The whole planet of Taldain and its sand magic is a great addition to the Cosmere, and I hope Sanderson eventually makes it back to this story and revises and officially releases the White Sand novel into the world.
While I enjoyed the concept behind the graphic novel, I much preferred the first installment as I felt that this volume was just missing something. The story was anticlimactic at times, and I struggled to fully grasp some details of the narrative. There were scenes when I could tell something important was happening or some crucial information was just revealed, but I couldn’t quite tell what. I hate to say anything negative about any of Sanderson’s works, but I think the graphic novel format here hinders the story. I am really looking forward to reading the prose version of White Sand because I think I will enjoy it much more due to the extra layer of details.
Something that bothered me, that I did notice in the first volume but didn’t include in my review, was that the people who live on Dayside, under the perpetual sun, are light-skinned. And the people who live on Darkside, where it’s perpetual night, are dark-skinned. This is totally backward of how it would actually be, so it confused me at first.
One nice thing about this version, though, is that Sanderson’s humor has managed to transfer to the graphic novel format. I really appreciate this because his humor is something not to be missed in any of his works.
Another thing I liked was that when the characters speak in different languages, the speech bubbles change color slightly so you know when the language changes. This was really neat to me, and I’ve never seen this technique used before (I didn’t notice it in volume one, but that’s not to say it wasn’t there too).
Something I want to note is that the art in the last chapter drastically changed design from the rest of the story. It changed from a gruff style to a neatly polished style, and I have no idea why. At first, I thought it might be because the characters were in a dream sequence or an alternate reality, but then the chapter—and the book—ended and I realized it must be that the story got a new artist (I later confirmed this by looking at the title page that I had skimmed over earlier). I would be curious to find out why this happened and if the new artist will be drawing for the third book because I actually prefer the cleaner art style (even though I think the original style suits the story better).
I have no idea when the third and final White Sand volume is being released but I think I should read the novelization of the story first so I don’t spoil myself for the ending. I do hope the last volume will be a bit more interesting plot-wise than this one that was a bit slower-paced, but we shall see.
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