My grand tour of Brandon Sanderson novels continues with Elantris, which was his very first published novel. The quick and short of it: It's great. 
 It was, however, by far, the most difficult of his books for me to get into. It went on for far too long with nothing really happening. Sanderson became one of my favorite authors as soon as I started reading him because he might be the best out there at putting together a plot - EVERYTHING seems to be important in the end. Things that are mentioned and dismissed early in the story end up being vital to the climax. I continue to be amazed at his ability to do this and still surprise me. 
 All those things happen in this novel as well, but doing so required a lot of time setting up the pieces in just the right places so the avalanche can unfold just the way he planned. In the case of Elantris, all that time spend setting up the pieces took a bit longer than I would have preferred. 
 In the end, it was a great. I still marvel at his ability to make an intricate plot seem so natural. I give this four stars because I think it was still a bit... raw in places. 
 And by raw, I suppose I mean that I don't like the way some things played out. The king, Iodan (I may not have spelled that right) was swept out of the story as an afterthought, then he had a decree in absentia that was a complete 180 of all things previously he'd done. The central conflict that drove most of the novel's players was undone by that decree and I felt a bit like the first two thirds of the book was a red herring. 
 It wasn't an egregious sin, really, I don't meant to make it out to be bigger than it really was. It just felt too... I don't know, transparent maybe. Like I could see the man behind the curtain moving the pieces for a moment. 
 Yea, well, writing is hard, and this was an ambitious story, and it was done wonderfully. It's my least favorite of Brandon Sanderson's works I've read so far, but that doesn't mean it isn't awesome.