Legion
by Brandon Sanderson

I love Brandon Sanderson’s work.
The Mistborn series remains one of my favorite fantasy series ever.  The man has a fantastic imagination, extraordinary attention to detail, and a great ability to get those things on paper in a truly entertaining way.  In all the books of his I’ve read, it’s his magic systems that stand out.  He goes to great lengths to explain how and why the magic in his universes work, to the point they are almost as much science as they are magic.  Everything is explained, and it all makes sense in the context of the world.

I know Sanderson as a writer of Epic Fantasy novels.  His books tell truly epic stories, some getting up into the 1000+ page territory.  Knowing that, I was surprised when I found out that his next release would be an 80 something page novella.  It seemed like such a huge departure from his earlier stuff, but I’m happy to say that the man doesn’t need 1000+ pages to tell a great story, as it turns out he doesn’t even need 100.

Legion tells the story of one Stephen Leeds, a man with the unique ability to have multiple personae.  These hallucinations, he refers to them as his aspects, are real in the sense that he can see them and have conversations with them, even though no one else can.  There are quite a few of them, and each has its own specialty.  It’s kind of a tough concept to grasp, but Sanderson does a great job of explaining it all in such a few number of pages.  It’s a very quick read, but it left me very much wanting more.  I would definitely call this project a success.