woman from a slowly collapsing building:

When Valyn pulled the unconscious girl through the doorway, he found, to his horror, that the gap had grown to almost a dozen feet. . . .

Lin read the situation instantly, shook her head, then stepped right to the edge of the yawning crevasse.

"Throw her," she said, gesturing.

Valyn stared at the gap, aghast. Salia couldn't have been three quarters of his weight, but there was no way he could toss her the full distance. He glanced down. The jagged pilings bristled like spikes.

"I can't," he shouted back.

"You have to! Now, fucking throw her! I'll catch her wrists.

It was impossible. Lin knew it as well as he did. Which is why she wants me to do it, Valyn realized in a rush. Salia was dead weight. He could make the jump alone, but just barely. As long as he held on to the unconscious girl, he was trapped on the wrong side of the gap, pinned to a burning, teetering shell that would drag him to his death. He saw it all clear as day, but what could he do? Drop the unconscious girl and leave her to die? It was the right choice, the mission-responsible choice, but this wasn't a 'Kent-kissing mission. He couldn't just . . .

"I'll jump with her," he shouted, preparing to sling Salia across his back. "I think I can make it."

Lin's eyes widened with horror. Then they hardened.

Before Valyn understood what was happening, she had her belt knife out, was cocking her arm, then throwing. Valyn watched, stunned, as the bright blade flashed end over end in the sun, then buried itself in Salia's neck with a sudden gush of hot, bright blood.

That is a terrific passage, playing out in only half a page. Even if you think Lin made the wrong choice, it's easy to sympathize with her reasons.

I'm only 50 pages in, but everything I've read so far in The Emperor's Blades tells me I'm looking at an outstanding new storyteller at work.

THE WINNER: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

The Emperor's Blades advances to the semifinal round to face either What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton or Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the 2014 Books, Bracket One, First Round :: The Barrow by Mark Smylie vs. The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

We continue the first round of Bracket One of the Battle of the 2014 Books with The Barrow by Mark Smylie versus The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

The Barrow: Pyr trade paperback, March 2014, 587 pages, cover art by Gene Mollica. The Barrow is fantasy set in the universe of the author's Artesia graphic novels. As the book begins, Stjepan Black-Heart leads a small band of ruffians raiding an ancient and (they hope) abandoned temple buried in a remote hillside. Among his group is Erim, a highly libidinous young woman masquerading as a man. Most of the group is looking for gemstones and other treasure, but Stjepan seeks a map to the legendary Barrow of Azharad. At the close of 25 pages, it seems he will have to fight his way out of the temple to claim the map.

As mentioned, Mark Smylie is the creator of the military fantasy graphic novel series Artesia. He is also an illustrator and the founder of Archaia Studios Press, a graphic novels publisher. The Barrow is his first prose novel.

The Emperor's Blades: Tor hardcover, January 2014, 476 pages, cover art by Richard Anderson. The Emperor's Blades is also medieval fantasy, Book One in the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne. Through 25 pages, our viewpoint characters are Kaden and Valyn, the two sons of the emperor. Kaden is the emperor's heir, yet he is the one living a quiet life in a remote monastery. As the story opens, he finds a slaughtered goat missing its brain; when he returns to report, he is placed in the hands of a new and cruel master. Meanwhile, Valyn is in training with an elite fighting group who ride giant hawks into battle. They are investigating a ship whose entire crew was killed, when word comes that the emperor is dead.

Brian Staveley has taught and edited. As far as I can determine, The Emperor's Blades is his first published fiction.

The Battle: For once, we have an apples-to-apples comparison in the Battle of the Books. The Barrow and The Emperor's Blades are both epic medieval fantasies by first-time novelists. So what will set one of them apart to advance in the Battle of the Books?

Let's start with the prose. One expects a first-time novelist to have some ragged passages, and that's the case in The Barrow. Smylie's writing is often too wordy, beginning with a rambling first paragraph that could easily be condensed to half its length. In contrast, the writing in the opening pages of The Emperor's Blades is remarkably clean and confident, occasionally elegant. If I hadn't seen the author's name, I might have believed this the work of an accomplished fantasist like Daniel Abraham or Elizabeth Bear.

Next, the characters. In The Emperor's Blades, Kaden and Valyn both come across as very sympathetic in the opening pages, although I'll want to see some flaws emerge as we move forward. Meanwhile, in The Barrow, Mark Smylie seems to be building his main characters up as Joe Abercrombie-style lovable rogues. I like the concept, but I'm struggling a bit with the execution. In particular, the only distinguishing characteristic of Erim so far is that she is incredibly horny. The very first passage from her point of view has her getting wet thinking about three men she heard in a tavern boasting that they had all violated a prostitute at once. Certainly there's nothing wrong with a female character being interested in sex, but that doesn't strike me as something that would turn many women on. If it does turn Erim on, is that really the very first thing we need to know about her?

Through 25 pages, the worldbuilding in both books is just getting started, but already the universe of The Emperor's Blades is capturing my interest. Part of that is some nice scenery, like the great flying hawks. But it's also partly because Staveley does an excellent job of hinting about this universe between the lines. For example, the fact that the emperor's two sons live far away from the capital and are hard at work, not at all treated like royalty, says something interesting about this society, which makes me want to read more.

Finally, let's talk about the storylines. The first 25 pages of The Barrow are building up to an underground battle, while at the same time letting us know where the story will go next: a quest for the ominous-sounding Barrow of Azharad. That is a solid opening for Battle of the Books purposes. The opening passages of The Emperor's Blades show us the emperor's two sons in separate remote locations and introduce two bits of intrigue: who or what did in that goat and who killed the crew of that derelict ship? Then, unexpectedly, the very last line of the opening 25-page section is, "The Emperor is dead." The lives of our young main characters are about to be turned upside-down. This is such a pitch-perfect way to end the opening section, it's obvious Brian Staveley wrote his book with the Battle of the Books in mind.

THE WINNER: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

The Emperor's Blades moves into the second round, where it will take on Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald.

To see the whole bracket, click here.