Elantris

By: Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by: Jack Garrett

Length: 28 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Elantris was built on magic, and it thrived. But then the magic began to fade, and Elantris began to rot. Now its shattered citizens face domination by a powerful Imperium. Can a young Princess unite the people of Elantris and lead a rebellion against the imperial zealots?

Brandon Sanderson's debut fantasy showed his skill as a storyteller and an imaginer of baroque magical systems to be fully developed from the start.

©2005 Brandon Sanderson (P)2008 Recorded Books LLC

So good.. I should have started here

I have been reading Brandon Sanderson novels for ages but only finally got around to this one.
It did not disappoint.

Excellent

Loved it, even though the first couple of chapters started a bit slow and got me worried. But everything picked up quickly and I ended up loving the book by the end. Great performance too and overall a highly recommended listen

Slow, but engaging story

As Sanderson's first publicly released book, Elantris is a good effort. Although the actual style is a little immature, he shows the promise of a great storyteller that is eventually delivered in subsequent novels (and his completion of Jordan's epic series).

If you haven't yet listened to a Sanderson book, this is a good start, but don't be put off by the style and dismiss his other works. They really are a cut above this one and it's nice to see the author's development in writing.

This book displays a lot of classical themes. The outcast hero suffering the trials of an unwanted person, a corruptly led society on the brink of disaster ripe for the picking, deception, betrayal, revenge, questions of faith and responsibility and of course the beautiful, intelligent princess that is a central character to the whole story.

Sanderson's Elantris starts off slow and builds like a tsunami to an inevitable climax with some nice twists along the way. Some of them are predictable and others enlightening, but on the whole he completes the book as he does with his other works by making sure all the loose ends are tied up.

Overall a good work, with a good narration.

Loved It All!

I love Brandon Sanderson's books, they are always amazingly well written and so much fun to completely get lost in! He is really good at creating complete worlds that suck you in with characters that get a hold of you and never let go!

Despite my live for Sanderson's writing, I was hesitant to buy the audiobook for this one because of some reviews stating the narration was annoying and slow. However, I am so glad I bought it anyways! I completely disagree with those reviews, I love the pace the narrator has, he speaks clearly and he does all the voices well without being too obvious or annoying about it and overall it was a real pleasure to listen to!

Definitely 100% recommend this audiobook!

wonderful

Brandon's opening fantasy is just as great as the later ones, but in different ways. Buy it! You will not regret it.

Slow to start

Not one of Sanderson's best books, too slow and too fast at the same time.

Sceptical view

I personally am very upset with the way the book is so based on “ religion” ,of what the book making is. And I am half for the fact that a “fantasy” book has a form of religion, but in the back ground if I can say that, and leave it that and build a good story not based on priests and this belief and then that. The whole book is based on this. And what makes me hate this book even more is the reference to Christian terms and holidays and Holy days. It’s an absolute disgrace and almost evil. One could have a “belief”’of the characters and leave at that. But an absolute disgrace. I also read Mistborn and felt the same. With reference to Lord Ruler who is ruling over the land is an absolute mockery of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was an interesting book in terms of the “fantasy” aspect. But what an exceedingly long drawn out book with minimal action. It just took in forever. I wonder where all the ratings actually come from.

It's okay

This is Brandon Sanderson's weakest book that I have listed too. There is a lot of politics and not much happens in the first half of the story.

Great story. Narration could be better

It’s a Sanderson book so you know the story is going to be good. The narration was good but not exceptional I would say.

The narrator did a good job with the tone and expressing the emotions but with the number of characters involved, a lot of voices felt similar. Galladon’s voice was well done.

I loved the experience overall. Just being a little nitpicky

Extremely dissapointing

Even in the introduction a guy speaks about how imaginative and unexpected is the writing of Sanderson... this is the most cliche-full book I've ever encountered; two of the 3 characters are constantly perceived as perfect no matter what they say or do. the "secrets" are either obvious or completely unseesed.
The protagonists are completely unaffected by the deaths of people known to them if they are not relevant to the plot. For the love of God, the Prince even forgets he has a mother