Just Finished Reading The Whistler by John Grisham and Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

This week I finished reading two books that have recently been published, but which are very different from each other: The Whistler by John Grisham and Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson...

John Grisham's 2016 legal novel The Whistler is set in the Florida panhandle as an obscure, small Indian tribe gains federal recognition and builds its own very lucrative casino.  A state board of lawyers is investigating a local judge on tips from a whistle-blower: this judge may be collaborating with an organized crime network in the area that is also suspected of being the power behind the casino.  Lacy Stoltz and Hugo Hatch, the very likable protagonists here who work for the board, don't realize the extent of trouble and danger they're in for as they stumble onto something much bigger than they could have imagined.  Like most Grisham stories, this one gets a strong "thumbs up" from me...and I also appreciate that it wasn't too lengthy, something I can't say about the next book...

Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is currently in the middle of writing a long series, The Stormlight Archive, with very, very long books.  His 2017 Oathbringer, which I just finished reading, is a whopping 1248 pages in the hardback version...and Sanderson reportedly had to whittle down much of what he had written to get it that short.  This series is very intriguing with humans and a humanoid race called the Parshendi in a state of conflict with each other on the planet of Roshar.  Although the technology is typically at the relatively primitive level found in most fantasy series, there is something called "stormlight" which, caused by strange, massive storms that periodically sweep the land, infuse special light into gems that certain gifted people can draw from to achieve special powers.  There are nonmaterial entities called "spren" that bond with people in a similar way to the "demons" in Philip Pullman's His Dark Material series. The heroes and their adversaries have varying degrees of ability in using stormlight...which is tied in to the spren...and tend to specialize, much like the Marvel Comics superheroes.  I don't mind the length of the books, but it is pretty difficult to keep up with all the characters and special "rules" that govern stormlight, gems, and spren, not to mention the very detailed history that the author keeps bringing up.  My main goal is to try and remember the gist of what happened in Oathbringer so that when the next installment comes out, probably in 2020, I won't be completely lost...

I've also begun reading my first Tom Clancy novel, which is also his first: The Hunt for Red October.  Never saw the movie, nor any other Clancy film adaptation for that matter.  But I like his writing so far.  I'm also plodding through Joe Abercrombie's Last Argument of Kings, which should close out his First Law trilogy...unless he was lying about it being a trilogy.  And I'll probably be starting another John Grisham book soon...