Elantris

By: Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by: Jack Garrett

Length: 27 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Legendary science fiction author Orson Scott Card calls Brandon Sanderson a writer to watch.

Once the godlike rulers of the capital of Arelon, the inhabitans of Elantris have been imprisoned within themselves, unable to die after the city's magic failed years ago. But when a new prince falls victim to the curse, he refuses to accept his fate.

©2005, 2015 Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. (P)2008 Recorded Books,LLC

Critic reviews

"...readers won't want to put it down." ( Publishers Weekly)

"Outstanding." ( Publisher's Weekly)

Good story but confusing character names

It was a good story but the writer used too many exotic names which sounded very similar to each other. Maybe it was okay to a book reader, but it was extremely confusing to an Audible listener.

Speechless.

I... wow. I'm required to write 14 words here but I am breathtakingly awed.

Read it.

Decent book, very original storyline

Wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read but wasn’t the worst. I’d definitely recommend reading it as it has a very unique and original storyline.

While most of the book is not packed with action, it does slowly begin to intensify as you get towards the end of the book. The world development was pretty limited as there were only a few other countries described and the author didn’t spend much time developing the city and surrounding countryside....it was a bit...claustrophobic??

Good book though.

Brandon Sanderson's weakest book so far

The first thing is the narrator just didn't do it for me, his voice was in between William shatner and the California surfer in how he accentuated every word.

The story itself was okay, decent by typical novel standards, definitely below anything like mistborn... there's definitely some great build up on the magic and puzzles in the story.

if anything was maddening though it's that every character and object in the story is named rayo or kai something. The main character is raoden, one of the main antagonists is Raytheon, their special runes called rayos. The city is Kai ain, The uncle is I think name the same thing, so are his kids, so are like five other things and people.

I'm sure this is all tied in with the theme in some weird way, but listening to it in an audiobook I just gave up trying to figure out which character was which until they gave me some other context like he brought out a dish and I'm like oh it's the uncle.

The conclusion was good, the story overall was good though a lot of parts seemed forced compared to the new ones in Brandon Sanderson's later works.

Good, but slower than other Brandon Sanderson book

I would recommend this book, there were plenty of twists and turns in it, it kept me entertained, and as always I appreciate a good book that I'm not embarrassed to listen to if my kids are around. I like that Brandon made a book that wasn't just for teens, and still kept it clean. There were politics, sickness, magic, religion, love etc... It seamed to have it all. Not as action packed as some of his other books. Enjoy the book:)

Fabulous Story - REALLY BAD Narration

Would you listen to Elantris again? Why?

No. I would read it next time. The story was great, but the narrator was as cold as a dead fish.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Spirit. He was complex, intelligent, amazing under pressure. He persevered in the face of repeated and increasingly difficult situations.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jack Garrett?

Michael Kramer. Of course. Jack Garret has as much emotion and inflection as a bag of frozen fish. He sounded like he was reading the phone book. There was no emotion, no sense of building suspense, he did very little in the way of unique voices for each of the characters. One of the worst narrators I've ever listened to. I only stuck with the book because the story was so good. I will most assuredly avoid any book narrated by him in the future.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. I work in a data entry job and listen to books, literally 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. This was an amazing book, despite the abysmal narration.

Any additional comments?

Please do not let Jack Garret narrate another of Brandon, or any other fiction writers book again. I'm sure he would be wonderful for non-fiction work. He did have a good voice, and was very clear. But his complete lack of any inflection or pacing made a wonderful story fall almost flat.

Average to Good

This book has an interesting plotline but it is simply too long. It drags in the middle and loses momentum. Still worth reading if you are able to persevere through the middle stretch to the end.

Sanderson goes deep

I've read a lot of Sanderson's books, but this one stands alone. His books are always well written and he's a great story teller, but the other books lack the depth and multi-layered structure of Elantris. The meaning goes well beyond the story-- I should say meanings because there is often more than one.

I doubt that anyone will ever see this review out of so many others, but Elantris is so rich-- I just had to say something!

Awesome

Would you listen to Elantris again? Why?

Once is enough

What did you like best about this story?

Build up to the ending and the surprises and twists that come with Sanderson

What about Jack Garrett’s performance did you like?

Jack Garrett did the voices well.

If you like his other books/series, get this!

Elantris immediately feels a lot like Way of Kings and from what I hear, the Mistborn series as well. It seems like Sanderson is building up to something and while Way of Kings and that series seems to be it, Elantris is the genesis of the kind of characters, plot lines and magic he goes on to use in later works.

A great story in it's own right, Elantris is an origin story of sorts for Brandon Sanderson's style of world building and magic systems.

Oh, and the fact that he managed to write a single volume fantasy story is pretty amazing in it's own right!