The Rithmatist, Brandon Sanderson

YA "Gearpunk" Fantasy
The Rithmatist
Brandon Sanderson
Tor Teen, May 14, 2013
ISBN: 9780765320322

I read this yesterday.  This is where the "rambling" comes in.

First off, some basics.  This book is YA - there are certain expectations persuant to the genre as to the levels of violence and the specific character archtypes and relationships.  I'm not going to bash on a book for adhering to an overall genre formula.  That would be like smacking A Song of Ice and Fire for being gory and political.  Missing the point.

However, (and I do think the YA genre enhanced this feeling quite a bit for me) there was a certain... workmanlike quality about this book.  Nothing so bad as to be clunky or plodding or badly plotted, just... well, go read Alloy of Law or Legion or The Emperor's Soul and then compare them to this.  It's servicable.  Not quite soul-satisfying.

Secondly, I LOVED the technical drawings, and I am very happy they were included.  They made the technical magical system information in the book much more understandable to a very non-spatial person.  They also provided more information to the close observer (much like Sanderson regularly does with his chapter headings..)  Also - unicorns and bears and spiders!  (Why does it always have to be spiders?)

The magic system itself reminded me strongly of FullMetal Alchemist.  If you think about it one way, yes, I admit, on the face of it, perhaps a bit silly to think of magic through chalk, and to have a whole population afraid of tiny little squiggly bits (most of which usually can't impact humans or non-chalk objects anyway).  However, there are a lot of people who are unsettled by little creepy unnatural oddly-moving things regardless of what they're made of, and furthermore it seems like laypeople in the story world can't tell any difference between chalklings that can eat people and those who can't.  Lastly, imagine our cultural heritage including fighting bloodthirsty chalk creatures that ate people's skins and eyes instead of Indians that scalped us, and - oh, just by the way, normal people can't do ANYTHING to avoid or fight off being overtaken, crawled all over, and then eaten away while living.  Less silly now.  Only oddity that I saw was that they hadn't developed the acid-bath version of the water gun, given their affinity for springs and pumps.


The characters were servicable.  Joel seemed a bit immature and clueless, but no more so than many teen boys I know.  Melody started very histrionic, but nearly immediately settled down, so I'm reading her introduction as how she over-dramatizes her boring life.  Fitch (sp?) was lovely.  I was happy to have a "wise older mentor" with an actual limitation that was limiting and important.  I would have liked to see either Joel or Melody realize that Fitch had difficulties with confrontation, and have to decide whether they thought he was cowardly or not (rather than having it spelled out for us by Fitch).  The school president (York?) was another strong male authority figure, and I'll just comment that if you ever put "n," "z," and a section that rhymes with "mal" into a character's name, they're going to be evil.  They just are.  It's one of the foundational rules of fantasy that you can't break.  LOVED that character/story arc, with the Harry Potter echoes.

The plot was well done.  I anticipated that Melody and Joel would end up where they did regarding the Melee.  I did NOT correctly guess the identity of the Scribbler.  (I did call the related twist.)  I was happy with the proportions of completed plot for this stand-alone book compared to all the different leads heading off for sequels/related works.  I thought the totally unnecessary addition of the Korean/Chinese/Mongolian takeover of Europe was brilliant and vastly amusing.  I want to eat spaghetti with chopsticks and water-chestnuts now (not so sure on the soy sauce).    

I (of course, as always) have many questions about the magic system, and how to work it/abuse it/work around it.  In a related curiousity, I'm puzzled about the incorporation of "gears" and scientific principles (and scientist-saints!) into Christianity, and really would like to hear some background on how those traditionally opposing forces joined to become a whole.  I am intrigued by the Tower of Nebrask, and in who/what is hidden there besides the chalklings.  I find it interesting that the Native population was nearly annihilated, but enough culture survived to give the islands their names.  I'm interested to know why springs and not steam.