Julius Otha

This is the 2nd volume in Sanderson’s White Sand graphic novel series. While this volume continues to have the same issues of the first one (dense text and lots of jumping around) I still enjoyed it.

The main story continues to revolve around Kenton trying to save the fate of the Sand Masters. Khriss, the Duchess, steps up to help him with his diplomacy.

I like the interesting world and the intriguing characters. The illustration for chapters 1-5 really matches the tone of the story and is show more well done. I found the illustration in chapter 6 to be really confusing; it's childish looking and the characters' skin tones changed all the time. The Duchess in particular went from having the same skin tone as Kenton early in the chapter and then having her original much darker skin tone later in the chapter. Consistency please!

Anyway, hopefully the illustration style for Volume 3 sticks with the original illustration style, otherwise I am probably going to stop reading this series.

Overall this continues to be a well done epic fantasy graphic novel series. I enjoy world and characters and hope the story gets a bit more exciting in the next volume. I also hope the illustration stay more consistent in volume 3. show less

I'm only going to compare this story to the bulk of Brandon Sanderson's other work because most of us already know he's both prolific and fun and he rarely ever writes a bad story.

The same is true for White Sand. I stayed up late into the night last night reading far past my normal bedtime, enjoying the hell out of Vol 2 and most of Vol 3.

In retrospect, the story may be slightly predictable, but it is fundamentally the same as Game of Thrones in the broad brushstrokes.

The fate of a *small* show more kingdom of Sand magicians is beset by a council that wants to shut them down permanently after a tragic occurrence. He must change how they are perceived and he must earn or otherwise force the votes of the council in two weeks in order to save his people.

In other words, it's a political fantasy with assassination attempts, great worldbuilding, good characters, and plenty of twists and turns.

It's definitely not a bad work of art by any stretch. I just wanted to keep on READING at all costs! :)

Bottom line? Worth it.

But what happened with the last issue in this volume? I was LOVING the sketch-art! Why couldn't it continue??? show less

With assassins chasing him, a pressing need to secure votes to preserve the Sand Mages, and darksider visitors unhappy he didn't reveal his true identity to begin with, Kenton has plenty to keep him occupied. Khrisalla, one of the Darkside envoys, decides to help Kenton secure his votes. He gains some measure of protection against the assassins in Ais, a former assassin. She doesn't necessarily like Kenton, but does justice to her job. Kenton’s job is only made more difficult when debts show more are brought up. More than that, though, the reluctance of the people to preserve the Sand Mages lies in the fact that the majority feel they are privileged, and above a capacity serving others. Kenton sets an example himself, going out to a collapsing building and using his magick to stabilise it enough that people can be rescued.

Ok. My bad. I jumped into this story not having read the previous book. I was a bit confused at first, but quickly got a grasp on what the situation was. The ending to this book was, of course, a cliffhanger. I'll have to wait to see what happens!

I love Brandon Sanderson's works, and White Sand was no exception. I love that his disparate stories are still set within the same universe, even moreso when they briefly touch. Sanderson has a gift for unusual magick systems. The metal magick of the Mistborn series, chalk magick with The 'Rithmatist, here with sand magick. I love seeing different magical systems, how they progress and grow. For this book, I like that Kenton is pushing them out of their haughty arrogance. Respect and trust must be earned.

While I enjoyed this book, and will check out the others, I feel that this wasn't quite up to Sanderson’s level. His books can be rich, and deep, and infinitely complex in ways hard to limit to pictures and dialogue bubbles. A picture is not always worth a thousand words, yeah? If you are new to Sanderson's works, these graphic novels are not the place to jump into the complexity of the Cosmere. I'd recommend starting with the Mistborn books.

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Diamond Book Distributors for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. show less

When my brother and I transferred a bunch of games from our father’s old monochrome computer (black and orange) to our Windows ‘98 PC, it was a bit of a shock to discover that some of those games, which I had grown up playing, were actually in colour. Simple and garish colours. That’s what the colours in White Sand: volume 2 sometimes reminded me of. I don’t dislike the pictures, per se, but they don’t particularly appeal to me.

(I wonder if they would look better in monochrome.)

The show more action scenes are effective but I am not convinced the the graphic novel format is the best way to depict all the politicking which goes on. (I wonder if a prose/graphic-novel hybrid would have worked better.) Or maybe a graphic novel is just the wrong format for me to enjoy to enjoy this particular story in?

… but I’m interested enough that I will read the next volume, I guess. show less