Not a five star read, but I really enjoyed this one. Sanderson has a way of taking the old cliche fantasy tropes and turning them on their heads in such a way so that they seem new, but still give you that good old fantasy buzz, i.e. instead of having his hero find out he is special at the beginning and then go on a quest to defeat the singularly evil bad guy, Sanderson's hero, like Orpheus, descends into hell. His hell, however, is a place that has become hell for essentially no reason, and while he's there, instead of being coincidentally handed a bunch of gifts and blessings just because he's "special," his journey is to actualize himself, and those around him . . . it's actually kind of great. The writing itself isn't that wonderful, but the world and the story and the characters really grabbed me, and I'll take impressive story and characters over impressive verbiage any day of the week. Hurrah, Mr. Sanderson! Looking forward to reading your other stuff now.