white sand v1 header Reviews 

“White Sand” Volume One

By | January 9th, 2018
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

It is somewhat difficult to pick a starting place for a review of “White Sand.” The book is tangled up in the growing mythology of its author, Brandon Sanderson, in both the literal and literary senses. Suffice to say that “White Sand” is part of an expanding cannon of some of the best fantasy being written today. It is also one of Sanderson’s earliest pieces of writing, and has undergone at least two major rewrites in its journey to graphic novel form. These factors, and the novel-to-comic adaptation produce a very different experience than you get reading the vast majority of Sanderson’s bibliography. But I don’t want to get bogged down in the impossibly deep rabbit hole that is that bibliography. Rather, I want to look at “White Sand Volume One” for what it is, a novel converted into a graphic novel.

Cover by Julius Gopez
Plotted by Brandon Sanderson
Scripted by Rik Hoskin
Illustrated by Julius Gopez
Colored by Ross A. Campbell
Lettered by Marshall Dillon

On the planet of Taldain, the legendary Sand Masters harness arcane powers to manipulate sand in spectacular ways. But when they are slaughtered in a sinister conspiracy, the weakest of their number, Kenton, believes himself to be the only survivor. With enemies closing in on all sides, Kenton forges an unlikely partnership with Khriss — a mysterious Darksider who hides secrets of her own.

From the very start “White Sand” has a lot of text. It might not be the first thing that catches your eye, due to the white-dominated color scheme, but pull back from the frames a little and the sheer volume of text starts to stand out. A sizeable chunk of it is in the form of Point-of-View character narration, and honestly, it’s probably not all necessary. There is definitely text here that doesn’t need to be; holdovers from Sanderson’s highly visual narrative style. The result is a certain amount of clunkiness that persists through the whole book.

Which is not to say that the prose isn’t great. The problem is more of a disconnect between the visual pacing and the volume of reading to be done. The low ratio of dialogue to frame also robs the text of some of the emotional responses that might have been possible. Entire conversations, that might have taken up full pages in other books, are confined to two or three frames in “White Sand.” So we only get one or two facial expressions to cover the responses of the characters.

Having said that, Julius Gopez’s style doesn’t exactly lend itself to emotive range. Which is about the only unkind thing that can be said about the art. Gopez does a truly tremendous job here, bringing a level of detail and consistency that is nothing short of stunning. From the embroidery on the outfits to the details of ubiquitous the rock formations, everything in every frame feels lushly detailed. At the same time, Gopez’s sketchy lines give everything a sense of motion and keep the overwhelming detail from freezing the action.

This artistic balancing act is all the more impressive given how bland some of the visual design choices are. The color palette is overwhelmingly tan and white for the vast majority of Volume One. Kenton the, the main protagonist, can usually only be distinguished from the rest of his fellow Sand Masters due to his slightly darker skin tone. And this brings us back to Gopez’s face work, which is limited at best. It suffers from some of the same problems as other sketchy styles, which tend to clutter faces with lines, making it harder to see major features. Kenton, who has fewer of these lines, is one of the more visually expressive characters in the book, but still seems limited to pensive, smug and enraged.

This is, ultimately, the biggest flaw of the book. In a story where Kenton’s entire family and reason for living is wiped away by the end of the second chapter, we never really see him respond to this unimaginable loss. What few moments he has to catch his breath seem to be preoccupied by planning his next move or resenting his father. Which isn’t to say that the story needs to be dominated by grief, but it would have make Kenton much more sympathetic. The other PoV characters, a straight-edged detective type pursuing a personal vendetta, and a foreign duchess turned scholar, aren’t much better. We get less time with either of them, rendering their characters little more explored than these half-sentence synopses.

There are some pacing issues here too, largely tied up in the fact that this is only Volume One out of three. If you were to map the progression of “White Sand” to the standard three act structure, I suspect you’d find that Volume One lines up pretty well with act one, right up until chapter six. Maybe it was due to a page count/cost issue, but chapter six is awkward, both in breaking up a fight into two chapters, and starting act two of the plot before book two. The whole kerfuffle makes the end of “White Sand Volume One” pretty underwhelming in terms of tension and momentum. Sure, this problem only exists until Volume Two comes out, but it is a substantial drag on the pacing of the story.

Sanderson is such a dense author it can take multiple read-throughs and careful examination to prize every last detail from the text. “White Sand” is very similar in this respect. There is a mountain of additional material to be covered here, from Sanderson’s signature magical systems, to the connections between this work and the rest of the ‘Cosmere.’ All of these facets serve to enhance a reading of the book. But as a stand-alone novel, “White Sand” currently leaves something to be desired. That something may well show up in Volume Two, but for the moment, the book is mostly just a very pretty trailer.


//TAGS | evergreen

Forrest Sayrs

Forrest is a former lighting designer, current competitive speech coach from Denver, Colorado.

EMAIL | ARTICLES


  • Young Avengers the Complete Collection 2019 featured Reviews
    “Young Avengers” (2005)

    By | Mar 30, 2021 | Reviews

    With various members of the Young Avengers making their way to Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, now seemed as good a time as any to read Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung’s 2005-06 series, where most of the team debuted. But, historical curiosity aside, were these twelve issues worth checking out now? My colleagues […]

    MORE »

    -->