I was drawn to this book to see how a character bound to do no harm would negotiate an empire/rebellion situation and there are a lot of clever uses of tools, alongside some fun cheating. There is some discussion of whether pacifism is desirable but there are stronger themes in the book than that.

If you like to feel smart, picture cool action in your head, and enjoy MCU style quipping, this is the book for you. It has more meat on its bones thematically than most Hollywood productions too, and infinity times the budget, so it's a cinematic blast. The level of performance kept me from really connecting to most of the characters but there are times when Nomad's plumbing of his moral depths comes close. This plumbing was done a little too verbosely for my tastes as I prefer to see the changes in action and be trusted to understand what I'm seeing. Sanderson's clarity is a gift in battle sequences but strikes me as a little heavy-handed on the emotional side of his work. I'm also personally not a fan of the divine plan/fate paradigm so a few ruffled feathers on that account for me. Still, all the Is are dotted and Ts crossed to form a very coherent narrative with thrilling set pieces.

Perhaps not the audiobook for this one, however, as there were some distracting choices in voices for the villain and one prominent old man.