Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson

The premise of “Elantris” is simple. Occasionally people are taken by a mysterious condition called the Shaod that bestows immortality, the power to cast potent magic, and glowing silvery skin. Once taken by the Shaod, the new-made immortals move to Elantris, a city of light and beauty, to live forever and use their magic for the betterment of mankind.

Except ten years before the start of the book, something went very wrong. The magic stopped working, and the Elantrians’ immortality became a hideous curse. They still lived forever, but their bodies lost the ability to heal wounds. Any cut, scrape, or scratch remained, forever – and so did broken bones and other major injuries, the pain building up until the unfortunate victim went mad, forever trapped within the blazing pain. Elantris became a place of madness and horror, the Elantrians kept trapped within their cursed city by the terrified guards of the surrounding nations.

In the first chapter, Prince Raoden finds himself taken by the Shaod, and cast into Elantris. I have to say, the first chapter of “Elantris” is one of the most unsettlingly horrifying things I’ve ever read. Especially when Raoden finds the man with the crushed head who cannot heal and who will never, ever die. Not ever.

Way creepy.

Unfortunately, the middle of the book is weaker, since the narrative splits between Raoden and two other characters; Sarene, Raoden’s betrothed, and Hrathen, a high priest of a militaristic religion. Raoden’s chapters, as he attempts to unravel the mystery behind Elantris’s curse, are by far the most interesting. Sarene, I’m afraid to say, comes off as something of a Relationship Sue; she can’t find a husband in her homeland because she’s just too gosh-darned independent and strong-minded, and the men of her homeland are put off by strong women. (This is known as rationalization, akin to a man claiming he doesn’t have a girlfriend because he just Keeps It Too Real for the ladies to handle.) Hrathen, a determined priest in danger of losing his faith, is by far more interesting character, and a big part of the book centers around the conflict between Hrathen’s religion and the religion of Sarene.

Trouble is, the two religions are virtually indistinguishable from each other, and seem very sketchy and artificial. Of course, writing about religion is hard, and it’s difficult for a fictional religion to have the complexity of a real one. Like, say you want to write about Islam. Are we talking about Sunni, Shi’a, or Sufi Islam? If Shi’ite, are we talking about Twelver Shi’ism, Ismaili Shi’ism, Alevi Shi’ism, or Alawi Shi’ism? Or if we’re writing about Sunni Islam, do we mean the Hanafi School, the Shafi’i School, the Maliki School, or Hanbali School? Or suppose you want to talk about Christianity – do you mean Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox? If Protestant, do you mean Lutheran, Anglican, Anabaptist, or Baptist? Christianity is two thousand years old, and Islam fourteen hundred, but even a relatively young religion like Mormonism has spawned a host of competing sects and alternative visions.

So you can see that creating a fictional religion with the verisimilitude of a real one is very difficult, which is why I suspect so many fantasy writers avoid the subject, or write about it so badly. So “Elantris” gets props for attempting to tackle it at all.

Fortunately, the book gets much more interesting in the second half, with Raoden’s increasing efforts to find the mystery behind the curse (or, barring that, at least improve life for the miserable Elantrians), Hrathen’s efforts to convert the people before his religious leaders order them slaughtered, and Sarene’s efforts to keep her homeland from getting conquered by Hrathen’s militaristic faith. All the plotlines come together for a satisfactory conclusion, and the world-building and magic-system is exceptionally well done. And it’s also nice to have an epic fantasy that concludes satisifactoraly in a single volume.

In the end, “Elantris” is ambitious, but flawed. Nonetheless worth the read.

MILD SPOILER ALERT FOLLOWS:

Readers with a technical background will appreciate the resolution of Elantris’s mystery – it turns out that Elantris was not built for fault tolerance. A simple RAID 1 or RAID 5 implementation would have solved all their problems.

-JM