Warbreaker, with its world of color, breath, and necromancy definitely has the feel of any MMORPG. The mage, the princess, the gods---each character tends to fit into standard roles that could easily be at the title screen of any good fantasy game. Yet when I started reading Warbreaker the idea of a game-like story structure had not even occurred to me. With its own politics and talk of medieval war among neighboring kingdoms, the novel reminded me more of Game of Thrones or a watered-down Garth Nix's Sabriel. It read more along the lines of a Young Adult fantasy in my mind; the language was not particularly complicated, and the world was pretty easy to understand, albeit expansive.
It wasn't until Professor Steiling mentioned the game-like construction of the story that I connected the dots. In middle school, I was very interested in young adult fiction involving magic and fantasy elements, so it's possible I didn't notice the correlations because I'm so used to a similar structure. To start in a dungeon probably should've been a dead giveaway, since so many games (most memorably for me, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess) have similar stages towards the beginning of the storyline. However, despite its likeness to books I've enjoyed reading and games I like playing, I don't think I really liked what I read of Warbreaker.
In all honesty, part of me feels that this quantitative nature is a bit too overdone, and kind of cheapens the story. In my opinion, the author makes it seem far too easy to transfer Breath, although there are certain rules based on classifications of people. Also, for me, the book didn't live up to its intriguing focus on color and spoken word linked with magic because it just didn't feel engaging or immersive enough. The concept has all this potential to have all this beautiful imagery, but the author falls short, limiting his explanations to the straightforward and fairly mundane. Because of this I only made it into the first few chapters. For me, I think that Warbreaker will be one for the shelves.
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