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Kaladin murmuring: “I couldn’t save them!”
Shallan sobbing: “I can’t! It’s too dark!”
Navani moping: “I’m not worthy. Not a scholar.”
Venli whining: “How could they forgive me?”
..Timbre Pulsed.

This book was a weepy, uneventful sob fest, as each character could only weep or sob or whine or cry about anything and everything in their past and present. I was so utterly disappointed with this one! 

I normally love these characters! I love this series! I love most of Sanderson’s writing. But this book was unlike anything of his that I have read before. It seems that Sanderson was trying to make a statement and raise awareness about mental health in this book. I do truly think this is a worthy cause, and I appreciate him giving homage to the community who struggles with mental health and their loved ones. 
However, when nearly every character (literally) in a book is dealing with mental health issues, it doesn’t exactly make for an enjoyable read.. 

My other problem was simply how incredibly slow this novel was. The first few hundred pages of the book were mildly entertaining (- although not much was happening in the full scope of the story, and the common characters story arch’s were just starting to falter back toward their old issues from the first book or two.) However, from about 500 pages in, to 1100 pages, nothing.. literally nothing, happened for 600 pages (except almost every character wrestling in their thought lives with depression and their past or present regrets). It was frankly a massive psychological pity party to rival all pity parties. If I was not so invested already in the series I would have dropped it. 

[Some readers may consider this paragraph to have some extremely mild – very minute spoilers] 
The last 100 pages of the book finally pick up (at last!!!), and are a somewhat enjoyable read, although they are interspersed with some psychological whimpers and finally some long overdue bursts through the big emotional walls that Sanderson erected all book long. However I disliked that Lopen, and especially Teft didn’t get more ‘air time’ in the book. We just didn’t see much of either of them throughout (not to mention Rock not having any, and even Dalinar not having much space in the book as a whole). Also – why O why was the character Venli given so much of the real-estate in the book? I think half of this entire book is about Venli (who is honestly a mopy, annoying character – the worst character in the book IMO). Then also, I hated the scenario near the end with Odium & Taravangian. It was just bizarre. I thought it happened way too quick and weirdly alters the storyline in huge ways. The plasticity of godhood in the book I also just find weird. 

Although I do ultimately like the series, I didn’t enjoy this book at all. So this one unfortunately I’m giving just 2 stars. 

Though I will read the final volume in the series, I really hope Sanderson goes back to his previous writing and story style for the next one. Maybe he was just doing too much to really focus on this book in the year it was released. I’m amazed at how much he is able to release each year – and maybe he just went too big too fast alongside this one. Hoping the next is better! (And that I never have to read about Venli moping… or Timbre Pulsing, again.)

This book was truly fascinating. Michael Heiser has created a biblical theology of the spiritual realm. This area is sadly a very neglected one in biblical studies and systematic theology. Heiser’s immensely popular work will hopefully go a great way to correct this issue. Heiser takes the reader from Genesis to Revelation and shows them the key passages and themes that highlight the spiritual realm throughout Scripture. 

Our era is quick to mock the biblical idea of angels and demons, but interestingly seems to be open to the ideas of alien life existing beyond earth. I couldn’t help but consider that, if given the full picture that Heiser presents here, a modern person would be able to consider the spiritual realm that the ancient world held with greater depth and nuance, and not as the simple trite system that many take the Christian position to be (anywhere from rosy cheeked baby winged angels in diapers, to the demonic tropes from your average horror flick). 

I found many of Heiser’s observations stunning, and his biblical interpretations fascinating (though I did take issue with a few as well). Examples abound, but here are a few:

• The observation that the Hebrew for ‘serpent’ (Genesis 3) can also mean ‘shining one’ was something I had never heard before. 
• The concept that the demonic beings in Scripture were thought to be the offspring of the Nephilim from Genesis 6 in the 2nd temple period, was entirely foreign to me. 
• The discussion of the Nephilim was extremely interesting, though I still am not sure what I think about it.
• I greatly appreciated his treatment of the divine council, and I will now see many portions of Scripture in better light (Job 1, Isa 6, Ezek 1, Daniel 10, Psalm 82)
• His treatment of the extra biblical literature concerning the Christ figures in the Old Testament and the ‘two powers’ was absolutely fascinating and I plan to study this in more depth.
• The connection of the 70 missionaries to the 70 nations of Genesis 11 was intriguing. 
• His NT discussions on the ‘gates of hell’ and on ‘Armageddon’ were incredibly fascinating. 

Having said all these, I’m not sure I agree with them all yet, however I did find much food for thought. But, there were other parts of the book that I disagreed with him strongly, and/or just found his interpretation strange. For example:

• His confidence that the ‘let us make them…’ in Genesis 1 refers to a host of heavenly beings and not the trinitarian God alone (or the magisterial ‘we’) I found problematic, suggesting we are made by, and in the image of, both God and angels rather than God alone, despite his comments otherwise.
• His denial that the serpent of Genesis 3 is the same as Satan in the Scriptures despite Romans 16:20 and his having some conversation about it. 
• His reticence to take Genesis 3:15 as the first look at the gospel (protoevangelion) because Romans 16:20 mentions God and not Jesus in particular as the snake crusher (despite his trinitarian emphasis throughout the book). 
• His denial that Psalm 22 has any kind of Christological reference despite his acceptance of several less reliable references in the OT as Christological. 
• His take on 1 Cor. 5 was absolutely strange and wrong to me. 
• His dismissal of some aspects of Calvinism I found to be a bit dismissive and fairly one dimensional. 

Also, throughout the book I had a sense that some of it just didn’t smell right at at times. After some further reading and thought, I think the main issue I had with the book is that Heiser treats the unseen realm as if it’s the most important topic in all of the Scriptures! It isn’t though – not by a long shot. Paul tells us that the most important thing in the Scriptures is the gospel (1 Cor. 15:3): the fact that God loves us and became one of us in order to bear our sin for us, so that we could share eternity with him. Heiser seems to see the ruling and reigning as a divine counsel member to be the greatest goal, but instead, our greatest desire should be to be united to Christ to enjoy him forever. 

Another aspect that I found strange was the omission of almost any talk of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross or much of any mention of sin and why we need Jesus. Given that this is really the center of what Christianity is, it seemed an absolutely massive omission to not have any coverage of these central Christian themes of sin and atonement. I understand that this wasn’t what his book was primarily about, but given the breadth of the coverage of the book, and that it was arranged as a biblical theology of sorts (from Genesis to Revelation), this seemed a huge oversight.

The last issue I had with the book was that his reliance on the extra biblical literature seemed like it approached the level of competing with the Scriptures themselves. While he didn’t say as much, it seemed that the extra biblical literature loomed over above and overshadowed the actual Scripture he discussed. I felt that this could also lead to the problem of Christians thinking they cannot understand the Bible unless they become Hebrew scholars and read all the primary source material.

Having said some of these negatives, I really do think that this book is something that all mature Christians who are well grounded in doctrine should read – at least until these ideas are distilled into a good theology that doesn’t have the negatives. 

The book gave me much to think on and I will be considering these things for some time to come.

While The Gospel Coalition’s review was overwhelmingly positive, and desiring God’s review seemed mostly negative (with a little positive), Andrew Moody’s review here from the Australian branch of TGC seemed to be the most well rounded of the other reviews I read.

Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens was certainly an interesting read, however Harari takes up the mantle of philosopher rather than historian too often throughout the book. He tends to have a cynical eye toward anything surrounding religion, and makes many sweeping statements about it that are just incorrect, and several that are flippantly asserted with no evidence. He also attempts to solve many modern problems using a nihilistic take on evolution as his archetype for morality. 

For example, he argues that there is no such thing as human rights, because if evolution (in a nihilistic framework) is our guide, then logically there is no such thing. He also says that humans are not created equal in value, but rather that people differ in value depending on their evolutionary fitness. He also argues that there should be no ethics concerned in sexual conduct, but that the only morality we should follow is that whatever we can do we should see as what is morally good and what we cannot do evolutionarily is what is morally evil. This kind of ethical philosophy is scary.
The massive problem with this philosophy of course, is that if you apply it to say, murder, rape, genocide, or a plethora of other issues, the results are absolutely horrifying. 

All in all this was a very interesting read. However I’m surprised and concerned at its overwhelmingly positive reception given it’s eerily nihilistic take on everything. A very stark take on our history, and a stark look at the future.

I thought Commentary Magazine’s Mark Leib’s, and Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin’s Reviews were both very good.