Uptown Oracle Reads… Dark One Volume 1

Dark One Vol 1 by Brandon Sanderson

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Visions of a dark and fantastic world haunt Paul Tanasin, but when he discovers they are prophecies from Mirandus–a world in which he’s destined to become a fearsome destroyer–He’ll have to embrace the fear, rise up as The Dark One, and shatter everything.

Our main character Paul is introduced to us as going to therapy to help him to not hurt others. He see’s a ghost that is a bit like an imaginary friend who talks to him, as well as a strange alien evil world. I enjoyed how his development throughout the book shows that these aren’t hallucinations but a genuine different world which he gets sucked into. This kind of changes him as a person, with a focus on him leaning into the prophecy.

Out of the other characters I enjoyed the personalities which were on show for Nikka and Feotora – both strong women who help Paul. On top of them, Mr Caligo is drawn truly creepily and the artwork works to show off the feeling within the frame. On Earth when we’re following Mr Caligo and Paul’s mother where Mr Caligo is on trial for multiple murders, it feels like a very different story but I loved the final connection to Paul.

Throughout the story the world switches from Earth and Mirandus. Mirandus is a fantasy realm with giant lizards, fantasy castles and other aspects found in the fantasy genre. This is definitely Sanderson’s comfort zone, but I liked the originiality of this place.. Mirandus awaits the Destined One who can edit the words written by the narrative, and the Dark One can unwrite them.

The overarching plot is that the Dark One rises in cycles, in a prophetic way where the Destined One must also rise to defeat him. The story follows the literal “narrative” which is like a religion in Mirandus, and there’s an almost 4 wall breaking feeling that the characters kind of know they’re in a book but not quite.

The Idea of the Dark One is not unique in fantasy, but I liked the spin Sanderson put on this Dark One. He’s not quite the fully evil person you expect, and there’s a sense of two sides of the story being vastly different. I also liked the internal conflict as the narrative forces people to be something that maybe, just maybe, they’re not.

Overall I found some parts to be a bit wordy, and it made me question whether this was an adaptation of a bigger novel from Sanderson. There’s a lot of characters included who are there to tell us as a reader things through dialogue with Paul. Different characters explain the world to Paul, even Fetora is told a lot by other characters. This made the book feel longer and slower to read although it’s not too different to an average graphic novel length.

Positives of Dark One

• Good overal story and concept
• Interesting characters

Negatives of Dark One

• Wordy and slow to read

I received Dark One Volume 1 by Brandon Sanderson from the publisher. This is an unbiased and honest review

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